[tor-reports] Fa-Team September Report

[Ardeshir K]

Hi,

#1 These last weeks were quiet crazy. As you may already have heard,
Iran has officially blocked Google and Gmail. it took them almost 3days
to unblock Google and more than a week (which was last night) to unblock
Gmail. tho Gmail is still blocked in some ISPs.

Officials says this was a react to the weird movie on YouTube but if you
believe it, I do. I assume they're testing stuff to see how they can
block services with massive users. it's always like that, they block
something for few days to test it, then they block it forever.


Last night they were also throttling SSL again. even after unblocking Gmail.

Torobfsproxy was the only working tool out there. I'm wondering if the
gov has already blocked all the hardcoded bridges or not.


2# as it seems like Iranian ppl would do anything to get themselves to
their Facebook accounts, I've discussed with some Iranian online
community to promote Tor in their pages and link back to fa-blog.

I've added a page to the blog which covers the Short User Manual.

I was also wondering if we can add fa-blog to TBB bookmarks?


3# I've took/resolved/updated 38 tickets this month (including 10 spam)
in helpdesk fa.

most ppl had problems connecting to Tor network. I've sent them the
short user manual + offered to try obfsproxy.

few users were asking technical questions about Tor, which makes me
happy to see more technical people inside Iran are getting involved. one
of them asked on how he can help, I offered him to take a look on trac
and if he would like to help translating materials in Farsi.

not so many ppl know about obfsproxy yet. I'm planning to write more
articles about that on blog. I also think we should add it to FAQ part
of short user manual. Iranian gov may mess with SSL more often.


All the bests,
Ardy