Can governments block tor?

eric.jung at yahoo.com eric.jung at yahoo.com
Sun Aug 13 00:00:17 UTC 2006


Secret rendezvous addresses for tor dir servers aren't necessary. In China, for example, all network traffic goes through government-owned firewalls and routers, just like the traffic at your workplace goes through company-owned routers and firewalls. The traffic can be sniffed and logged without blocking it. That way they know who's using tor. It's probably valuable to know who's trying to be a dissedent and what it is they think they're discussing privately.

As for a protocol to keep that hidden, SSL comes to mind. Personally, though, I don't believe you can ever be truly anonymous or secret, so I act accordingly.

----- Original Message ----
From: Arrakistor <arrakistor at gmail.com>
To: "eric.jung at yahoo.com" <or-talk at freehaven.net>
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 7:00:26 PM
Subject: Re[2]: Can governments block tor?

Is  there a protocol to keep that hidden? I have a hard time imagining
secret  rendezvous addresses for dir servers for tor, without actually
using tor.

Regards,
 Arrakistor

Saturday, August 12, 2006, 4:46:33 PM, you wrote:

> Isn't it more likely that rather than blocking it, they monitor
> who uses it (i.e., who connects to entry points?)


> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Nick Mathewson <nickm at freehaven.net>
> To: or-talk at freehaven.net
> Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2006 5:20:31 PM
> Subject: Re: Can governments block tor?

> On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 03:15:39PM -0500, Arrakistor wrote:
>> 
>> I  am  sure  this  has  been  answered  before,  but my email logs are
>> destroyed.
>> 
>> Can  a  government  find  out  what  IP  addresses that tor originally
>> connects to in order to get directory information?

> Currently, yes, if the government employs anybody who knows how to
> download Tor and read C.   I would imagine that most governments do.

> We're working on this.

> rtfm'ly yrs,





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