[tor-talk] Blocking event in Kazakhstan, October 2014?

[David Fifield]

Did something happen in Kazakhstan in the first week of October 2014?
There big decrease in relay users (about 40%) accompanied by a
simultaneous big increase in bridge users (about 800%).

Take a look at the graphs (also attached):
https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?graph=userstats-relay-country&start=2014-08-01&end=2014-12-31&country=kz&events=off
https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-country.html?graph=userstats-bridge-country&start=2014-08-01&end=2014-12-31&country=kz

I wrote a program to look for blocking events by looking for unlikely
increases/decreases in relays and bridges simultaneously. This
Kazakhstan event was one of the highest-scored finds by the program. I'm
not aware of a Tor blocking event in Kazakhstan at that time, but it's
the same pattern (decrease in relays and increase in bridges) that we've
seen in Iran in late July 2014:
https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-relay-country.html?graph=userstats-relay-country&start=2014-06-01&end=2014-10-31&country=ir&events=off
https://metrics.torproject.org/userstats-bridge-country.html?graph=userstats-bridge-country&start=2014-06-01&end=2014-10-31&country=ir
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/12727

David Fifield