Tor: What we've learned from fighting censorship in Iran and Russia
7 days ago
- #internet-freedom
- #censorship
- #Tor
- Tor's anti-censorship tools were crucial in 2025, especially in Iran and Russia.
- Iran experienced internet blackouts, prompting Tor to enhance tools like Snowflake and develop Conjure to evade censorship.
- Snowflake was upgraded for better compatibility and efficiency, including NAT checking and a staging server for testing.
- Conjure was introduced to prevent bulk blocking of bridges by using unused ISP address space.
- In Russia, WebTunnel became essential for bypassing censorship, blending into regular web traffic.
- Tor improved WebTunnel with SNI imitation and safe non-WebPKI certificate support.
- Bridge distribution strategies evolved, including using Telegram to distribute WebTunnel bridges in Russia and Iran.
- Tor's rdsys system was enhanced with a staging server to test new features before deployment.
- Users can help by running Snowflake proxies or WebTunnel bridges to support Tor's anti-censorship efforts.