Since Russia invaded Ukraine, it has been cracking down on Internet freedoms within its own country. Disconnecting from the global Internet has played a considerable part in that, with the government successfully blocking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and around 5,500 more. Other measures include cracking down on VPNs, introducing legislation to stop critical infrastructure from using foreign software, and planning to create a Russian app store to combat Russian data being utilized internationally.
Most recently, the Russian government set its sights on blocking access to Tor, the anonymous communications browser many Russians have been using to circumvent Russian censorship since the crackdowns began. So far, the government’s fight has been unsuccessful. But there’s still a long road ahead.
The threat of Tor
Short for The Onion Network, Tor is not just a browser but also a decentralized server network that uses multi-layered encryption to stop anyone from tracking your online activities. While many associate Tor with illicit dark web activities, its use cases are far more comprehensive. Many mainstream sites have onion versions, such as BBC, The New York Times, and Facebook. We also wrote a few months back about the launch of a Twitter onion site.
Authoritarian governments are, understandably, quite threatened by Tor. Mass surveillance, blocking access to certain types of content (such as alternative news sources that aren’t in line with government information), and monitoring behavior are central facets of maintaining control in such regimes. Tor gets in the way of that. That’s why it’s no surprise that Russia has been attempting to crack down on the service in recent months.
How Russia tried (and failed) to block Tor
According to Wired, Russia has tried to block Tor on two fronts: politically and technically. On the political side of things, in December 2021, Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media regulator, enacted a law to allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to restrict access to Tor services and its website. However, this didn’t result in Tor immediately being blocked across the board because Russia’s Internet isn’t centralized. This means it’s up to individual ISPs to decide whether to implement the block or not. As a result, Tor is blocked in some places and not others. In a positive development, Roskomnadzor’s decision to restrict access to Tor was overturned in a recent court case where Tor was represented by Russian digital rights group Roskomsvoboda. While it was only overturned on legal procedural grounds, the group hopes to completely cancel the block long-term.
On the technical side of things, Russia has been using equipment with deep packet inspection to monitor and block various online services, including Tor. However, Russian citizens have been bypassing such blocks through two channels. These channels are volunteer-run bridges and Tor’s Snowflake. Both are types of entry points to Tor that can’t be blocked as the details aren’t public.
However, Russia has been attempting to crack down on bridges in various ways, such as fingerprinting. Gustavo Gus, Tor’s community team lead, also believes that Russian officials are manually downloading Tor and fetching bridges so that they can eventually block access to them. Tor engineers have been working to combat these attempts with Tor 11.5’s feature that helps users automatically get around government censorship based on their location. Using the messaging app Telegram has also been an effective way to avoid blocks.
The takeaway
Despite Russia’s best attempts, Tor is still accessible in the country for now. In a world where authoritarian regimes are unfortunately rife, Tor is an excellent resource for citizens and activists wanting to access certain information or organize protests without being blocked or monitored.
Cora is a digital copywriter for SSLs.com. Having eight years of experience in online content creation, she is a versatile writer with an interest in a wide variety of topics, ranging from technology to marketing.