37C3 - Tor censorship attempts in Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan

media.ccc.de/v/37c3-12040-tor...
In December 2021, months before the world watched Russia invade Ukraine, Russia rolled out comprehensive censorship of the Tor network and related Tor protocols. Then in October 2022, the latest wave of protests in Iran saw a huge spike in Tor usage followed by a swift crackdown of the most successful techniques. Meanwhile in 2023, Turkmenistan has blocked popular CDNs like Cloudflare and Akamai, most hosting providers like Hetzner and OVH, and much more.
On the depressing side, the global censorship trend continues to gain momentum, with some European countries alarmingly eager to get in on it. But resignation is boring: here we are, a tiny community of activists and relay/bridge operators around the world continuing to provide safe and private internet reachability for hundreds of thousands of people who are trying to be human beings under authoritarian regimes.
We will walk through \*how\* each of these countries deployed their Tor blocks, and what changes we made to let citizens continue to reach the Tor network. Looking at each case study through a Tor lens will let us compare/contrast the censorship attempts from each country, discuss future ideas for how to make sure the bytes can keep flowing, and talk through the political impacts.
Roger Dingledine
events.ccc.de/congress/2023/h...
#37c3 #EthicsPoliticsSociety

[@mooseriderwpg9586]

great presentation, great skill to rephrase questions asked before replying to them

[@nycrsny3406]

Ikr!

[@carlosdumbratzen6332]

I have to, because nobody else did: he looks like the most hacker kind of guy ever

[@JuliaYamYam]

Great talk as always, thanks for update!

[@douro20]

Turkmenistan may be the worst dictatorship to ever come out of the former Soviet Union. And to think it was even worse under Niyazov...

[@boink800]

I always enjoy Roger's talks, he's such a good speaker. And I got Snowflake installed.

[@Jertzukka]

If you've seen this talk from DEFCON 30, you can skip straight to Q&A, it's pretty much the same.

[@user-zp3se1of6m]

nice, important talk. Thanks.

[@frankhaugen]

I keep forgetting that I live in a country where I'm free and it's only corporate interests I need to fear 😂

[@questionhis-story]

Freedom is an illusion

[@ngrader]

@@questionhis-story I am real, you are the illusion. - some other french guy.

[@MacGuffin1]

More links for volunteers pls

[@frogz]

i would block microsoft too, js

[@spectator5144]

Orbot is horrible on iOS

[@Artanthos]

Due to the cadence of the speaker's talk, I found setting the playback speed of this video to 1.5 to be a good sweet spot.

[@takedownccp]

how about cn?

[@ngrader]

Walls are built to keep people in.