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Tor network connections from Iran plummeted amidst a new government censorship program

Last week, the Iranian government apparently started a new censorship program that blocks encrypted Internet traffic. Even Iranians who had taken steps to evade government firewalls were being stymied—and the immediate impact can be seen in usage of the Tor network.

Tor anonymizes Internet activity with client software that routs traffic through the Tor network, a worldwide network of relays and bridges set up by volunteers. Iran is second only to the US in Tor usage, with roughly 50,000 Iranians anonymizing their Internet traffic each day by routing it through the Tor network. Yet between Feb. 8 and Feb. 9, connections dropped from about 50,000 to fewer than 20,000, and plummeted to nearly zero by Friday, Feb. 10.

The dramatic change proved the prediction of Tor project member Jacob Appelbaum distressingly accurate. Last week, as reports of the Iranian crackdown began circulating, he warned, "It's likely that more than ~50,000 - ~60,000 Tor users may drop offline." But Appelbaum and his fellow Tor project members had a plan: a new obfuscated bridge (obfsproxy) that makes encrypted traffic appear to be regular traffic. Obfsproxy was an "ace up our sleeve," as Appelbaum described it, and Tor put it into action over the past few days despite its user interface being a bit rough.

Obfsproxy is already helping some Iranians get back online. The number of Tor connections was back up to roughly 15,000 on Saturday, although it's likely obfsproxy is playing only a small role. Tor's statistics show the use of bridges to connect to the Tor network from Iran have inched up only slightly since last week's dropoff. Statistics for Sunday and Monday haven't come in yet.

"It's not clear if Iran has lessened censorship of SSL traffic or if we're having that much of an impact," Tor Executive Director Andrew Lewman told Ars. Regardless of the cause, the dramatic upswing and downswing of Tor connections from Iran provides "a fine graph of what government censorship can do to a country," he said. "We've been working mostly flat out for the past few days to help the people of Iran and it's nice to see that we are having an impact."

On Friday, Appelbaum put out the call to the Tor community to start running obfsproxy bridges. He warned that the software is not easy to set up, that it might be effective for only a few days "at the rate the arms race is progressing," and that people who set up bridges need to either contact the Tor Project or share the bridge addresses directly with users who need them.

Obfsproxy is "still very alpha-quality software," Lewman said. "We're seeing a few thousand connections through obfsproxy relays already. We have roughly 300 obfsproxy relays around the world already, some of them already pushing many megabits per second of traffic. It's definitely picking up as the world awoke over the past 24 hours, to the point where our Web servers alone were handling 500 mbps of download traffic. Our BitTorrent seeds of the software are doing well, too."

Appelbaum promised that an easy-to-use client is in the works, but for now, people setting up bridges or obfsproxy client connections must follow these somewhat complicated instructions.

Tor isn't the only method for staying online in places like Iran. One product called Hotspot Shield uses a VPN to secure Web traffic and bypass firewalls. A Hotspot Shield spokesperson tells Ars "we've observed that the Iran blockades have had no effect on our users."

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Tor's latest project helps Iran get back online despite new Internet censorship regime

AP

A man shouts his objections during a protest against the Protection of State Information Bill outside Parliament in Cape Town.

Had it not been for the media and whistle-blowers, many instances of corruption would not have been exposed, the National Press Club (NPC) said on Tuesday.

The Protection of State Information Bill in its present form would lead to wide classification of information, NPC chairman Yusuf Abramjee told a public hearing on the draft legislation in Mamelodi, outside Pretoria.

“The bill in its current form is clearly open to abuse. It provides for wide-ranging powers, relating to the classification (of information),” said Abramjee.

“Officials, including junior civil servants and members of security services, are authorised to classify documents with the head of departments.”

Abramjee said this was in conflict with another clause in the bill which stipulated that classification had to be done on a senior level. Whistle-blowers were going to be scared “to lift the lid on corruption”, fearing long jail terms.

He appealed to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) to consider including a public interest clause in line with the dictates of the Constitution.

“We cannot sit back and allow unconstitutional laws to be passed. Editors and journalists are prepared to go to jail defending our freedom,” said Abramjee.

Another contributor, Amos Mkhontho, said that as a member of the ANC's MK Veterans he believed the bill, if passed, would take South Africa backwards.

“Do you still remember those days we used to read newspapers hiding under carpets? We do not want those days to come again. Look at countries like Zimbabwe who have such laws. Their people have fled to our country.”

Most of those participating in the hearing took the opportunity to voice problems with service delivery around Mamelodi.

“Our identity documents show that we have voted continually. Our lives are not evident of people enjoying democracy,” said one woman to the applause of the floor.

Residents gradually filled and eventually packed the church hall where the hearings took place.

Two public hearings on the so-called secrecy bill are scheduled in Gauteng. The second takes place in Sharpeville, near Vereeniging. – Sapa

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No censorship: press club

14 February 2012 Last updated at 05:33 ET

India will not censor social media websites, Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal has said.

But he added that internet firms must obey the country's laws.

Late last year, Mr Sibal said the government would introduce guidelines to ensure "blasphemous material" did not appear on the internet.

Internet firms say it is impossible to pre-filter material, but Facebook and Google recently said they had removed content after receiving complaints.

The firms are among a number of major internet players facing court cases and judges have threatened to block sites that fail to crack down on offensive content.

"I want to say once and for all, without any obfuscation, no government in India will ever censor social media," news agency AFP quoted Mr Sibal as saying at an information technology summit in Mumbai.

"I never wanted to censor social media and no government wants to do so. But like the print and electronic media, they have to obey the laws of the country," Mr Sibal said.

Crackdown threat

A court in the capital, Delhi, last month threatened a crackdown against sites which failed to take steps to protect religious sensibilities.

The Delhi High Court asked Facebook and Google India to "develop a mechanism to keep a check and remove offensive and objectionable material from their web pages" or "like China, we will block all such websites".

Facebook and Google say they have complied with the court directive and removed "objectionable" material.

They are among 21 web firms, including Yahoo and Orkut, facing a civil suit in Delhi accusing them of hosting material that may cause communal unrest.

A criminal case of similar allegations is due to be heard next month.

Internet firms argue that it is not feasible to pre-monitor material posted by "billions of people across the globe".

Google says that the issue also relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression.

Facebook says policies are in place that enable people to report abusive content.

In December, Mr Sibal said his aim was to ensure that "insulting material never gets uploaded. We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue".

He said the companies would have to give the data where these images were being uploaded and who was doing it.

Mr Sibal was angered by morphed photos of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi, as well as images of pigs in Islam's holy city of Mecca.

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'No censorship of social media'

Vanessa Gera WARSAW, Poland— The Associated Press Published Saturday, Feb. 11, 2012 12:37PM EST Last updated Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 8:26AM EST

Protesters took to the freezing cold streets of several European cities Saturday to voice anger at an international copyright treaty they fear will lead to a blocking of content on the Internet.

Poland, France, and Italy are among European nations that recently signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, but ratification remains in question in many countries as contempt builds against it, mostly from young people.

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ACTA has been under negotiation for years and it still in the process of being signed. The United States, Japan, South Korea and others say it is needed to harmonize international standards to protect the rights of those who produce music, movies, pharmaceuticals, fashion, and a range of other products that often fall victim to piracy and intellectual property theft.

Strong opposition to the treaty suddenly emerged in Poland last month and is now spreading across Europe, where protests are taking place in many cities. Critics say they fear it will lead to online censorship and overly harsh punishments for those who use copyrighted material.

Some of the first to gather Saturday were in the bitter cold of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. In Germany, a few thousand people protested in downtown Berlin, some with sticking tape over their mouths or wearing Guy Fawkes masks. They carried placards such as “Stop ACTA,” ”Right to Remix“ and ”ACTA: the rule of law was yesterday.“

A protest organizer, Tillmann Mueller-Kuckelberg, said the movement against the agreement was “a broad civil rights alliance that has come together out of spontaneous outrage at this project.”

“We have the protests in Poland to thank above all for what is happening in Europe and worldwide at the moment,” he said.

“A lot of people in other European countries woke up then, and we hope worldwide that the protests will lead to the ACTA agreement being stopped.”

Germany's Foreign Ministry said Friday that the country had held off on signing ACTA after the Justice Ministry voiced concerns. An official signature is needed before the deal can go to Parliament for approval.

In Vilnius, hundreds rallied in front of a government building, some carrying signs that said “Stop ACTA.”

“We are deeply concerned about this controversial deal, which most of our society does not know anything about,” said Mantas Kondratavicius, leader of the Vilnius Liberal Youth organization, a rights group.

“There was no public presentation or debates on the principles and possible threats of this act,” Kondratavicius added, voicing another common complaint. Many critics are angry that ACTA was negotiated at high political levels and in secret, without involving civic society.

In the Czech capital Prague, hundreds rallied at the medieval Old Town Square while a similar crowd gathered in the second largest city, Brno. They waved banners that read: “ACTA stinks,” ”ACTA harms you“ and ACTA equals cyber fascism.

Czech organizers said protests were planned in 18 other towns and cities. The government has suspended the ratification of the treaty and the protesters welcomed the move but say it is not enough.

Marches also took place in the Polish cities of Warsaw, Szczecin, Poznan and Gdansk.

“Down with the censorship of Big Brother,” said one of the banners in Warsaw, where about 150 people gathered in front of the presidential palace.

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European protesters fear online censorship from copyright treaty ACTA

06-02-2012 22:45 Google on Monday told a trial court that it has removed certain webpages from the internet in compliance with the court's order, which directed Google and 21 other websites to remove the objectionable content in the form of photographs, videos or texts which might hurt religious sentiments. Facebook which also filed its compliance report told the court that it does not control or operate the servers that host the website.

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Web censorship: Google removes offensive content-NewsX - Video