.png)
Internet users in Iran were unable to use Tor on the morning of Sept. 13 after the Iranian regime blocked service to the tool that gives users a layer of anonymity while browsing the Web. The attempt was fruitless, however, as Tor released a patch the same day that reopened service.
With oppressive regimes trying to block free access to the Internet, “there are plenty of interesting discussion points from the research angle around how this arms race should be played,” according to the Tor Blog.
The Iranian regime blocked service to Tor by filtering the country’s Internet routers. Tor was able to reopen access after programmers found out how Iran was blocking the service and worked around it.
Tor is a software program users can run that can help hide their identities online. It works through a network of relays set up by volunteers around the world. When users run Tor, their connections are bounced off these different relays, which helps mask the user’s location.
The service has tens of thousands of users in Iran. The Iranian regime “wields one of the world’s most sophisticated apparatuses for controlling the Internet and other digital technologies,” according to a report by human rights organization Freedom House.
“The government’s censorship of the medium did not begin until 2001, but users today operate in an environment that features filtering of content—particularly domestically produced political news and analysis—together with intimidation, detention, and torture of bloggers, online journalists, and cyberactivists,” the report adds.
According to the Tor blog, programmers are working on ways to ensure the service can’t be blocked, “but in the short term, there are other ways to filter Tor traffic like the one Iran used.”
The blog states that programmers are treading carefully, working with both short-term and long-term solutions. A concern is that if they try to fix all the holes at once, it could be that “next time they block us, it will be through some more complex mechanism” that is more difficult to fix. The other option, they add is to “leave things as they are, knowing there will be more blocking events” but that may be easier to solve.
