Russia Blocks Tor Privacy Service in Latest Censorship Move

Russia has stepped up its censorship efforts in the country by
fully banning access to the Tor web anonymity service, coinciding
with the ban^[1]
of six virtual private network (VPN) operators, as the government
continues to control the internet and crackdown on attempts to
circumvent locally imposed web restrictions.

The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications,
Information Technology and Mass Media, also known as Roskomnadzor,
the watchdog responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring
Russian mass media, announced the block, accusing it of enabling
access to illegal content, Reuters reported^[2]
this week.

Russia accounts^[3]
for 15% of all Tor users, with more than 310,000 daily users,
second only to the U.S.

Tor, short for The Onion Router, enables^[4]
users to automatically encrypt and reroute their web requests
through a network of Tor relays for anonymizing network traffic, as
well as help bypass censorship and protect their identities from
the internet service providers and the websites they visit.

Confirming the blockade, the Tor Project maintainers said^[5], “the Russian government
has officially blocked our main website in Russia,” adding, “Since
December 1st, some Internet providers in Russia have started to
block access to Tor.” The nonprofit organization has responded by
creating a mirror
site^[6] that is still reachable
in the country.

“As this instance of censorship limits direct access to our
website, malicious actors could start phishing users with fake Tor
Browsers or spreading disinformation about Tor,” the Tor Project
said.

Tor is not the only entity to have come under the scrutiny of
Russia’s Internet censors. Apple, which introduced^[7]
an iCloud Private Relay^[8]
feature with iOS 15 and macOS Monterey, has since dropped the
feature for its users in Russia, citing local regulations. The
setting is designed to keep users’ internet traffic private and
away from the eyes of the network provider (or the ISP) and the
websites by routing the requests through two separate, secure
internet relays.

This encrypted mode of communication effectively shields the
destination information (i.e., the website) from the network
provider, while both the second relay — which decrypts the name of
the requested website and connects the user to the site — and the
website itself are prevented from identifying the user, creating a
simplified version of Tor.

The development also comes as the state regulator added
Betternet, Lantern, X-VPN, Cloudflare WARP, Tachyon VPN, and
PrivateTunnel to the list of banned VPN services, alongside VyprVPN
and Opera VPN that were banned^[9]
in June 2021. Other VPN products that are already blocked in Russia
include ExpressVPN, Hola VPN, IPVanish VPN, KeepSolid VPN
Unlimited, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and Speedify VPN.