How Russia is Trying to Block Tor: Censorship & Pluggable Transports
Tor Project co-founder Roger Dingledine analyzes Russia's nationwide Tor censorship apparatus (TSPU) and how pluggable transports fight back.
Summary
The Escalation of Russian Internet Censorship
In late 2021 and early 2022, Russian authorities deployed Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) hardware (TSPU) across domestic ISPs to systematically block Tor.
Analyzing Censorship Vectors: IP Blacklists, TLS Probing, & DPI
Roger Dingledine dissects the multi-tiered blocking strategies used—including DNS poisoning, TLS client-hello fingerprinting, and active probing of directory authorities.
Deploying Pluggable Transports: Snowflake, obfs4, & WebTunnel
Dingledine demonstrates how modern circumvention protocols disguise Tor traffic as WebRTC video calls (Snowflake) or standard HTTPS web browsing.
The Cat-and-Mouse Game of Internet Freedom
The presentation emphasizes the importance of community bridge operators and open-source circumvention development in preserving access to uncensored information.
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