As UK Government Is Still Interested In Banning Tor, BBC Uses Tor To Get Around Russian Information Blockade
from the oh,-look-at-that dept
As Russia increasingly looks to cut itself off from the internet to avoid having any bit of reality reach its citizenry, others are working to get around the information blockade. The BBC on Friday reminded people that BBC News is available on the dark web in Ukrainian and Russian via Tor. As the BBC explained when it first launched its dark web version in 2019, it did this to make sure it could get news to people in places where the BBC News was blocked or restricted around the globe.
What strikes me as particularly notable about this is that it’s happening at the same time that the UK government is still pushing its Online Safety Bill, which, if it became law, would almost certainly be incompatible with the dark web and Tor. And the UK Parliament in the past has, literally, explored the idea of simply banning Tor outright (though, thankfully, recommended against it).
But, once again, so much about what’s happened over the past few weeks keeps seeming to demonstrate how the parts of the internet that we’ve often demonized… are actually quite useful in lots of scenarios, including in dealing with an illegal invasion and occupation by a nuclear power which is trying to win the information war while still trying to conduct its physical war.
And it should be remembered that this is exactly the reason why Tor was setup in the first place — to be able to route around government oppression and censorship and to enable people to get news in places where it might be difficult to get it otherwise. Yes, there are abuses on Tor, but this should be yet another reminder that we don’t just toss out useful technology services because some people can misuse and abuse them.
Filed Under: censorship, darkweb, news, russia, tor, ukraine
Companies: bbc
Comments on “As UK Government Is Still Interested In Banning Tor, BBC Uses Tor To Get Around Russian Information Blockade”
What would really be interesting
Is when/If everyone in the world, had basic knowledge of the old hacking tools and tricks.
It would lead to allot of knowledge about how things work out there in the wild.
Might even give people a chance to protect their systems better.
Tor is used to allow people acess to networks and websites ,apps, that are blocked in certain countrys ,russia,iran,etc the fact that some bad people might use
it is no reason to block it, no more than we dont ban bitcoin, telegram or whatsapp just because some hackers might use them for illegal acts.its especially important now that russia is banning or blocking many websites like twitter that might be used to criticise the government
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
To be fair, the only people who use Tor are either terrorists, drug dealers or child molesters.
Granted there are people who need to use it for legitimate reasons, such as those who live in dictatorships…
…but the last time I checked, countries like the UK, Australia or the U.S. are not dicatorships.
There is no legitimate reason for anyone to be using Tor in these countries.
Re:
You say, as a state passes a “don’t say gay” law which stands to oppress lots of people, who therefore might need to hide their communications from government so as not to be oppressed by government for being gay.
Or for those who would prefer their communications not be snooped upon by the ever-expanding corporate advertising surveillance panopticon …
Or for those who are not in Russia but would like to communicate with those in Russia without exposing those in Russia to surveillance by Russia.
There are plenty of legitimate uses even in places that are not Russia.
Re:
Fun fact, you don’t need to live in a dictatorship to be subjected to oppression by a police state and want to hide your online connection with others of your persecuted sexual, ethnic, religious, etc. minority… Hell, a lot of minors need to hide some of this from their own parents to ensure their safety from violent reprisals.
Re:
Fun fact, you don’t need to live in a dictatorship to be subjected to oppression by a police state and want to hide your online connection with others of your persecuted sexual, ethnic, religious, etc. minority… Hell, a lot of minors need to hide some of this from their own parents to ensure their safety from violent reprisals…
Re:
One reason, of many, for people in thoose countries to use tor is to help people living under dictatorships to get news out, and relay news to those people.
Re: Re: games too
Game companies often use torrents to distribute their builds. This reduced traffic and cost.
Re: Re: Re:
And just what has that got to do with TOR?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
A number of companies have been working on a TOR based internet where no on entity controls any part of the internet. In addition, there are block chain prototypes that can validate traffic.
Example: Brave is including Tor and block chain web addresses.
Re: Re: Re:3
And just what has that got to do with Torrents?
Re: Re:
The Tor developers have always emphasized the importance of having a mix of different types of people in the Tor userbase. If only political dissidents use Tor, and that’s the only type of information available via Tor, you can just throw any Tor user in the gulag. Same thing, mostly, if only drug dealers use it (and remember that the USA has a lot of state-authorized cannabis dealers trying to avoid federal scrutiny). Or if only the US Navy uses it, which is probably why they publically shared the idea.
We need ordinary people using Tor, to transfer information that’s not particularly sensitive at all. It should be as normal as Facebook traffic (FB, by the way, is apparently blocked by Russia but had already been running an Onion service: see https://www.facebook.com/onion-service ).
I was just thinking, what if instead of blocking all internet backbones to Russia, we had them block all non-Tor traffic? That way Russians could still get the news, and the latest free software, but the country couldn’t easily censor specific sites. And if this causes millions of Russians to install the software, Putin might block it but couldn’t practically round up the users.
Re: Re: Re:
Oh, I don’t know as reports suggest he is doing a good job of rounding up those protesting against his war.
Re: Re: Re:2
That’s exactly the point. As long as Tor is mostly used by people who are against Putin, he can round up everyone caught with a copy. But if like half of all internet users browse with Tor, there’s no way. He’d first have to try to reduce the number, e.g. by blocking it, such that a small number of lawbreakers can be made an example of.
Even the Chinese government doesn’t go after people for using Tor. They hate it, and block it, but people work around that without any real consequence (unless they’re “troublemakers” in a larger way).
Re:
I can substitute the word “Tor” with a multitude other words, and all it will do is to show everyone what a fallacy your thinking is.
I can also ask why you didn’t post under your own real name? Perhaps you have something to hide?
Re:
Given that you followed it with
I can only read your post with an implicit /s at the end.
Re:
hands you a map
Go apologize to the tree keeping your dumb ass alive.
“To be fair, the only people who use assault weapons are either terrorists, drug dealers or child molesters.”
“To be fair, the only people who use encryption are either terrorists, drug dealers or child molesters.”
“To be fair, the only people who use their rights are either terrorists, drug dealers or child molesters.”
To be fair, you should apologize to the tree twice.
Re:
Oooh look at the bold fool with so much trust in governments known to be spying on people and abusing that information… while depending on anonymity to hide behind. So brave lol
Re:
“To be fair, the only people who use Tor are either terrorists, drug dealers or child molesters.”
Or the US Navy who designed it.
Students in US universities trying to access LGBTQ-friendly content.
Anyone using an open wi-fi network.
Let me inform you of what you just stated. You implied, literally, the online analogy of “Anyone not speaking where the police can hear is a criminal”.
Seems to me your “no legitimate reason” boils down to “I have no fucking clue what I’m talking about”.
Re:
“To be fair, the only people who use Tor are either terrorists, drug dealers or child molesters.” – source: some AC ass
There is a lot of what you mention on TOR and other similar networks yes but those activities exist within regular spaces, encrypted. And in real life using methods to obfuscate their presence. And from the top of my head (and because I’ve used it for the same purposes): scientists. You’d be surprised (as I was) to know how scientists make heavy use of TOR for many reasons, from protecting their communications to exchanging knowledge that is locked behind “publishers”. Also, hats off to Elbakyan!
UK shoots for feet
Wait until internet 2.0 comes and the UK can’t join because they outlawed it.
Re:
Then they join anyway.
I know about dark web addresses to beat filtering
When I used to have my online radio station, I had a dark web address as well as the main one so people could tune in and listen from work.
I have felt that there is nothing wrong with internet radio at work as long as your work in getting done, so having the dark web address I did allow people to tune in from work and bypass company firewalls and filters.
Contrary to what people said on one computer security newsgroup, bypassing filtering in that manner does not break any U.S. laws.
Re:
It might not break laws, but the average company would probably consider it a breach of contract one way or another. And usually ununionized employees can be fired for any reason, as long as the reason doesn’t involve discrimination against a protected class.
Journalists need to be able to recieve data or do research and talk to sources in private and security researchers need maybe to use tor to look at the dark Web and maybe some people do not want to use browsers that send browsing data directly to Google or Facebook or Microsoft , tor is not just for users in Iran russia or country’s which a seek to repress certain minority groups
Binary thinking at its best.
It is good or evil, wrong or right…
But magically they can’t apply this “logic” to guns, cars, or hundreds of other items that can be used for evil purpose.
It is technology, we do not understand it, it must be evil!!!!!!
They need to get educated and stop living in the steam age.
Re:
“But magically they can’t apply this “logic” to guns”
Erm, the article is about the UK government. We already banned most guns, and that’s why we can usually measure the time between mass shootings in years, even decades depending on how you class them (for example if you differentiate between terrorist shootings and “lone nutter shooting up a school”, the latter last occurred in 1996, and that was the incident that led to the ban on handguns).
I get your general point, but bringing guns into a discussion outside of the context of the US doesn’t have the same point.
Re: Re:
I blame spending to much time in ‘Merica.
The binary thinking is everywhere in the world.
If we have it, it’ll be fine but if they have it its a weapon.
The Online Safety Bill is likely to fall apart and not work at all.
Reminded?
The BBC didn’t just “remind” people about this, they created a new onion address recently after their old one expired last year. (At least, at that time, I couldn’t find any new address.)
Of course, if Russia’s internet gets cut off, this won’t much help. I believe it’s illegal to route Tor (or any encrypted traffic) across amateur radio in most countries. Dialup BBSes have historically been used to get information past censors (BBS: The Documentary – FidoNet – 13:58 re: Desert Storm, 17:52 re: Viet Nam). There aren’t many still around. If Russians have access to Pringles, they could perhaps make an antenna out of an old can and try to get wi-fi from a nearby country…
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Americans are the most propagandized people on this planet and you want to say that russia denies reality? Any country that goes to war especially with the western governments should take disinfo into account for that.
The great firewall of China has had the benefit in that, the CPC has basically killed off a huge propaganda vector for the U.S. to attack them over.
Look at what twitter is doing to people expressing support for Russia, and you’re here hyperventilating about defensive measures Russianis taking when it comes to information warfare.
The whole Ukraine situation was engineered by the U.S. and has been warned against since the 90s by representatives from both wings of the political aisle. Henry “I don’t lose sleep from ordering genocides” Kissinger himself mentioned this. Ukraine gave the reins of their military over to Nazis and the U.S. funded them to stage a coup in 2014 and have been bombing to regions of majority ethnic Russians for the last 8 years.
I am rehashing that ^ since the entire lot of those in the west love skipping over these tidbits
Re:
… said nobody capable of rational independent thought, ever.
Re: Good morning comrade
It’s morning in St. Petersberg, and it appears that the internet is still accessible for you there, so you can troll us here, by pushing long-debunked Russian propaganda.
It ain’t working.
Re: Bitch please
Hey Comrade, was the deferment from the front lines by agreeing to spread those sad and pathetic lies, worth it?
Re:
Ты пошел на полный тайм-куб, НИКОГДА не ходи на полный тайм-куб.