Tor needs 200 more webtunnel bridges to fight censorship
As the Russian government intensifies its grip on the internet, censorship circumvention tools like Tor are more critical than ever. Here's the latest on Tor censorship in Russia and how you can help by running WebTunnel bridges.
Glad to see they arent going along with the bullshit of "all russians are evil and deserve to die" that is recently going around. The russian people is under dictator oppression and deserves just as much support as any other people in the same situation.
Anecdotal, I have Russian friends (a couple and their kids).
The dad is really apologetic for his country. He also laments not being able to go back to visit his parents, because his profession would likely be in very high demand by the military so he doesn't want to risk getting pulled in for service (even though he's in his 40s).
The mom already went back once, with kids. She says that the population in general, in both Moscow and the countryside, seem really oblivious to what's going on. There's a huge disconnect and often even disbelief about what's going on further west. Likely due to govt media propaganda only running special operations victory headlines. Also those that are able, but down on their luck and fortune, are happy to sign up with the military for (relatively) good pay, especially if their role is not something that makes them fight at the front line directly.
No, not all Russians are evil and deserve to die. But closing your eyes and playing oblivious to what's happening out there, just believing the state propaganda and living in a position "oh it's just the bad leader" is not a morally OK position.
If there is a dictator in your country you have some moral duty to find out at least a bit about the truth.
How do I know?
I'm German.
My grandparent's generation was the one that actively closed their eyes, that actively looked away, that everything that happend was someone else's problem. They were the Generation that arranged themselves, that did good business as long as it wasn't them that were deported, killed or fought at in the war.
This is not a position that is morally OK, but this is what I see of a lot of Russians. Not all, but a lot.
I like how you just conveniently ignore the part about a dictator oppression.
The key word here is oppression.
A country that is closing its eyes and deserves what they're going to get is the US. In 20 or 30 years when the US is an authoritarian oppressive State then at that point the people don't have a choice, just like they don't in Russia today.
Authoritarian oppressive states don't just let the people think what they want to think. You are groomed and indoctrinated the moment you receive education until the day you die. The easiest way to control a populace is for the populace to not even know they're being controlled.
A key factor to that is limiting and restricting access to outside information. Which is what Russia does which is why the Tor project is so important
If there is a dictator in your country you have some moral duty to find out at least a bit about the truth.
How do I know?
I’m German.
Last time I heard, your government openly supported the genocidal state of Israel.
Also I'd say many Russians in 1996 wouldn't expect a war on Ukraine.
My grandparent’s generation was the one that actively closed their eyes, that actively looked away, that everything that happend was someone else’s problem. They were the Generation that arranged themselves, that did good business as long as it wasn’t them that were deported, killed or fought at in the war.
See, somewhere around the year I was born (1996) in Russia it became a social consensus that something is wrong and that these new "democrats" are not in fact democratic in any way, and that they also commit enormous crimes. In 1993 it kinda slipped, because the parliament opposed to Yeltsin had an unhealthy concentration of Communists, neo-Nazis, bandits and hybrids of them.
And, well, then the society with that consensus learned that "the civilized world" considers legitimate the people with whom it does business. No exceptions for authoritarianism or genocide.
There were widespread protests, you know? It was common to treat the Russian government like shit since then and till early 00s too, on TV and in private conversations and so on. But that government endured the storm, and somehow by that time the most important figures not associated with it were dead.
This didn't happen the same way as it did in Germany where people looked the other way because they were generally fine with everything Nazi. This happened because people got tired of looking the right way. It's apathy, not hypocrisy.
So a web tunnel enabled web server not only serves its own pages, but also acts as a proxy to other sites and all the traffic looks like web browsing to the regular web server?
This seems like something easy to do to empower regular people. Will make a lot more difference than those political campaign donations I made last year 😐
As a token of our appreciation for your volunteer work, we're offering a Tor t-shirt to operators who run 5 or more WebTunnel bridges during this period [November 28, 2024, and will run until March 10, 2025]
Later:
Maintain your bridges running for at least 1 year.
Am I the only one confused by this wording?
That being said, assuming the latter, that's a lot of bandwidth for a T-shirt.
I'd really like to see the major cloud providers donate a portion of their bandwidth to the cause...but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.
If you want to help but find configuration hard you can easily help by running a Snowflake proxy on your phone or in your browser.
I have configured my phone run a Snowflake proxy every time my phone is connected to WiFi and charging. It's automated and does not require me to do anything. I have turned on notifications that tell me every time I'm helping someone connecting to Tor. It gives me a good feeling every time.
Does anyone know if running a webtunnel attracts additional unwanted hacker attempts to a domain more so than just hosting normal stuff? I presume its all bots and the simple act of hosting anything gets lots of exposure regardless.
I honestly don't have an answer to that but from my understanding running a web tunnel from your home IP can have negative consequences in relation to your address being flagged as a public proxy.
With the potential to be added to certain automatic ban lists. But more likely than not you'll be added to a list of potentially untrustable addresses which means you'll be doing a lot more CAPTCHAS in the future
I've been running a relay from home for years. I think I'll have a shot at this. I'm not sure we want Russians on tor right now though.
I'm curious on this, why? There are many people in Russia who disagree with what is happening, but have no way to access information without monitoring or censorship. This is what Tor was made for.
Sick people need a doctor, people living in a evil dictatorship need access to free information, ig
If you don't want a certain geographic of people on Tor, then you don't believe in Tor.
I draw the line at people from New Jersey.