Wikipedia talk:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall/Archive 1

I'm using Tor
plarq 08-01-2007

Now en.wikipedia.org is partially unblocked in Mainland China. However, I want to edit some "sensitive" pages using TOR, only to find TOR proxies are blocked, even when I use my username. Who can help?

You have to request for an Ip Block exempt.

Problem
This seems to work for editing a page, but it breaks my access to, for example, the mailing list archives. E.g. http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-October/031345.html. I get the following:

Not Found The requested URL /pipermail/wikien-l/2005-October/031345.html was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

-- Klortho

Try the updated configuration that I just posted -- Tim Starling 19:47, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

As of 20 April 2006, I can't access Wikipedia using 145.97.39.155 as is in the sample config file posting, but using 145.97.39.132 seems to be fine. Is this IP address 145.97.39.155 valid,or has Wikipedia changed the ip address of its load balancer in Amsterdam?

Confirmed, same here; .155 doesn't work, .132 does. It's possible that "they" found this page and blocked .155. LaloMartins 07:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

report from China
I use Tor in Debian in China. I have to use wikipedia's proxy because a lot of IPs which are Tor's exit node have been blocked by WP. But wp's proxy is unencrypted, so now I can't edit any articles which is not liked by Beijing GOV in WP. The GFW will easily find what I do with WP. Could you change the policy, then if I have login in, do not matter what IP I use. Thank you. --Farm 12:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Possible new workaround
Another possible way to bypass the firewall is to use the Google translation service as a proxy by translating from english to english (or whatever language you wish). See "Google free proxy!" for the full description. This doesn't mask your IP address, so it can't be used to circumvent blocks on Wikipedia. Although using your real IP address on Wikipedia might be a problem for users in the more restrictive countries, this should be a non-issue if you register a username. // Pathoschild 14:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Google translation service was also blocked when I was in Beijing.--Skyfiler 14:43, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

What does this do?
I'm hesitant about adding lines into Privoxy which I don't understand. What does this do? What is 145.97.39.155?


 * It doesn't matter now, 145.97.39.155 is blocked. I think we might be better off relying on independently operated proxies inside China now, such as http://wikipedia.cnblog.org . That should make it slightly harder for the authorities to get our addresses, rather than reading them off a web page they'd have to sniff the traffic. -- Tim Starling 03:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * What did it used to do?


 * It used to be a live proxy, displaying the Chinese Wikipedia with URLs rewritten. It was running inside the firewall. -- Tim Starling 15:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Hysterics from SJMurdoch
I'm in contact with a number of users from Mainland China, and I've read extensively on this subject. All the majority of users want to do is access Wikipedia. Privacy is a very distant second priority. The authorities have shown very little interest in prosecuting readers to date, rather they have concentrated on those who produce or disseminate subversive writing. Nevertheless, no Chinese person should doubt that the Government will be able to find out who is editing Wikipedia, if they really want to, whether or not the user is using Tor. Tor is flawed and must be used very carefully if you wish to maintain privacy against the Chinese authorities. And of course, it's not like you can hide the fact that you're using the software.

To suggest that using open proxies is better for privacy than HTTPS is just bizarre. I've dealt with a number of attempted DoS attacks from behind open proxy networks, and I've never had any trouble tracking down the originating IP. The advantage of HTTPS over open proxies comes from the technical nature of the Great Firewall: all unencrypted traffic is sampled at the firewall, and proxies which are used to download prohibited material are systematically blocked. HTTPS resists this sampling.

I can only assume by the way SJMurdoch is going on about HTTPS images that he believes I am advocating that Tor users should disable proxying for SSL and then navigate the web at large believing they are completely safe. Rather, I am saying that Tor users who only installed Tor in the first place so that they could read Wikipedia can go ahead and switch it off now because there's another option. Anyone who believes they are completely safe from persecution because they have Tor installed is deluded.

-- Tim Starling 15:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I've actually found only one good thing from my studies of how tor and other proxying systems are working and that is that instead of showing up as an http packet with a blatant header leading direct to Wikimedia servers you end up with a packet that will pass a casual scan for http traffic (assuming the proxy is not using port 80) and takes a little more work to work out where it's going so at least and possibly at most it's good for that. Thygard  -  Talk  -  Contribs  -  Email   07:00, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Possible privacy improvement
Could the SSL frontends be configured to hold edits for random amounts of time? --64.232.164.63 00:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Rename...
Mainland China controlled by PRC =/= China. --  Миборовский  23:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Good point Naming this article "XXX in China" is pov, as there are two Chinas. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 02:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Renamed to Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall. Might be a mouthful, but it's a more accurate name. -- Миборо в ский 06:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

What the hell?!?
If I read this correctly, this page is instructing people in China on how to break the law. Regardless of the validities of these laws, this page should be deleted. It is not the job of a neutral encyclopedia to explicitly tell a group of people how they can circumvent laws. There can be a page stating how to edit this site with Tor, but not one directed at such users in a certain country for the sole purpose of allowing a circumvention of laws. This page should be deleted. Bsd987 23:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It is relating methods used to access the website hosting the advice. Seems reasonable to me, although maybe it should be in wikipedia namespace? 86.140.170.23 12:09, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Besides, if the Chinese government is going to treat the law arbitrarily, which they do in a way that Americans can hardly imagine, why shouldn't citizens and expats? Circumventing the Golden Shild might not even be formally illegal in China...the gov never bothers to write a lot of laws because it's easier just to accuse someone of being a traitor and lock them up.


 * There are a couple of issues with your reasoning Bsd987, first is that there technically is no law permitting them to do this so it's less a codified issue and more of an issue of the PRC enforcing existing laws in a way that allows them to do this in the name of national security and protecting morality (sic), also since Wikipedia is based in the Florida in the United States even if it were a law Wikipedia would be under no legal or moral obligation to help the PRC oppress it's people and I doubt the board would choose to do so given the chance though of course I cannot speak for them, unlike Yahoo I would hope that we would be more open to the spread of free information. Thygard  -  Talk  -  Contribs  -  Email   06:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I have asked, and there is no law against accessing Wikipedia. In fact, the official stance is that the Golden Shield does not block any content (of course we know better).  It's illegal to write "subversive" or immoral content, but not to read it. --LaloMartins 06:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

people in china deserve to have freedom via the internet... therefore this article SHOULD NOT be deleted. sure it tells them how to break a law, but think of it this way; imagine the usa had a firewall that blocked you from almost everything. wouldnt you want to bypass it? <3 bri

Not very helpfull
Why can't IP's be softblocked by default? I have created an account so you can track my actions despite the fact I am using Tor.

Yet 8 out of 10 IP's I use are hardblocked. Why should I have to request an softblock for each and every IP I use? The internet is not static. NegativeNed 23:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Chinese translation?
Is there a Chinese translation of this page on the Chinese Wikipedia? If not, someone should put up a translation there. --Ixfd64 00:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Secure servers blocked too
One possible solution is to use Wikimedia's HTTPS gateway, which is still accessible at the time of writing. That's incorrect. After using secure.wikimedia for about an year during the previous block, I found that after the Nov-2006 reblocking the secure servers were blocked too. :-( I'd like other people to verify that before editing, though; I don't know if the whole section should be removed, or rephrased to "accessible from some ISPs", or what. Right now I'm relying on tor and softblocking.--LaloMartins 07:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is banning users from China
The policy against open proxies effectively bans users from China. Since I've upgraded to Firefox 2.0, Switchproxy doesn't work and I can't use Tor any more. Tor doesn't work any more, the SSL-based URLs don't work any more - for me the only way to view and to contribute to Wikipedia articles and discussions is to use open proxies, so I'm violating a Wikipedia policy. Will I be blocked for that? This situation is ridiculous and Wikipedia policies have to change. —Babelfisch 09:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


 * As there has been no reaction here, I've started another discussion here: Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy. (But why should anybody care for users in China? There are only some 137 million of them. see Natalie Pace, China Surpasses U.S. In Internet Use, Forbes 2006; Net firms criticised over China, BBC 2005; China net use may soon surpass US, BBC 2007.) —Babelfisch 02:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, No open proxies is a Foundation-wide policy applying to all Wikipedia projects. It is not an issue of certain admins making up rules you don't like. Thatcher131 19:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Using a computer as a tor router
I want to support the Tor project by donating my bandwidth, but I do not want to be blacklisted from WP when I do. Is there some way I can do this? ffm yes? 19:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * WP blocks only exit nodes, since that's all it can see. If you set your .torrc to only act as a middleman, I suspect you will be fine. --Gwern (contribs) 18:06 6 May 2007 (GMT)


 * Would it be too processor- or network-intensive to determine whether or not a node allows exiting to Wikipedia's webservers? I run an exit node but disallow all but a few ports, and the server apparently assumes (incorrectly) that 80 and/or 443 are part of those few.  (I don't know why the server allowed me to post this all of a sudden; I reloaded the edit page and it worked.) 75.169.115.240 (talk) 23:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, actually it's not. A while ago, I audited Wikipedia's blocks of Tor nodes, and I used a Python script that ships with the Tor distribution to do this. You give it an IP address (in my case, Wikipedia's servers), and it scans the local Tor node's list of exit policies to determine whether a given node can access the given IP. Quite easy, really. Shadow1  (talk) 02:15, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

help for the Arabs
Could we add such a helpful site for other groups such as the Arabian speaking population? They have similar problems (even in the Gulf states with quite a lot of internet access) and resort to proxies. Wandalstouring 17:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * as of a few days ago, I reinstalled Tor+Privoxy without the Vivillda controller. But prior to that, there where two exit nodes displaying in the middle east; one straddeling the Iraq-Saudi Arabia border (couldn't tell which side; which side do you think it's more likely to get bombed on?) and one in the UAE; so I agree with your notion  {2007 03 02 06:16 UTC}

Perhaps we could rename and rescope this entry to deal with bypassing all internet censorship?  Tewfik Talk 23:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Another Idea
There is a project that has just been finalized called Psiphon that also allows people to use trusted computers to browse the internet from other countries over a secured connection. psiphon.civisec.org/ Aranjedeath

If not blocked, don't use elaborate measures...
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/11/2320220&from=rss

So, if China isn't blocked, it seems to add yet-another layer of deception; the "Great Firewall" is daily touted as the reason for allowing TOR. Yet, in fact, it seems to be a ruse?

--Connel MacKenzie - wikt 09:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Parts of Wikipedia were unblocked in China a few days ago (see Net Nanny Follies – Wikipedia unblocked, danwei.org), but that has happened before. This time, many articles can still not be viewed and edited without Proxies because there are content filters in place (e.g. against the “evil cult”), the Chinese version is still completely blocked, and who knows how long it's going to last this time. —Babelfisch 05:50, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Advise on Softblock
The following paragraphs have been deleted:


 * Request a softblock
 * Tor proxies can now be softblocked so logged in account users can edit via a tor connection. If you find an IP that has this problem please request an unblock to a softblock for tor.
 * Need an account & Tor won't let you create one?
 * Ask someone outside of mainland China to set you up with an account and then email the username / password (account creation is blocked from tor proxies due to vandalism issues). You should immediately change the password after logging in.

The reason given was "we can't advise people to violate policy; in this case Wikipiedia:No open proxies" [sic]. The rationale behind this was not correct or at least is not correct any more. The proposed policy (yes, it is just a proposal, not a binding policy!) states: "Open or anonymising proxies may be blocked from editing for any period at any time. While this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies until those are blocked." (my emphases)

Hardblocking of open proxies obviously isn't consensus. I've thus restored those two paragraphs. Please don't delete them again without discussing this here. —Babelfisch 03:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
 * When did hardblocking of open proxies stop being the norm? Softblocking makes abuse impossible to trace for administrators. Kusma (talk) 11:15, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * How? Softblocking prevents abuse by anonymous users, limiting it to logged-in user accounts, which can simply be indefinitely blocked on a case-by-case basis. If for some reason it becomes necessary to "trace" the IP address used, this can be done by a checkuser... but this is very rarely necessary: if abuse is obvious, just issue a block, why bother rooting around for other types of abuse that may be happening simultaneously? – Gurch 19:49, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Closed proxies WikiProject proposal
I've proposed a WikiProject intended to help editors create closed proxies for editors in China to use. You can see the proposal at WikiProject_Council/Proposals. If this WikiProject draws enough interest, we'll be able to get enough servers running to draw in a substantial amount of editors in China and allow them to edit. Shadow1 (talk) 18:50, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Now WikiProject on closed proxies. Shadow1  (talk) 00:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

TOR
Whats all this about TOR being blocked? I'm using TOR right now. Occasionally I get a blocked message, but you simple click "use a new identity" and your good to go. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.145.8.92 (talk) 12:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)