Security News

Tor needs 200 new WebTunnel bridges to fight censorship
2024-11-28 16:50

The Tor Project has put out an urgent call to the privacy community asking volunteers to help deploy 200 new WebTunnel bridges by the end of the year to fight government censorship. [...]

Microsoft faces bipartisan criticism for alleged censorship on Bing in China
2024-03-21 21:25

Microsoft is the subject of growing criticism in the US over allegations that its Bing search engine censors results for users in China that relate to sensitive subjects the state wants blocked. Republican Senator Marco Rubio has added his voice to criticism of the Redmond software giant for reportedly removing search results from Bing on human rights, democracy, climate change, and other sticky issues within China.

Tor’s new WebTunnel bridges mimic HTTPS traffic to evade censorship
2024-03-12 16:49

The Tor Project officially introduced WebTunnel, a new bridge type specifically designed to help bypass censorship targeting the Tor network by hiding connections in plain sight. Tor bridges are relays not listed in the public Tor directory that keep the users' connections to the network hidden from oppressive regimes.

China could be doing better at censorship, think tank finds
2024-02-21 04:31

China's censorship regime remains pervasive and far reaching, but the bureaucratic apparatus implementing it is unevenly developed and is not always well funded, according to a report released on Tuesday. The document analyzes censorship practices in the Middle Kingdom and concludes that "Despite the importance the CCP places on domestic information control, its censorship apparatus is unevenly developed and plagued by unfunded mandates."

New CS:GO map bypasses Russia's censorship of Ukraine war news
2023-05-07 14:16

Finish newspaper Helsinin Sanomat has created a custom Counter-Strike: Global Offensive map explicitly made to bypass Russian news censorship and smuggle information about the war in Ukraine to Russian players. Starting in March 2022, following its invasion of Ukraine, Russia began blocking international news outlets to implement tighter controls over what news reaches the Russian audience regarding the ongoing war.

India floats plan to make big tech pay for news, walks back government censorship
2023-01-23 03:01

In remarks made to Indian outlet The Economic Times, minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the government's plan was to "Crack down on enemies of India, state actors, those with vested interests, child sexual abuse, and religious incitement" - but not on general news or comment. Over the weekend, the minister also raised the topic of having Big Tech pay to link to news stories published by India's media.

WhatsApp Introduces Proxy Support to Help Users Bypass Internet Censorship
2023-01-06 08:30

Popular instant messaging service WhatsApp has launched support for proxy servers in the latest version of its Android and iOS apps, letting users circumvent government-imposed censorship and internet shutdowns. "Choosing a proxy enables you to connect to WhatsApp through servers set up by volunteers and organizations around the world dedicated to helping people communicate freely," the Meta-owned company said.

Movie torrents hijacked to send tips on bypassing Russian censorship
2022-08-01 23:12

Named "Torrents of Truth," the initiative is similar to "Call Russia," a project to help break through Russian propaganda and open people's eyes to what's happening in Ukraine. The initiative creates torrents that contain a text file with a list of credible news sources that Russians can trust and instructions on downloading and installing a VPN to secure anonymity from ISPs.

Tor Browser now bypasses internet censorship automatically
2022-07-15 14:27

The Tor Project team has announced the release of Tor Browser 11.5, a major release that brings new features to help users fight censorship easier. The Tor Browser has been created specifically for accessing sites through The Onion Router network to offer users anonymity and privacy when accessing information on the internet.

Leak of Russian Censorship Data
2022-03-14 11:09

The transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets has released 800GB of data from Roskomnadzor, the Russian government censorship organization. Specifically, Distributed Denial of Secrets says the data comes from the Roskomnadzor of the Republic of Bashkortostan.