Turkey's Internet Censorship Runs Up Against Control Freak-Resistant Technology

Tor Project

Turkey's government clamped down on social media to restrict access to information officials find inconvenient. It even cut access to DNS servers belonging to major Internet companies, such as Google, after people found end-running the blocks so easy the Hurriyet Daily News referred to the restrictions on Twitter and YouTube as "one the most ineffective bans of history." But Turkish officials can't change the fact that the Internet and related technology specifically evolved to evade restriction and control.

Tor technology, which helps users evade tracking, share data, and access forbidden websites, is once again proving a popular means for online users to tell government officials to get stuffed. Sure enough, Turkey's government blocked the official Tor Project website in hopes of limiting the spread of the technology, but hey, we're talking about the Internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation hosts one mirror of the Tor Browser Bundle and points the way to others.

For users in Turkey who have already downloaded the Tor Browser Bundle, censorship circumvention should continue without a hitch. And for the users who have not yet done so, it's not too late. The Tor project's website has many mirrors—copies of the website hosted at other locations—that make the Browser Bundle available. EFF hosts its own mirror at https://tor.eff.org/. Some other mirrors include: https://tor.spline.inf.fu-berlin.de/https://tor.myrl.net/https://www.tor.lu/https://tor.crazyhaze.de/ Supporters of censorship circumvention can run their own mirrors by following Tor's instructions.

Innovation, frustrating one dumbass politician at a time. Well, bunches of them at a time, on occasion.

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