China Cracks Down on Tor Anonymity Network (Technology Review)

[Drew Wilson]

For the first time, the Chinese government has attacked one of the best, most secure tools for surfing the Internet anonymously. The clampdown against the tool, called Tor, came in the days leading up to the 60th anniversary of China's "national day" on October 1. It is part of a growing trend in which repressive nations orchestrate massive clampdowns during politically sensitive periods, in addition to trying to maintain Internet firewalls year-round.

"It was the first time the Chinese government has ever even included Tor in any sort of censorship circumvention effort," says Andrew Lewman, the executive director of Tor Project, the nonprofit that maintains the Tor software and network. "They were so worried about October 1, they went to anything that could possibly circumvent their firewall and blocked it."

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What? I thought Tor was encrypted. Guess Tor developers will need to find a way to encrypt the traffic too. I'm sure they can learn a lot from p2p developers if that's the case.

[mountain_rage]

There is always Freenet, Ants and Mute to fall back on. I thought Tor encrypted traffic also, but I'm wondering if maybe it just encrypts your I.P. address.