Tor’s new WebTunnel bridges mimic HTTPS traffic to evade censorship

BleepingComputer

Tor’s new WebTunnel bridges mimic HTTPS traffic to evade censorship 19

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.

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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. While some countries, like China and Iran, have found ways to detect and block such connections, Tor also provides obfsproxy bridges, which add an extra layer of obfuscation to fight censorship efforts.

WebTunnel, the censorship-resistant pluggable transport inspired by the HTTPT probe-resistant proxy, takes a different approach. It makes it harder to block Tor connections by ensuring that the traffic blends in with HTTPS-encrypted web traffic.

“It works by wrapping the payload connection into a WebSocket-like HTTPS connection, appearing to network observers as an ordinary HTTPS (WebSocket) connection,” said the Tor Project.

To be able to use a WebTunnel bridge, you’ll first have to get bridge addresses from here 6 and add them manually to Tor Browser for desktop through the following procedure:

1. Open Tor Browser and go to the Connection preferences window (or click “Configure Connection”).
2. Click on “Add a Bridge Manually” and add the bridge addresses.
3. Close the bridge dialog and click on “Connect.”
4. Note any issues or unexpected behavior while using WebTunnel.

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