Twitter plays the underground card to escape censorship in Russia

In Russia, Internet users wishing to access Twitter will have to resolve to “take the digital maquis”. Indeed, the Russian regulator Roskomnadzor, whose role is to supervise the media, communication and information technologies, makes access to the American social network increasingly difficult – even if it is not yet forbidden, like Facebook.

” We are aware that Twitter is subject to restrictions for certain people in Russia and we strive to keep our service safe and accessible. », wrote the official account support from the community site on February 26, two days after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since then, the situation has not improved.

Twitter goes underground (digital)

It is in this context that Twitter decided to go underground in order to remain accessible in Russia. How? ‘Or’ What ? By deploying on Tor, which is a computer network that overlays the Internet. To access it, you have to use a special browser (Tor Browser) and handle addresses with a particular format, in “.onion”.

The purpose of this network is to counter tracking and surveillance, and to circumvent censorship. By using Tor, the Internet user’s connection passes through a certain number of network relays — the “nodes” —, which has the effect of disguising his true geographical origin, by making it seem that he is connecting from the Italy, Chile or anywhere except Russia.

In addition to hiding the real IP address of the Internet user (which acts as the computer’s registration range on the Internet), Tor hides what you are doing: ” The Tor Browser prevents people monitoring your connection from knowing which websites you visit. All someone monitoring your browsing habits can see is that you are using Tor. »

For this, the Internet user’s traffic is relayed and encrypted three times during its journey on the network, specifies Tor – like a virtual private network (VPN) in short. This is also why the project logo is an onion and why the addresses end in “.onion”: it is a question of evoking the scales of the vegetable, which cover and hide the heart of the plant.

The implementation of Twitter on Tor took place with the support of Alec Muffett, a computer engineer specializing in cryptography and the security of systems and networks. He dedicated a thread on Twitter to comment on the news and, also, explain why he is the one talking about it, rather than an official Twitter account.

Roughly, it is a question of not causing a sudden and massive load on the servers used as relays: ” Based on past experiences with Facebook and BBC sites, any big enough ad leads to a spike in load, and given that Twitter Safety has 3.6 million followers, that wouldn’t be very wise in a time of global crisis. »

This switch to Tor was not easy, by the very admission of Alex Muffett, considering ” considerable, albeit reasonable, changes “, which had to be provided ” to meet their extraordinary production requirements “. Switching Twitter to Tor doesn’t have quite the same technical implications as switching a personal blog with a simple static page.

Discreet and uncensored access

https://twitter3e4tixl4xyajtrzo62zg5vztmjuricljdp2c5kshju4avyoid.onion/ is the Twitter address on Tor. No need to try to access it with a standard browser: you have to use the one dedicated to the Tor network — which is also listed on supported browsers page by the social network, alongside Firefox, Google Chrome, Edge, Safari and those based on Webkit / Chromium.

Twitter’s Maneuver means anyone, anywhere can reliably and securely access Twitter, regardless of what their government has decided they should be allowed to see on the internet », abstract Runa Sandvik, a computer security expert, who praised the initiative of the community site and Alex Muffett.

The interested party also specifies that it is certainly quite possible to visit the classic Twitter website with the Tor browser. This is also a trait common to many Internet users: the vast majority (93% according to one study) use Tor to go on the classic web and not on the “dark web”, that is to say on sites whose address ends with “.onion”.

What is meant by dark web must be understood as the hidden web, and sometimes as the clandestine web. The fact is that this expression has given a very sulphurous tint to everything that happens on the dark web. It is true that one can find illegal activities there (Silk Road is a typical example: it was an online market for illegal products – in other words, drugs).

But the dark web simply designates content that is only accessible on the Internet using specific tools (besides Tor, we can cite for example Freenet or I2P). These tools are called darknets, that is to say they are networks superimposed on the net and they use particular protocols and configurations.

But by putting a dedicated address in the dark web, explains Runa Sandvik, the level of security is higher: “ The onion address provides a direct and more secure connection. There are no output relays that can block, log or alter traffic », she writes. It is safer to circumvent various problems, including blocking measures by DNS.

Some media have also launched on Tor with direct “.onion” addresses. This has been the case with the BBC since 2019, with versions of its site in English, Russian and Ukrainian (the English channel reminded on March 4 on Twitter), but also the New York Times since 2017 or ProPublica in 2016. On the social media side, there is Facebook since 2014.

VPNs, an increasingly difficult alternative?

In the face of the Kremlin’s efforts to reduce the visibility of media and social networks in Russia, another tactic is to use a VPN. However, their use is becoming more and more difficult. Restrictions have been reported as far back as 2017 for example and Torrentfreak reports that de-indexing requests have been made to Google.

There is also another problem with virtual private networks. Certainly, the demand for VPNs has increased by more than 600% since the invasion, reports the New York Times on March 7, based on statistics from the Top10VPN site. But Russian internet users paradoxically find themselves in difficulty, precisely because of the blockages announced by Visa and Mastercard.

Concretely, Russian Visa and Mastercard bank cards are no longer valid abroad, and cards issued abroad will no longer work in Russia. Therefore, to pay for access to a foreign VPN provider, you will have to look for another means of payment. It may not be so simple: PayPal, for example, has also downsized in Russia.

“ Further decisions by multinationals to punish Russia’s aggression could make these circumvention tools more difficult to obtain. Many Russians who own VPNs pay them with Visa and Mastercard, which have blocked payments in Russia “, write our colleagues. It is certainly possible to go through free VPNs, but it is at this risk and peril.

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