Tor network block
Journalists and non-governmental organisations have reported that the Tor network has been blocked by Venezuela’s largest state-owned Internet service provider CANTV. Traffic on the Tor network had recently increased in the country, following blocks that had affected news outlets. Activists said that the first blocks could be avoided by simply changing DNS settings to an international server, while a second wave of blocks demanded the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and the anonymous browsing capabilities of the Tor network to circumvent the ban. According to technical evidence collected and presented by local activists, a more complex measure was then taken, blocking vanilla connections as well as obfs3 and obfs4 bridges, with a high rate of success in preventing users from accessing the Internet.