Re: [tor-talk] ISP CenturyLink Blocking Tor?

[Max Bond <max.o.bond@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello,

I've been using CenturyLink for ADSL in the US for five or six years
(coincidentally this is my last day with them, so I probably won't be able
to do much testing), and I have never had a problem using Tor; as soon as I
saw this thread, I fired up Tor Browser and accessed a few websites. I
didn't use pluggable transports and everything went smoothly.

I can confirm that restarting the router changes the IP address, and that
they have some level of remote management (I've noticed them installing
firmware updates to my router.)

I've never heard of this "protection program" but I doubt its the cause.
I've never known it to be zealous, let alone overzealous; I scanned about
twenty-five thousand, multiple times, to gather statistics. I never heard a
peep out of
them. I imagine that they'd watch for large volumes of obvious attack
traffic before they targeted Tor, from a malware perspective.

All that being said, perhaps this is a regional difference.

Hope that helps,
Max


On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 4:59 PM, Ben Tasker <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > This policy document talks about botnet and virus infections, so it
> doesn't seem relevant to OP's friend, because tor and torrent clients are
> neither.
>
> As it has been known for some infections to establish a connection back to
> their C&C via Tor, it's not inconceivable an ISP (or more likely,
> who-ever's providing their kit) might apply a policy which could
> (deliberately or otherwise) wind up blocking Tor. Whether Tor is malware
> has no real bearing, what matters is whether it's traffic is perceived as
> such by the ISP
>
> I missed the part about the torrent client, though it sounds like the
> behaviour was slightly different. In either case though, the OP's
> description makes it sound like the external connection dropped in it's
> entirety - for any kind of filtering/blocking that's massive overkill. If
> you were being restricted to a walled garden, outside connectivity might
> appear unavailable unless you were going to a whitelisted IP.
>
> On my (UK) ISP, a reboot of the router pretty much guarantees a new IP,
> though I have also been with providers where that wasn't the case.
>
> On Sun, Feb 1, 2015 at 11:43 PM, Yuri <yuri@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > On 02/01/2015 15:24, Ben Tasker wrote:
> >
> >> Looking at their info page -
> >>
> http://www.centurylink.com/Pages/AboutUs/Legal/InternetServiceManagement/
> >> -
> >> it seems Century Link run what they call a Protection Program.
> >>
> >> If they detect (what they consider to be) potentially malicious traffic,
> >> the connection gets put in a walled garden to notify the end user.
> >>
> >
> > This policy document talks about botnet and virus infections, so it
> > doesn't seem relevant to OP's friend, because tor and torrent clients are
> > neither.
> >
> >  As others have said, rebooting the router would likely have acquired a
> new
> >> IP, so effectively cancelling a block.
> >>
> >
> > Not familiar with CenturyLink, but with Comcast digital cable only
> > rebooting with changed client MAC address would cause an IP change.
> > Otherwise IP is very persistent.
> >
> >
> > Yuri
> >
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>
>
> --
> Ben Tasker
> https://www.bentasker.co.uk
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