Siti Networks is one of the biggest cable broadband provider s in India. They operate in 21 states and provide internet

connection in major cities as well as to many rural villages.

A few days ago , I took a broadband connection from them and Tor Browser failed to connect to the network. After digging more, I found they have blocked all the primary directory authority IP addresses and most of the fallback IP addresses (129 of 150). T hey are also blocking more than 50% of the default bridge IP addresses.

traceroute shows the following for all blocked addresses:

```

1 ROUTER (192.168.1.1) 2.429 ms 2.688 ms 2.953 ms

2 * * *

3 172.31.16.41 (172.31.16.41) 6.344 ms 8.057 ms 8.026 ms

4 172.31.1.37 (172.31.1.37) 7.949 ms 7.940 ms 7.915 ms

5 * * *

6 172.31.1.57 (172.31.1.57) 8.311 ms 3.188 ms 5.327 ms

7 172.31.1.1 (172.31.1.1) 4.815 ms 5.243 ms 4.306 ms

8 * * *

9 * * *

10 * * *

11 * * *

...

```

When I first called Siti Networks' technical support, they said nothing is blocked in their network, which is obviously false.

Later in the day they confirmed to me they are blocking Tor, because someone senior in the management chain thinks “Tor is very insecure and dangerous for the users."

They also suggested if I pay more to get a static IP, they will remove all blocks from my connection , including Tor. I refuse to pay more.

Breaking Through This Censorship

When Tor is blocked, pluggable transports and bridges can help people circumvent the censorship and connect to the network. Even though Siti is violating Net Neutrality recommendations from TRAI and wants me to pay more money in order to enjoy the privacy and protections Tor Browser provides, I am thankfully still able to connect to the network through built-in bridges. You can set them up in Tor Network Settings.

If you can't connect to any of the default bridges, you can find other bridges to try at bridges.torproject.org and get some custom bridge details.

You can add those to your Tor Browser in the Network Settings configuration window. In case the bridges URL is also blocked, you can send an email to bridges@torproject.org from a Gmail, Riseup, or Yahoo account, with the line "get bridges" by itself in the body of the mail. You will get some additional bridge IP addresses as a reply.

I have also been testing the network and measuring censorship with the OONI Probe mobile app . You can use it to test your network, too.