Tor Project launches new WebTunnel bridge to help users in heavily censored areas

In recognition of World Day Against Cyber Censorship, the Tor Project's Anti-Censorship Team has unveiled WebTunnel, an innovative Tor bridge designed to facilitate connections to the Tor network for users in heavily censored areas. This new tool has been incorporated into the stable version of Tor Browser, adding to the Tor Project's suite of censorship circumvention technology.

WebTunnel is a pluggable transport that resists censorship by emulating encrypted web traffic (HTTPS). It is based on HTTPT and operates by encapsulating the payload connection within a WebSocket-like HTTPS connection. To an observer without knowledge of the concealed route, it appears as a standard HTTPS connection, giving the impression of regular web browsing.

One of WebTunnel's unique features is its ability to coexist with a website on the same network endpoint, including the same domain, IP address, and port. This enables a standard traffic reverse proxy to forward both regular web traffic and WebTunnel to their respective application servers. Consequently, a visitor to the shared network address will only see the website content and remain unaware of the hidden bridge.

Currently, there are 60 WebTunnel bridges hosted worldwide, with over 700 daily active users across various platforms. The ongoing development of diverse types of bridges is vital for enhancing Tor's resilience against censorship and maintaining an edge over adversaries.

For those interested in becoming a Tor bridge operator to assist others in connecting to Tor, the Tor Community portal provides the necessary requirements and instructions for running a WebTunnel bridge.