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ListOfServicesBlockingTor

Last edited by Alexander Færøy

List Of Services Blocking Tor

PageOutline(2-3, Page Outline)

The Tor community maintains the following three lists (RBL blocks, Blocking software, and Individual blocks) as part of the DontBlockMe project. It is the opposite of the WeSupportTor project.

Glossary

  • CDN - A Content Delivery Network: these are networks that websites use to serve high amounts of traffic to their clients. CDNs can be geographically distributed to provide "local" copies of web content to people worldwide.
  • Exit relay - This is a Tor relay that exits traffic onto the plain Internet. All Tor traffic (though not when using onion services) appears to originate from these exit relays.
  • Non-exit relay - A Tor relay that does not act as an exit relay. A non-exit relay does not originate any traffic other than to other Tor relays and thus there is no necessary reason for services to block traffic from them. Guard and middle relays are the two types of non-exit relays, and many non-exit relays act as both types at the same time.
  • TCP RST - The TCP reset (or reject) is a way to gracefully close connections. Many services/software to block Tor traffic may block by explicitly closing the connection instead of ignoring the traffic.
  • TCP timeout - A TCP timeout is another way to block Tor traffic on the protocol- or routing-level, however it involves silently ignoring the traffic instead of rejecting it.

List of RBL Blocking Services

An RBL is a "realtime blackhole list" which is a DNS query-based list used to tag IP addresses as being malicious or as being an origin of spam. Due to the inability to filter or monitor Tor user behavior across the entire network, many Tor exit relay IPs will be marked as threatening (even indiscriminately) which means many legitimate web surfers will be incidentally included in such blocks. This is a subproject to routinely search for and clear Tor relay nodes from RBL and RBL-like lists.

Format:

  • [URL] - Description of service/list, threat detection and consequences for Tor users

  • [https://www.abuseat.org/] - Composite Blocking List (CBL) - A Division of SPAMHAUS. By policy, TOR nodes cannot be removed from the CBL list. - Thus, the exact reason for being listed can no longer be established by the individual Tor .Exit Relay operator. Consequently, trying to effectively handle any 'abuse' issues being unfortunately perpetrated from an individual Tor .Exit Relay has become increasingly difficult or impossible when referencing this resource.

  • [https://akismet.com/] - Blog comment spam protection. (Note: Previously this entry was "askimet.com", a misspelled version of "akismet" that redirected to the official site. It is not known whether this was a typo or a malicious website. Edited 10/5/2016)

  • [https://www.blocked.com/] - Web request blocker against proxies and anonymity networks. The site itself is not available over Tor.

  • [https://blogspam.net/] - Blog and forum content spam protection.

  • [https://www.cloudflare.com/] - Announces itself as Cloudflare. Blog post on Tor: https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-trouble-with-tor/.

  • [https://www.dan.me.uk/dnsbl] - Blocklist designed to identify all Tor relays, even ones that do not exit traffic. There are both a list for exit relays as well as for all relays, though the provider does warn against using the list of all relays. The site itself is not available over Tor.

  • [https://www.incapsula.com/] - Announces itself as Incapsula. Blog post on Tor.

  • https://www.imperva.com/ - Announces itself as Personalized Security

  • [https://www.imunify360.com/] - Announces itself as "Imperva Cloud Application Security"

  • [https://www.norse-corp.com/] - Web and networking protection including IP blocking.

  • [https://www.projecthoneypot.org/] - Honeypot for e-mail harvesters by listing unique e-mail addresses on web pages.

  • [https://recaptcha.net/] - the CAPTCHAs given are, on occasion, very difficult and timed [last check: 2015-11-21]

  • [https://stopforumspam.com/] - IP-based blocking service based on forum and blog spam. The site itself is available from some Tor Exits, but not others (403 Forbidden). [last check: 2015-09-15, 1/10 Exits Blocked]

  • [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webroot] - Webroot, specifically their service BrightCloud(R) "Threat Intelligence" (brightcloud.com), provides block lists to customers that includes Tor middle nodes marked as "Proxy." [Last checked 2018-04-17]

List Of Software Used To Block Tor

A listing of the software that has been identified as being used by the services listed below. This can present via another avenue to accomplish the goals of the DontBlockMe project. The format is:

How to unblock Tor users

See: Best Practices. If you run a web site on Cloudflare, and you don't want Tor users to see captchas, then whitelist the "T1" country code in the Access Rules of the Cloudflare Firewall app. See this article for more information. The best option is not using Cloudflare at all. There are many alternative self-hosting options. See The Great Cloudwall for more information.

Ad-hoc Solutions for accessing blocked content on Tor

There are various ad-hoc ways by which Tor Browser users may access websites that block Tor. All of these solutions involve fetching content via other websites, a privacy tradeoff.

= Service = URL Comment Allows embedded non-static content? Allows PDF/.exe/mp3?
The Internet Archive's WaybackMachine web.archive.org/save/_embed/<URL> Archive.org respects robots.txt restrictions, works best with JS enabled No Yes
Archive.fo archive.fo/?run=1&url=<URL> And their official onion service: archivecaslytosk.onion/?run=1&url=<URL> Ideal for news sites, doesn't require JS No No
Google Cache webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:<URL without "http://"> Google sometimes blocks these requests No - static only No
Startpage.com (1) Find the URL by searching, (2) Click on the proxy option Not always efficacious No No
Searx.me (1) Find the URL by searching, (2) Click on the proxied option Not always efficacious No No
Hypothes.is via.hypothes.is/<URL> Behind Cloudflare Yes Yes
Online Proxies hide.me/en/proxy Yes Yes
www.proxysite.com/ Yes Yes
www.proxysite.club/ Yes Yes
hidester.com/proxy JS disabled by default Yes Yes
youtubeunblocks.com/ JS disabled by default Yes Yes

Other relevant services

  • To avoid captchas that are often required when visiting YouTube, use this. To avoid captchas that are often required when visiting YouTube, use hooktube.com/ (behind Cloudflare recaptchas).

  • imgur.com blocks Tor uploads, to upload images on an imgur domain go to a stackexchange website (for example tor.stackexchange.com), click on Ask a Question, use the image upload tooltip to upload the image, the resulting url will have a i.stack.imgur.com/... form.

  • If you want to know which site is harassing Tor users or behind CloudFlare, try using this search engine.

Field guide to common block pages

Akamai

akamai.png, border=2

Access Denied
You don't have permission to access "%websitename%" on this server.
Reference #[\d\.a-f]+

Akamai is a CDN.

Bad Behavior

badbehavior.png, border=2

Bad Behavior is an antispam PHP plugin.

Blackbaud

blackbaud.png, border=2

Not implemented  Tor IP not allowed.

Blackbaud does web hosting for nonprofits.

Bluehost

bluehost.png, border=2

Bluehost is a web hosting company. This seems to be their source code that is the source of the message: mod_rbld.

Cloudflare

Backward compatibility anchor for the old "CloudFlare" name.

[=#CloudFlare] cloudflare.png, border=2

One more step
Please complete the security check to access %websitename%

Cloudflare is a CDN acting as MITM by design, decrypting all TLS (HTTPS) traffic to plaintext and harming users privacy by (feature called flexible SSL) intransparently forwarding traffic from https end-user in plaintext to origin webserver most of time. See The Great Cloudwall.

Distil

distil.png, border=2

Access To Website Blocked

Distil Networks is an anti-bot/anti-scraping company. They also have challenge pages that are less severe than this block page (which has status code 456).

imperva

[=#Imperva] imperva.png, border=2

%websitename% - Additional security check is required
Why am I seeing this page?
The website you are visiting is protected and accelerated by Incapsula. Your computer may have been infected by malware and therefore flagged by the Incapsula network. Incapsula displays this page for you to verify that an actual human is the source of the traffic to this site, and not malicious software.

What should I do?
Just click the I'm not a robot checkbox to pass the security check. Incapsula will remember you and will not show this page again. We recommend you run a virus and malware scan on your computer to remove any infection. 

Powered by imperva

imperva

Imunify360

[=#Imunify360] imunify360.png, border=2

%websitename%
is protected by Imunify360
We have noticed an unusual activity from your IP %exitIP% and blocked access to this website.

Imunify360

List Of Services Blocking Tor

Services should be listed if:

  • They display a written policy that prohibits "Tor" specifically by name.
  • They display a written policy prohibiting proxies, VPNs, open/free networks, travelers, etc.
  • The text of an error message indicates "Tor", anonymous proxies, etc.
  • After testing with "signal NEWNYM / New Identity / MAPADDRESS", access and/or full use via Tor is found to be consistently problematic (defined as affecting at least 80% of all exits).

The list is formatted in alphabetical service groupings as follows:

  • URL of service - nature of block: complete, account creation, read-only, random breakage, etc. [last check: ]

Attention: Please be aware, that this page itself ([https://trac.torproject.org]) does block Tor traffic for registration and editing by showing very hard to read captchas. Try: http://ea5faa5po25cf7fb.onion/projects/tor/register

The List

PageOutline(4-6, Category List, pullout, unnumbered)

The current list is as follows.

Banking / Finance
  • [https://www.2checkout.com/] - the page https://www.2checkout.com/checkout/purchase gives "500 Internal Server Error" [last check: 2018-04-21]
  • [https://personalsavings.americanexpress.com/] - timeout [last check: 2018-01-06]
  • [http://www.bankia.es/] - Blank Page never loads [last check: 2017-12-25]
  • [https://secure.bankofamerica.com] - Partial block, site works but impossible to log in. Returns "We did not recognize the Online ID you entered" for valid ID's.
  • [https://www.bitpanda.com/] - One more step - Please complete the security check to access bitpanda.com (cloudflare) [last check: 2020-04-15]
  • [https://bitcointalk.org/] - Registration may require up to US$5. [last check: 2015-01-04] "it is a known proxy/VPN/Tor exit node, so you are required to pay a small fee before you are able to post messages or send PMs. To atone, you must pay a total of 0.00084575 bitcoins If the fee is so small that your wallet is unable to send it, you can send any larger amount, though you will not be refunded the difference." [last check: 2020-04-24]
  • [https://www.bitstamp.net/] - "This request was blocked by the security rules." [last check: 2020-03-14]
  • [https://buttercoin.com/] - Block page: "VPN or Tor connections are prohibited."; Cloudflare 522 returned from the IP of a non-exit node [last check: 2015-09-17]
  • [https://www.chase.com/] - Does not block Tor, but always asks for verification (email, text or phone call) when using Tor.
  • [https://www.coinbase.com/] - "One more step - Please complete the security check to access" (Cloudflare) [last check: 2017-10-10]
  • [https://www.commbank.com.au/personal/] and other Commonwealth Bank Australia help pages are blocked (Akami), but online banking at [http://netbank.com.au/] works fine. [last check: 2016-02-23]
  • [https://www.lloydsbank.com/] - Sorry, an error has occurred. Error 1007 [last check: 2017-02-11]
  • [https://www.mastercard.de/] - "Access Denied - You don't have permission to access "http://www.mastercard.de/" on this server." [last check: 2020-04-25]
  • [https://www.patreon.com/] - "One more step - Please complete the security check to access" (Cloudflare) [last check: 2017-10-11]
  • [https://santander.de/] - "Access Denied - You don't have permission to access "http://santander.de/" on this server." [last check: 2020-04-15]
  • [https://www.sc.com/] - "Uh oh. As an anonymous user, your access to this network has been blocked. Requests from anonymous users using TOR (The Onion Router) IP addresses are routed through various networks and the identity of the original user cannot be traced, which is a security risk. If you are not using a TOR IP address and continue to receive this message, please get in touch with your local Standard Chartered contact centre." Status code 200. A direct link to the block page seems to be https://www.sc.com/global/error/AnonymousProxy. The block seems to use the same infrastructure as country-level blocking: editing the URL of an in included image leads to the page http://countryblock.standardchartered.com.edgesuite.net/SanctionedCountries/blocked_ctry/: "Uh oh. Standard Chartered Online Banking cannot be accessed from Cuba, N. Korea, Iran, Syria and Crimea/Sevastopol. If you are not in one of these countries and are getting this message, please contact your local Standard Chartered contact centre." [last check: 2018-03-27]
  • [https://www.tdbank.com/] - Blocks Tor, but (as of 2015-01-04) didn't always recognize Tor exit nodes. As of 2020-03-14 blocks 10 out of 10 of exit nodes. (Akamai) [last check: 2020-03-14]
  • [https://investor.vanguard.com] - Blocks Tor - blank page, no error [last check: 2015-04-27]
  • [https://sberbank.ru] - Nullroutes every public node in directory, even those with "ExitPolicy reject :" [last check: 2017-10-22]
  • [https://www.unicredit.it] - UniCredit S.p.A. allows login of middle operators, but blocks every operation of your online banking account. (SMS)"UniCredit informs that the operational activity of your Multichannel Bank has been blocked (COD.005). Please contact the number 800575757"
Blogs ( by engine )
Charity
Commercial
Business-to-User / Retail Shopping
Business-to-Business / Commerce and Industry / Advertising
Classified Ads
Computing / Technical

Education

  • [https://dl.acm.org/] - ACM Digital Library: "403 Error - Access Forbidden" "...we have temporarily restricted your access to the Digital Library. Your activity appears to be coming from some type of automated process. To ensure the availability of the Digital Library we can not allow these types of requests to continue. The restriction will be removed automatically once this activity stops." [last check: 2015-10-04]
  • [http://www.apa.org/] - "Access To Website Blocked" (Distil) from 9/10 Tor Exits, including the oAmerican Psychological Association's journals. [last check: 2016-03-18]
  • [http://attainmentcompany.com/] - Augmentative & Alternative Communication software & device maker; appears to be returning TCP Timeout for non-exit nodes. [last check: 2015-09-15]
  • [http://www.austlii.edu.au/] - AustLII (Australasian Legal Information Institute) website refuses connections from Tor Exits, but other IP addresses work fine. "A joint facility of UTS and UNSW Faculties of Law" [last check: 2015-09-16]
  • [https://cltc.berkeley.edu/] - various forms do an AJAX POST that appears to stall forever. In the background it is receiving a response with status 200: "Access Denied. You have been blocked due to suspicious activity. If you believe this is in error, please email help@ischool/>. Allow Request. You have been blocked from entering information on this blog. In order to prevent this from happening in the future you may ask the owner to add your network address to a list that allows you full access." When I emailed help@ischool about it, they cited the stopforumspam.com database as a reason for blocking the IP, and "considering that this is a cybersecurity website, it would not be a wise choice to unblock that IP address." [last check: 2016-01-28]
  • [http://www.disneyjunior.com/] - iPad and iPhone App IP blocked, "International Agreements/Cannot view outside the US". Customer service confirms IP is "Known Anonymizing Proxy Address". Blocks non-exit relay IPs.
  • [http://www.gotw.ca/] - "The requested URL was rejected."; TCP timeout returned to non-exit relay IP [last check: 2015-09-17]
  • [https://www.gutenberg.org/] - Error 403: "Don't use anonymizers, open proxies, VPNs, or TOR to access Project Gutenberg." (Most but not all exits) [last check: 2017-03-13] For an alternative download site, try https://archive.org/details/gutenberg.
  • [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/] - "ADS Access Denied" custom 403 that mentions Project Honeypot. [last check: 2017-09-13]
  • [http://ibiblio.org/] and subdomains - timeout. [last check: 2017-01-07]
  • [http://www.ieeelcn.org/] (IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks) - timeout. [last check: 2016-05-24]
  • [http://www.justanswer.com/] - "Access Denied" (Akamai) [last check: 2015-04-02]
  • [http://www.lirrhistory.com/] - "The requested URL was rejected. If you think this is an error, please contact the webmaster."; TCP timeout returned to non-exit relay IP [last check: 2015-09-17]
  • [http://www.msudenver.edu/] - timeout [last check: 2018-08-16]
  • [http://sites.nationalacademies.org/] - timeout [last check: 2016-07-13]
  • [http://www.ohsu.edu/] - Blocked from non-exit relay IPs. [last check: 2015-01-23]
  • [http://www.planetary.org/] - Not Implemented Tor IP not allowed (Convio/Blackbaud) [last check: 2015-10-04]
  • [http://www.popsci.com/] - "You are receiving this error message because your ip (x.x.x.x) is listed in the StopForumSpam.com database." [last check: 2015-11-25]
  • [http://www.questbridge.org/] - QuestBridge homepage refuses connections from Tor Exits, but the "Apply" subpage blocks all Tor nodes.
  • [https://study.com/] - "403 Forbidden" returned when accessing any page. [last check: 2016-09-29]
  • Wikimedia projects including [https://wikipedia.org/] - Reading free and supported; can also edit, after email request
  • [https://www.sciencedirect.com/] [last check: 2018-03-16] - Akamai.
  • [https://web.archive.org/] - saving is prohibited with a deliberately ambiguous message "

    Unknown Error

    failed to archive the URL. specifics of failure is unknown

    " (sic!).

Entertainment

  • [http://www.gocomics.com/] - timeout [last check: 2018-01-29]
  • [http://www.montypython.net/] - "Malicious activity has been detected from your computer or another computer on your network." Status line HTTP/1.1 481 Request rejected due to security concerns. Please contact the website administrator for more information. Offers a captcha and submits form to /?_xv_waf=challenge. last check: [2017-03-27]
  • Block page provider isn't evident, but the block page of http://vtem.net/ shares the same recaptcha data-sitekey="6LcGhiETAAAAANnZZKj2kQ3N5DSLOrG1agDFWkx7".
  • [https://noisetrade.com/] - blank response with status code 200. [last check: 2017-05-19]
  • [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/] - Akamai. [last check: 2018-05-07]
  • [http://www.simpsonsworld.com/] - Akamai. [last check: 2017-04-28]
Forums / Imageboards
  • [http://4chan.org/] - "Permanently banned from all boards: Proxy/Tor exit node." - Read-only allowed, posting blocked.
  • [http://www.albumartexchange.com/] - "www.albumartexchange.com is protected by BlockScript. Your request was blocked because you appear to be accessing this website from a Tor exit node." [last check: 2015-04-27]
  • [https://arstechnica.com] "Uh oh - it looks like your IP address or email has been reported by another forum system as a source of spam. Ars Technica uses StopForumSpam to keep our forums and comments clear of unwanted solicitations and malware. In order to register as an Ars Technica user, you will need to first clear up the issue with StopForumSpam. You can do that by filling out their handy contact form and explaining your situation." [last check: 2016-04-29]
  • [http://bash.org/] - timeout. [last check: 2016-12-18]
  • [http://www.boards.ie/] - TCP Connection timeout (also bans known VPN services) [last check: 2015-01-04]
  • [https://drugs-forum.com/] - "Error 403" (Bad Behavior) returned when accessing any page [last check: 2015-04-27]
  • [http://www.funtrivia.com/] - "Access Denied: code FTTT" with status 200. [last check: 2017-11-26]
  • [https://www.jeuxvideo.com/] - "Votre adresse IP a été bloquée." - Read-only, can't subscribe or log in. [last check: 2015-05-01]
  • [https://www.juraforum.de/] - "Forbidden You don't have permission to access / on this server." [last check: 2020-04-16]
  • [http://knowyourmeme.com/] - looks custom: "Your ip address 185.3.135.50 has been banned. If you think this is a mistake then please contact bans@knowyourmeme.com immediately and make sure to include your ip address." [last check: 2016-02-13]
  • [=#marioboards][http://www.marioboards.com/] - connection timeout. Possibly related to [#mariowiki the www.mariowiki.com block] (which is also a timeout) [last check: 2016-12-16]
  • [http://forums.scribus.net/] - "Error 403" (Bad Behavior) [last check: 2017-07-31]
  • [https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/] - nginx 403. [last check: 2018-01-02]
  • [https://stackexchange.com/] and subservices like [https://stackoverflow.com/] and [https://tor.stackexchange.com/] - you can read questions, but doing a search sometimes results in: "Human Verification: Are you a human being? We apologize for the confusion, but we can't quite tell if you're a person or a script. Please don't take this personally. Bots and scripts can be remarkably lifelike these days!" with a Google captcha. It looks like the error page is always available at https://stackoverflow.com/nocaptcha. [last check: 2015-08-05]
Gaming
Government services / Publicly-funded resources
Clusters:
Health / Medical
Image Hosting
Jobs
  • [https://angel.co/captcha/blocked/TBLKIP] - "Your IP address has been temporarily blocked for security reasons. Sorry for the trouble. If you have an AngelList account, try logging in. If you're on a VPN or other proxy, try disconnecting. If you're having persistent issues connecting to AngelList, please email team@angel.co with your name, your AngelList profile URL, and (optionally) your company name and telephone number. Error code: TBLKIP"
IRC / SIP / XMPP / "non-web" network communication services and messaging

For information specific to IRC, see Blocking IRC

  • [https://kiwiirc.com/client] - "Error Connecting (DNSBL blocked (195.154.56.44))" [last check: 2016-03-09]
  • [https://webchat.oftc.net/] - "== ERROR: Anonymous TOR usage is unavailable" [last check: 2016-03-09]
  • Skype - Login attempts via a Tor exit node are rejected (since 2013, see list and blog): load icon spins forever; experience shows it can take ~6 weeks for a new exit node to be blacklisted
  • irc.mozilla.org - "Looking up your hostname... You're banned! ERROR :Closing link: (unknown@...) [Z-Lined: Tor exit server detected]" [last check: 2017-01-11]
  • [http://chat.efnet.org:9090/] - "*** Banned Temporary K-line 4320 min. - TOR exit node found. Visit http://rbl.efnetrbl.org/?i=93.115.95.201 for info. (2017/2/28 18.27)" [last check: 2017-03-01]
Mail services
News media
Professional
  • [http://www.actorsequity.org/] - "This request is blocked by the SonicWALL Gateway Geo IP Service. Country Name:Anonymous Proxy." [last check: 2016-09-17]
Search engines
  • [http://www.azlyrics.com/] - Site consistently is not accessible over Tor (TCP RST) for some unknown reason. This seems rather bizarre for a lyrics database site, assuming blocking the Tor connections is intentional. [last check: 2016-02-15]
  • [https://tineye.com/] - "403 Forbidden, Your IP has been blocked from TinEye because it appears that you are not adhering to our Terms of Service." [last check: 2017-03-13]
  • [https://www.ecosia.org/] - Returns "404 Not Found" but non-Tor IPs can access it.
  • [https://www.google.com/] - Almost always shows the message "403. That’s an error. Your client does not have permission to get URL /sorry/IndexRedirect?continue=". Otherwise shows a captcha before permitting searching. In most cases after you have solved a captcha it will give you infinite chain of captchas. If the first attempt failed, change identity and try again. [last check: 2016-03-30]
  • [https://www.yahoo.com/] - Yahoo temporarily blocks IPs sending too many queries. No workaround provided.
Social
Social networking
Communities / Friends / Interests

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