In recent years, a team of academics, students and defenders of human rights have pushed for universities like UNAM or the Metropolitan Autonomous University, to work with infrastructure for the Tor network. Its projects focus on the use of anonymous inboxes for whistleblowers in journalistic writing and human rights defense work. Civil society and communities have boosted the use of the Tor network. In Mexico, there are between 10,000 and 15,000 users per day according to Tor. Onion routing provides anonymity by transmitting data from the websites we visit through a series of three relays, in such a manner that the final destination cannot know the connection’s origin.
Journalists and defenders of human rights often put their lives at risk by doing their job. In 2020, Mexico came 143 out of 180 countries in terms of press freedom, according to Reporters without Borders. Mexico is a country where freedom of speech is threatened, and this could thereby explain the interest in having a secure way of interacting online. To this end, it relies on a network of more than 6000 nodes or relays that provide a worldwide anonymous routing, also known metaphorically as “onion routing” because of the various layers that make up this network. It offers alternatives for those who wish to exercise freedom of access and speech online by maintaining their privacy and anonymity. The Tor network is a free and open-source software that is used throughout the world for anonymous communication. This is a worrying finding for defenders of free speech and privacy, since it is viewed as a setback in the exercise of rights.
This is what a team of researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Magma project, of which the authors of this article are members, found in their recent investigations. Mexico is one of Latin America’s most active countries on the Tor network, yet the country’s most popular telecommunications operator, Telmex, has practically blocked the network’s entire host system. Co-authored by Vasilis Ververis, from the Magma Project. Published in Global Voices Advox on June 1, 2020.
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