Bitcoin Forum

Since yesterday 300 websites are blocked in India by all internet service providers including youtube, even piratebay is blocked.

So depressing and sad , I am pro net neutrality and the reason the blocking is happening is because the media barons want to make money off FIFA telecast..

Now i am really concerned and scared what if the bitcoin network is blocked by all the  ISP of a country?

Could it happen like that?

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/torrent-and-other-websites-being-blocked-by-isps-in-india-reports-554317

http://telecomtalk.info/has-dot-blocked-file-hosting-and-torrent-websites-in-india/119453/

An ISP can block a port very easily, such as 8333 or 8332

Are you really serious!

After all the promise of decentralized revolution and financial renaissance, all can be just stopped by just blocking a 4 digit port.

I am going to cry!

Well to make it easier, couldn't the intercontental cable providers block this? As in the people who actually own the fiber under the sea. It's only like 4 companies.

Well there is nothing saying you have to use port 8333.  You can easily swap to another port.

yeah, like say, port 80. :)

Oh yeah and that too

To block bitcoin node traffic the ISPs would need to filter out all traffic doing something called deep packet inspection (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_packet_inspection) for all international traffic. As far as I know only China, with its Great Firewall, and some others dictature-led countries are capable of doing it.  I am quite sure India doesn't have this capability. They, most likely, can only blacklist individual IP addresses and domain names.

Who are those 4

I think i should really buy some namecoins and support it

Here are the internet service providers for normal internet service providers:

UUNET
Level 3
Verizon
AT&T
Qwest
Sprint
IBM

Most of them are US owned companies but there is probably more.

It can be done, though it does need quite large investment because doing it at high-speed isn't easy.

Adding additional layer of encryption could fix some of the problems. Forming a connection could still be an issue. Basicly lot of things can be blocked on Internet, but these blocks can be circumvented by encryption, VPN and so on...

Wonder if 53 will work?
 ;)

If an ISP blocks your port you can just use port forwarding and get around it. Do not worry the bitcoin network will not be shutdown withing a day. It has gained enough momentum already and cannot be shutdown so fast. Unless it is a 51% attack which forks the blockchain ofcourse.

The only issue I can think of is finding nodes on non-standard ports.  Are any of the seed nodes on ports other than 8333?

Nobody can shutdown bitcoin network, the problem however is mainstream people shutdown by their government by askng the isp who are financed by the banks

I wonder if it is possible to address this by building a port hopping wallet. Correct me if I am wrong but isn't that how music and video downloaders got around the riaa?

Hey bud, look up the definition of port forwarding before you spout random BS, eh?

Technically, even if there was a "great firewall" on the border of the country, all it'd take is a single node to smuggle data [VPN anyone?] between that firewall. They'd need to implement a firewall / filtering policy at almost access layer to prevent this sort of thing going on.

Honestly, from a tech stand-point, it's nearly impossible to block a competent user from getting around a filtering system other than literally creating a country wide intranet not tied to the internet.

you could use TOR in case of that, i think.

 

I think the whole point here sheds light on a very important aspect of bitcoin going mainstream, which is an average mainstream user not to be blocked by an entity in order to access the blockchain..

Definetly there has to be a project where people can connect to blockchain irrespective of the isp provider

Now i seriously understand and realize the need for mesh networks..

-Program could randomize port usage. (uTorrent is a good common example and has done this for years).
-That whole UPnP thing.
-TOR / VPN / Proxy.


tl;dr - No. _{Well, yes, but only if you decide to be a helpless victim if they try.}

That will be funny, if ISP block port 21, 25, 80 and 443.  ;D

No one can upload anything, use their email, surf the web or login to any site.  ;D

Internet service providers have no interest in blocking anything, all they want is people getting on the net and paying them a monthly subscription.

If the local government requires the ISP to filter the bitcoin network, I think it can be done. The best example would be China. But it would be impossible to completely block the bitcoin network in a country. If only a few nodes penetrates the blockade, the rest of the country can relay through those nodes.

If your a country like Australia for e.g it is easier for the government to block, as there are only a few major exit/entry points for internet. All though I suppose once its banned on a government level all providers are going to give in and block..

Always ways around everything. Bitcoin + Tor works well. Plus hides your IP, if you need that kind of thing..

not a problem ... use P2P strategy like "randomly use" port at every startup (or every hour) ... and erase TCP-IP header when sending datas between member of the network.

like ed2k system with kademlia and obfuscated setting.

BTW, bitcoin is ready for TOR use ... (ognion  line  command)

No.

The nodes of the bitcoin network are decentralized and there is no list of nodes, and nodes can be taken offline or online at any time. So an ISP would have no way of blocking traffic to all of the bitcoin nodes (this is essentially the network when speaking about blocking a connection).

That is a useful bit of information. Thanks for posting it!

I don't think it would be so easily blocked, this is a p2p network (and you relay on available peers). it's not like a fixed website IP but thousands of peers (with ones going online and other ones online every minute). BTW can't you just hotspot shield/tor you way through that ban.

Is it possible that miners will also be blocked?

anyway, chose your FIFA team now and forget about Blocking ISP. now is the time to bet on your team lol
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=665840.0

I don't think that using a random port to use bitcoin wold even be necessary as there are multiple uses for pretty much every port.

It would really be much more complicated then this as there are a number of regulations against blocking traffic like this.

Even if ISPs were to block the bitcoin network in this regard, we could respond by simply changing the port used to a more commonly used port that is sometimes used for other common applications.

ISP can't really block bitcoin. This would be like trying to block a little, tiny crack that is only giving off a drop of water in the hover dam.

Worst case we could implement an encryption system similar to bittorrent clients, this would help evade packet snooping.

 Do not worry about the bitcoin network. Nobody can shutdown bitcoin network even an ISP. Bitcoin network will be strong day by day..

It is very easy for them to block access to websites yes. My ISP has done this on a few websites and now it's impossible to get past it without changing my ISP. I personally do not agree with it unless there is a law in your Country which states these kind of websites or even this currency can not be used.

all u gotta do is port forward or use a vpn to get around this. besides the fact encryption can easily get around this so all outgoing packets and data cannot be anaylzed good luck blocking it hehe;.

A VPN would probably be the best bet if you are in a country that is attempting to block connections to the bitcoin network, or to bitcon related sites. In the US this is really not a problem as ISPs cannot really block these kind of connections due to net neutrality laws.

change the port to 80.
use SSL.
now bitcoin is indistinguishable from gmail/facebook traffic, good luck filtering those in any western country and getting reelected.

Exactly -which- net neutrality laws do you believe apply to this situation?

In that case you can use VPN or other services like TOR, proxies etc so it shouldn't be a bigger issue for many people.