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Why Do London Airports Block the Tor Project's Website?

• http://motherboard.vice.com

Some London airports are blocking access to websites distributing privacy-focused technology, including the Tor Project.

Torproject.org is the website of the non-profit that maintains the Tor anonymity software; tails.boum.org, which can be used to download the operating system Tails, is also blocked at both Heathrow and Stansted airports in London. I recently tried to access the Tor Project site in Heathrow, and sure enough, it was locked off.

Weirdly, neither Heathrow Airport nor Arqiva, the company the provides the airport's web-filtering service, could really explain why.

According to Heathrow Airport's FAQ on its wifi service, the network's third-party filtering software, "will automatically block access to certain types of websites and content which is deemed as inappropriate."

But how that applies to the Tor Project and Tails isn't clear.

Julia Weir, the head of PR at Heathrow Airport, told Motherboard in a phone call, "This is a standard product that we bought off-the-shelf from Arqiva."

"It doesn't seem to be something that our team here has nominated or anything like that," she said.

Steve Litwin, a service relationship manager at Arqiva, wrote in an email that websites are filtered by category, and are "based on the requirements of Heathrow Airport." Litwin didn't know which category torproject.org would fall into; Arqiva uses the services of cybersecurity company OpenDNS.