Internet censorship circumvention

Internet censorship circumvention is the use of various methods and tools to bypass internet censorship.

There are many different techniques to bypass such censorship, each with unique challenges regarding ease of use, speed, and security risks. Examples of commonly used tools include Lantern and Psiphon, which combine various approaches to bypass multiple types of safeguards. Some methods, such as the use of alternate DNS servers, use false addresses or address lookup systems to evade less sophisticated blocking tools while the user accesses the site.[1][2] The drawback of this method is that many censors block the IP address of restricted domains in addition to the DNS, rendering the bypass ineffective. Other tools circumvent the tunnel network traffic to proxies from other jurisdictions that do not fall under the same censorship laws. Through the use of technology such as pluggable transports, traffic obscuration,[3] website mirrors, or archive sites, copies of the site available at other locations can be accessed within regions under internet censorship. [4]

An arms race has developed between censors and developers of circumvention software, resulting in more sophisticated blocking techniques by censors and the development of harder-to-detect tools by tool developers.[5] Estimates of adoption of circumvention tools vary substantially and are disputed, but are widely understood to be in the tens of millions of monthly active users.[6][7][8][9] Barriers to adoption can include usability issues,[10] difficulty finding reliable and trustworthy information about circumvention,[11] lack of desire to access censored content,[12] and risks from breaking the law.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference :5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference :03 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ New Technologies Battle and Defeat Internet Censorship Archived 27 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Global Internet Freedom Consortium, 20 September 2007
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference CitizensLab-2007 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Hedencrona, Sebastian (27 September 2012). "China: The Home to Facebook and Twitter?". GlobalWebIndex Blog. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  8. ^ Ong, Josh (26 September 2012). "Report: Twitter's Most Active Country Is China (Where It Is Blocked)". The Next Web. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018. Retrieved 11 December 2018.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Guardian 5 December 2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Lee, Linda; Fifield, David; Malkin, Nathan; Iyer, Ganesh; Egelman, Serge; Wagner, David (1 July 2017). "A Usability Evaluation of Tor Launcher". Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. 2017 (3): 90–109. doi:10.1515/popets-2017-0030. ISSN 2299-0984.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference :6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ Freedom of connection, freedom of expression: the changing legal and regulatory ecology shaping the Internet Archived 28 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Dutton, William H.; Dopatka, Anna; Law, Ginette; Nash, Victoria, Division for Freedom of Expression, Democracy and Peace, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris, 2011, 103 pp., ISBN 978-92-3-104188-4