A Taxonomy of Censors and Anti-Censors

Abstract

The tug-of-war on the Internet between censor and anti-censor technologies is intensifying. With an aim to raise awareness on Internet censorship and its circumvention, this paper and its companion Part II present a conceptual study of Internet censorship and anti-censorship. This first paper focuses on Internet censorship. It outlines an historical account of censorship through the lens of news coverage in the past decade, and presents a taxonomy of the principles, techniques, and technologies of Internet censorship. The interplay between social, political, and technological factors is presented to highlight the challenges in anti-censorship. Part II of the paper focuses on anti-censorship.

An Analysis of Internet Censorship Circumvention Techniques

“…There are three main steps of censorship and its circumvention: (1) monitoring and surveillance, (2) blocking, filtering, and modifying content, (3) recording events [1]. The second step is the main focus in this article.…”

“…Censorship is defined as institution, system or practice of reading communication and deleting material considered sensitive or harmful [1]. Sometimes, technological advances not only make it easier for the exchange and spread of information and knowledge, it also may increase the practice and frequency of censorship.…”

Networked Creativity on the Censored Web 2.0: Chinese Users' Twitter-based Activities on the Issue of Internet Censorship

“…Some researchers summarize the counter-censorship technologies adopted by Chinese users (see Burnett & Feamster, 2013;Leberknight, Chiang, Poor, &Wong, 2012), and more recent studies examine how Chinese users bypass the GFW for seeking information seeking, socializing and entertainment (Yang & Liu, 2014). Chinese Internet users' adoption of anti-censorship tools is predicated on an array of factors, including attitude towards censorship, willingness to self-censor, political and media trust, and digital literacy (Mou, Wu, &Atkin, 2014).…”

CloudTransport: Using Cloud Storage for Censorship-Resistant Networking

“…IP address blacklisting is the most basic technique used by many censors [30]. A natural way to circumvent the filter is to access blacklisted destinations via a proxy, e.g., Psiphon [40].…”

“…There is a wide variety of censorship technologies [30]. Most of them exploit the fact that circumvention traffic is easy to recognize and block at the network level.…”