Leaping Over the Firewall: A Review of Censorship Circumvention Tools

Leaping Over the Firewall: A Review of Censorship Circumvention Tools

Internet censorship poses a large and growing challenge to online freedom of expression around the world. Censorship circumvention tools are critical to bypass restrictions on the internet and thereby to protect free expression online.

Circumvention tools are primarily designed to bypass internet filtering. Therefore, the core principle behind these technologies is to find alternative paths for data packets. These alternative paths use one or more collaborative servers in order to bypass the network of blocking mechanisms.

This document provides a comparison among different circumvention tools, both in terms of their technical merits, as well as how users of these tools describe their experience with them. The countries included in this report are Azerbaijan, Burma, China and Iran.

Internet censorship poses a large and growing challenge to online freedom of expression around the world. Censorship circumvention tools are critical to bypass restrictions on the internet and thereby to protect free expression online.

Circumvention tools are primarily designed to bypass internet filtering. Therefore, the core principle behind these technologies is to find alternative paths for data packets. These alternative paths use one or more collaborative servers in order to bypass the network of blocking mechanisms.

This document provides a comparison among different circumvention tools, both in terms of their technical merits, as well as how users of these tools describe their experience with them. The countries included in this report are Azerbaijan, Burma, China and Iran.

+ Full Report (PDF)

Source: Freedom House

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