......Computing and the Internet for the Majority of the World
2007 Circumvention Landscape Report: Methods, Uses, and Tools
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is pleased to make available its
report on techniques and tools for circumventing Internet
filtering:
Hal Roberts, Ethan Zuckerman, and John Palfrey, 2007 Circumvention
Landscape Report: Methods, Uses, and Tools
_Report>
As the Internet has exploded over the past fifteen years, recently reaching
over a billion users, dozens of national governments have tried to control
the network by filtering out content objectionable to the countries for any
of a number of reasons. A large variety of different projects have developed
tools that can be used to circumvent this filtering, allowing people in
filtered countries access to otherwise filtered content.
In this report, the authors describe the mechanisms of filtering and
circumvention and evaluate ten projects that develop tools that can be used
to circumvent filtering. These tools were evaluated in 2007 -- using both
tests from within filtered countries and tests within a lab environment --
for their utility, usability, security, promotion, sustainability, and
openness.
The report was completed in 2007 and released to a group of private
sponsors. Many of the findings of the report are now out of date, but we
present them now, as is, because we think that the broad conclusions of the
report about these tools remain valid and because we hope that other
researchers will benefit from access to the methods used to test the tools.
The authors find that all of the tools use the same basic mechanisms of
proxying and encryption but that they differ in their models of hosting
proxies. Some tools use proxies that are centrally hosted, others use
proxies that are peer hosted, and others use re-routing methods that use a
combination of the two. The authors find that, in general, the tools work in
the sense that they allow users to access pages that are otherwise blocked
by filtering countries but that performance of the tools is generally poor
and that many tools have significant, unreported security vulnerabilities.
Responses from developers of the tools in question are included in the
report.
Seth Young
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard University
+1.617.384.9135
report on techniques and tools for circumventing Internet
filtering:
Hal Roberts, Ethan Zuckerman, and John Palfrey, 2007 Circumvention
Landscape Report: Methods, Uses, and Tools
_Report>
As the Internet has exploded over the past fifteen years, recently reaching
over a billion users, dozens of national governments have tried to control
the network by filtering out content objectionable to the countries for any
of a number of reasons. A large variety of different projects have developed
tools that can be used to circumvent this filtering, allowing people in
filtered countries access to otherwise filtered content.
In this report, the authors describe the mechanisms of filtering and
circumvention and evaluate ten projects that develop tools that can be used
to circumvent filtering. These tools were evaluated in 2007 -- using both
tests from within filtered countries and tests within a lab environment --
for their utility, usability, security, promotion, sustainability, and
openness.
The report was completed in 2007 and released to a group of private
sponsors. Many of the findings of the report are now out of date, but we
present them now, as is, because we think that the broad conclusions of the
report about these tools remain valid and because we hope that other
researchers will benefit from access to the methods used to test the tools.
The authors find that all of the tools use the same basic mechanisms of
proxying and encryption but that they differ in their models of hosting
proxies. Some tools use proxies that are centrally hosted, others use
proxies that are peer hosted, and others use re-routing methods that use a
combination of the two. The authors find that, in general, the tools work in
the sense that they allow users to access pages that are otherwise blocked
by filtering countries but that performance of the tools is generally poor
and that many tools have significant, unreported security vulnerabilities.
Responses from developers of the tools in question are included in the
report.
Seth Young
Berkman Center for Internet & Society
Harvard University
+1.617.384.9135
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