Dear friends, I have been asked to explain how four mechanisms of censorship circumvention work using some sort of analogy that any layman could understand. I proposed the analogy of surfing the Internet as traveling and firewalls as ticket inspectors checking where you are going as described below.
So I would love to get from those of you who are familiar with censorship circumvention methods some feedback on how useful/accurate such an analogy is and ways to fix it. If you have another suggestion, I would love to know it because I could use it instead if it made more sense. This is all under development so changes can be accommodated. Note that I want the analogy to make it easier to understand each circumvention method without implying something that is inaccurate when it comes to the limitations and abilities of each method. ============== Technology today offers a variety of Internet censorship circumvention solutions to bypass those ISP-imposed firewalls. To illustrate some ways of how Internet censorship could be circumvented. I don’t know about you, but I truly love to travel. So let me present this simple analogy of travel. *Using a particular website = Visiting to a particular town* * * *Protocol used (http, ftp, ssh, pop3, ....) = mode of transportation (taxi, bus, minibus, train, plane,..) * *Censorship authority (firewall) = Ticket inspector * And let us imagine that surfing the web, having a video chat or playing online games, etc. are all forms of travel. The different applications are like different transportation (e.g., train, car, sea, air). As a user in a country where there’s Internet censorship, you’re like a tourist hoping to buy a ticket to a particular destination as you can’t get out without having your ticket checked by the ticket inspector, who serves as the gatekeeper. Heavy censorship means very few destinations could be reached because tickets to forbidden destinations won’t be permitted by the ticket inspector. Now there are several methods of getting to a town that is normally off access. *Web-proxies: * If you get access to a web-based proxy, then it’s like having a ticket to an allowed destination that is not on the blocked list. However, that very destination is merely a transfer point where you could go to one more destination without any additional tickets. So while the ticket inspector thought you were going to a particular town, that town was basically used as a transfer point to another town that you were originally supposed not to go to. However, the ultimate destination could only be reached based on the conditions of the proxy station, which may not be convenient (too slow transportation, no air conditioning, etc., planting surveillance devices). But because the ticket inspector doesn't know, he let you go any way. Remember that this setting allowed you to only get one single ride. To go to another destination, you need to come back and take another ride. Surveillance is often possible to limit if the web-based proxy allows the use of SSL (adding an ‘s’ to http on the address bar). *HTTP/SOCKS proxies: * Through the HTTP/SOCKS proxy method, you’d get a pass that would allow you to go to one allowed destination and then from there, you would have free transfers on all the trains of the world. However, when you visit insecure websites (that don't start with https) with this method, you’ll sacrifice your privacy because you'll need to install a spyware device on your leg to track your movement for the ticket inspector to know where you are going. So when you come after a long vacation, authorities would know what you have been up to and what you bought and where you've been all this time . You might be in big trouble if you did naughty stuff while you were on the different trips. *SSH Tunnels:* Through a locally opened SSH tunnel, you would get a pass to an allowed destination that would grant you free access to not only trains, but also buses all over the world. At the same time, you also won’t be tracked. So you are really protecting yourself from being spied on while enjoying visiting almost all the destinations you wanted except the ones that can’t be reached by land. *VPNs: * And through VPNs, you show a pass to an allowed destination, from where you will be free to use all methods of transportation including land, sea and air. Furthermore, your movement or baggage would not be inspected. It’s the ultimate method that would allow you to be totally free in seeing the world with no restrictions. ============== Your feedback is welcome. Sincerely, Walid ----------------- Walid Al-Saqaf Founder & Administrator alkasir for mapping and circumventing cyber censorship https://alkasir.com PGP: https://alkasir.com/doc/admin_alkasir_pub_key.txt
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