How to circumvent internet censorship

Internet censorship controls or suppresses what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the internet authorized by governments, private regulators, and educational institutes.

Censorship is usually enforced for social norms, security concerns, or to increase productivity (in cases where educational institutes and enterprises impose censorship).

Circumvention of censorship

There are many methods to circumvent internet censorship. Some of them are mentioned below:

VPN or proxies

If some address, protocol, or keyword is blocked, we can route our request through a proxy or a VPNVirtual Private Network:

• In the case of a proxy, the request made by the user would be forwarded (and returned) through an intermediary node. The packet's source address would be of that node and not the original server's blocked address. If some protocol is blocked, proxies can wrap the packet inside their packet header to hide the original protocol. And if some keyword is blocked, the proxies can encrypt the data.

• A VPN encrypts and sends all internet data from our computer through a
  server. Once a VPN service is configured correctly, we can use it to access webpages, e-mail, and any other internet service. The ISPInternet Service Provider and the router can see that the computer is using a VPN, but the data is hidden.

ToR browser

ToR is an open-source browser designed to give users anonymity on the web. ToR routing enables users to circumvent censorship. ISPs can detect a user using ToR but cannot see which site they are visiting. Similarly, the site owner cannot detect the source of the user.

Alternative DNS

• If ISPs are only relying on DNS blocking, we can try changing our DNS provider and use encrypted DNS to have access.

• If the encrypted DNS does not resolve the address, a DNS in another country can be used, for example, 8.8.8.8.

Bypass DNS if the IP address is known

Users can also try typing the IP address instead of the domain name as part of a URL given to a web browser to circumvent censorship.

Encrypted protocols

Protocols sent over TLS/SSL and HTTPS encrypt the packets, and blocks due to keywords or URLs will be circumvented.

Note: The domain name is left unencrypted in the handshake when using HTTPS.

Satellite ISP to access the Internet

Satellite ISP can be used to access the internet. If the telephone and internet
services are blocked, the only option left is to use satellite
services. It is important to note that since these are wireless, they can be jammed.

The extent of internet censorship and the techniques to circumvent it varies from country to country. While some countries have moderate censorship, which can be easily avoided, others go to the extreme to even block information such as news to silence the discussion among the citizens.