New structure for guide on censorship circumvention

  • Intro: If you are not able to visit websites that are important for your activities, this might be due to blockages implemented in your local network, by your ISP or by your government. These blockages are often a form of censorship, but in most cases you can reach the blocked websites by using several tools. This chapter offers a list of tools that can help you circumvent censorship and other kinds of internet filtering, describing what they do and what you should consider when using each of them.

  • Check that the website is really blocked:

    • https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
    • Try changing your DNS server
    • Try restarting your browser
    • Try clearing the browser cache
    • Try using a different browser or disabling your browser extensions
    • If the website is really down, use one of the tools below

Tools to circumvent censorship:

  • VPNs
    • How they work
    • Risks: Tunnelvision; DNS Leaks and how to test; you are moving your point of trust from your local network and internet service provider to the VPN provider. They can be blocked just as the websites you want to visit.
    • How to choose a VPN
      • Will it work for you? – Do you know other people in your situation who are using this VPN? Have you confirmed with them that it does its job? If this is not the case, does the VPN offer a free trial so you can make sure it will work for you before you sign a contract? Especially if you are planning to use specific tools with your VPN (e.g. Torrent), it’s a good idea to check whether the VPN will work with that tool.
      • Is it trustworthy? – The most important question is whether you can trust the company or organization providing the service. When using a VPN, you are moving your point of trust from your local network and internet service provider to the VPN provider. Ask yourself if changing who can see your traffic really reduces your risks. The VPN provider will now be potentially able to observe your internet traffic instead, so you will want to ensure that you can trust them by considering the points below.
        • What’s its mission? – To be sure a VPN is trustworthy, the first thing you should research is its mission or business model: what are the goals of the people managing it? Is the VPN managed by activists who want to fight surveillance or by a company? And if it is a company, who founded it? Does it have a public face, and what background do the founders have?
        • Does it keep logs? – Another important feature to consider is whether the VPN keeps logs – sooner or later, state authorities will ask a VPN to hand over data on one of its users for some investigation. Especially if the VPN is managed by a commercial company, it will be bound to collaborate with the investigators if it wants to stay in business. In such cases, the only way a VPN can avoid handing over data and breaching its user's trust is by not having any data stored in its servers, i.e. by just keeping the logs it needs for troubleshooting and not storing anything else. You can check the privacy policy and terms of service of a VPN to figure out whether they keep logs or not. Also check the VPN’s history: did it already receive requests for information by state authorities? How did it respond?
        • Has it been audited? – A way of making sure that a VPN is willing to protect its users as it promises to do in its advertising is by checking whether it undergoes regular audits by reputable third parties. Since the protection granted by a VPN relies on the way its infrastructure is set up and managed, the only possible way to check whether it is really secure is by submitting its infrastructure to regular tests. So you should check whether it undergoes regular audits, when it was last audited and whether the servers where audited. If they only had their apps audited and not the backend infrastructure, you can't be sure what they do with your data when it goes through their servers.
        • Where is it based? – Are the company's headquarters in a country that would comply with a request by authorities from your country? And is that country enforcing human rights and consumer protection? It is important to know whether the VPN will respect your privacy and rights, and whether it will be forced to collaborate with your country's authorities – especially if you are using the VPN to secure activities that your country severely cracks down upon. Also read the VPN's privacy policy and terms of service to check how they would respond to requests for information by authorities, and check if they already had to respond to such requests in the past and what they did in such cases.
        • How large is the network? – How many servers does the VPN have, and in how many locations? The larger the network, the more reliable your connection will be. It's also important to check whether the VPN has servers close to your region, as connections will probably be faster if you can use servers closer to you.
        • What technology does it use? – Does the VPN use modern technology that really encrypts your connection and a reliable protocol? As of December 2023, it’s a good idea to look for services that provide at least 256-bit encryption and a modern VPN protocol like the open source WireGuard or OpenVPN protocols.
        • Does it include a kill switch feature? – In case of connectivity issues, the VPN might disconnect and your connection could become suddenly insecure without you knowing. To avoid this risk the best VPN services feature a kill switch that will automatically stop all connections whenever you have a connectivity issue. Please note that some operating systems (e.g. Android) provide a similar feature.
      • What do you need a VPN for? – First of all, remember that sometimes a VPN might not be the ideal tool for you! If you need to be sure your traffic cannot be traced back to you in any way, consider using the Tor Browser rather than a VPN. If, on the other hand, you want to protect yourself from commercial tracking, probably installing free privacy extensions in your browser might be enough for you.

Sometimes the available VPNs don't work and you are still unable to reach the websites you need to visit. In such cases you can consider the following options:

  1. Collaborating with others to create your own VPN
  2. Using dedicated censorship circumvention tools like Lantern or Psiphon
  3. Using Tor - this is particularly important if your main concern is not about the internet censorship, but about being identified as a user of censored resources because visiting certain websites or doing certain activities online is illegal and sanctioned in your country.
    • Using Tor with bridges - just like a VPN, also Tor might be censored in your country. Explain what bridges are and how to use them.
  4. Using tools based on decentralized networks:
  5. Installing software with Paskoocheh https://asl19.org/en/projects/paskoocheh

Advanced: Partner with OONI

[Move the sections on how the internet works and how websites are blocked to another guide]

Edited by fpagano