Censorship Circumvention Protocols

A protocol is a set of rules and standards that determine how data is transmitted or received across a network. Protocols define the format of the messages and data, timing, sequencing, and error checking of the data transferring on a network. A censorship circumvention protocol is a set of rules and standards for communication (usually between a server and a client) that are meant to be harder to identify and censor. This is usually done by making the traffic resemble another common protocol. For example, a censorship circumvention protocol might make all traffic look like normal HTTPS traffic, making it harder to block the protocol as it would break most of the internet and be extremely costly to perform. Alternatively, they might make the traffic look like random noise and thus undetectable.

As censorship firewalls like the GFW evolve, new protocols emerge as well. Because of that, something that might have worked yesterday might not work today.

This section will cover protocols, how they can be set up for use as a server and a client, and what privacy measures should be taken for each of them.