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Defeating censorship

Submitted by Karthik on 27 July, 2006 - 14:38

This page exists as a result of this story.

This document is a work in progress:

Common techniques used to defeat censors:

  1. Using proxies: Proxies act as middlemen between you and the website that has been blocked. They can be used to retrieve the page on your behalf, thereby bypassing the censor. There are various kinds of proxies out there. The proxy guide has more information.
  2. Using web caches: Search engines, proxy caches and archive sites quite frequently save copies of websites on their servers which can be retrieved in lieu of a censored site.
  3. Retrieving pages via e-mail: A number of services are available on the Internet that facilitate the retrieval of web pages via e-mail. While the primary purpose of such services is to cater to users with limited access to the Internet, bypassing network restrictions is a very handy side-effect.
  4. Using alternate DNS servers: Some ISPs prefer to block/poison DNS requests for the (censored) site, rather than blocking the entire IP address. In such circumstances, using alternate, uncensored DNS servers can turn out to be an easy workaround.