Routing around censorship

The Olympic Games in China in 2008 played host to a new sport that wasn't on the official roster: firewall jumping. German-based hacking group the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) developed a technique to help circumvent the Golden Shield (aka, the Great Firewall of China).^1 The actions of governments in restricting Internet access have resulted in a variety of anti-censorship tools and technologies. These range from the Chaos Computer Club's USB key-based Freedom Stick to covert networks. Yet the restrictions on Internet access still increase, with some governments attempting to kill Internet access altogether at times of national crisis. While dissident groups and even some state actors work hard to subvert or route around these attempts at censorship, Danny Bradbury finds that the use of such circumnavigation tools is patchy and at a very low level of take-up.