How do countries operate Internet censorship and what can be done to circumvent it?
By: Uri Fogel, Davidson Institute website, the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science
Anyone who tries to access the Qatari television network Al-Jazeera website from Israel these days may find that they are being redirected Visit the Ministry of Communications website which informs that the site is blocked, or you will simply get a white screen. This blocking is due to From a law passed by the Knesset In 2024, with the aim of restricting the steps of the anti-Israeli media channel. This law is an example of a wide variety of censorship restrictions that governments around the world impose on the Internet. The phenomenon is especially prevalent in authoritarian countries, where the authorities strive to limit the freedom of information of citizens and make it difficult for them to communicate with each other. However, even in Western countries, one can sometimes find restrictions on some of the possible uses of the Internet. For example Italy recently restricted websites Due to suspicion of distributing pirated content.
To understand how governments can impose restrictions and censorship on the Internet, we must first understand What is the Internet? And how do we connect to it? In general, any two computers connected to each other can communicate with each other. Such communication would be quite simple, since they would only be able to transfer between them the information stored in them. If we connect more computers, this would already be a network of computers, in which everyone can communicate with everyone else. The Internet is a combination of many, many huge networks from all over the world that communicate with each other.
When we surf the Internet, at home, at work, or anywhere else, our device is not connected directly to the global network, but to a local provider. The provider is the one that is connected to the Internet, and it allows us, the customers, access to it.
Every website on the Internet has an address called an IP address, just as a person has a residential address. This address is a specific sequence of numbers and sometimes letters. In addition, most websites intended for the general public have a domain name – the well-known and familiar website address that allows us to access the website in a way that is meaningful to us. For example, the Davidson Institute website address is davidson.weizmann.ac.il. When we connect to a website, our Internet service provider converts the website name to its IP address, using a protocol called DNS – Domain Name System, which acts as a kind of dictionary that associates each name with a specific IP address.
No access to the site!
When a country wants to block access to a certain website, It can affect any stage of the process. described here. The first thing it can block is the DNS, that is, to force the Internet providers operating in its territory to delete the IP address of the site from their dictionary. Therefore, if a customer of a local Internet provider enters the website address, he will not be redirected anywhere and will receive an error message. This is the method used by the Ministry of Communications to block the Al Jazeera channel website in Israel. Such a block is quite easy to bypass, since we can simply use a foreign DNS server instead of the provider's, or access the site using the IP address, if we know it.
A more draconian censorship that can be implemented is direct IP blocking, meaning that the state instructs Internet providers operating in its territory to block all traffic to a specific IP address. This blocking is more effective than DNS blocking, but it is also not hermetic. There are two main ways to bypass such a block. The first is to use a proxy – there are ways to connect to a third-party website in another country, to which all traffic from the blocked site is copied. The intermediary website sends the information without identifying the blocked site, so the Internet provider does not know that it should block it. In this way, there is no direct interaction between us and the blocked site. Another solution, which usually involves a fee, is to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network). This is a virtual network that opens on a foreign server, and through which you can communicate with the site.
One of the most famous examples of the use of these two types of blocks is The Great Firewall of China – A huge mechanism operated by the Chinese government to limit the content its citizens are allowed to access online. Due to the extent of the restrictions, the use of VPN services in China is particularly common. In response, Authorities impose restrictions Also on the use of VPNs, and even completely blocked access to some of them.
A combination of many, many huge networks from all over the world that communicate with each other. The World Wide Web | Illustration: Uri Fogel
Breaking the dishes
The most extreme means of internet censorship is Disabling the InternetThe range of restrictions that can be implemented here is wide. The most extreme is of course a complete shutdown of Internet access and the closure of all Internet providers. A more moderate restriction could be a deliberate slowdown of the network, which makes it very difficult to use the network. One way to do this is to downgrade cellular networks from advanced generations, 5G or 4G, to older generations such as 2G. The shutdown could be implemented throughout the country or only in selected areas. The accessnow website In 2023, it documented about 450 internet shutdowns in 39 different countries. A significant portion of these shutdowns occurred in India.
Unlike DNS or IP blocks, internet shutdowns are usually temporary, time-limited measures taken by governments in an effort to control events they find inconvenient, such as large public protests or security unrest. Such blocks are much harder to overcome because the block is applied to all internet traffic – the infrastructure itself – and not just specific content.
Accordingly, Dealing with the blockage More complex and much less accessible to the general public, due to the costs involved and the technological knowledge required for this. The first possible solution is to create an internal network of several computers with a direct connection. Although this is not a satisfactory alternative to the global Internet, at least users will be able to communicate with each other. Another option is to use satellite Internet, which is independent of the state's infrastructure. To do this, a satellite dish and additional accompanying equipment must be installed.
In Israel, the Internet is almost completely free, and most of the blocking and monitoring methods mentioned in this article are only hypothetical for most of us. Let's hope that this will remain the case in the future.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- The transition to the Splinternet era
- Information technology - the network of shadows / Julian Dibble
- The responsibility of the intermediate parties - websites and search engines - for copyright infringement: currently, the balance is tipped in favor of the websites
- The new dictators of the 21st century
