Assignment required for Principles of Information Assurance (PIA) at South Arkansas Community College. PIA is an introductory course with a broad overview of information security and data confidentiality This presentation details the use of TOR (The Onion Router) in circumventing censors in countries which restrict and/or block Internet access. I focused on two countries with a publicized history of Internet censorship and robust technological capabilities: China and Saudi Arabia. The purposes of censorship, methods used in addition to the pros and cons of two of the most well-known circumvention tools (VPN and TOR) are discussed.

1. TOR AS AN ATTACK TOOL
PENETRATING FIREWALLS IN REPRESSIVE REGIMES

2. COUNTRIES WHICH CENSOR
THE INTERNET
▪ China
▪ Cuba
▪ Iran
▪ North Korea
▪ Russia
▪ Saudi Arabia
▪ Many other countries as well!

3. PURPOSES OF CENSORSHIP
1
Prevent political
opposition from becoming
powerful
2
To protect societal norms
and morality (LGBT rights,
minority rights, women’s
rights, etc.)
3
Security concerns
(blocking malware,
extremist sites, etc.)
4
Economic interests (The
Pirate Bay, other P2P
sites)
5
Network tools used for
accessing/sharing
sensitive or embarrassing
material (Facebook, TOR)

4. METHODS OF CENSORSHIP
China
▪ DNS Blocking
▪ IP Address Blocking
▪ URL Keyword Blocking
▪ Keyword Scanning of Web Pages
Saudi Arabia
▪ International Traffic to Proxy Farm/Content Filter
▪ ISU (Internet Services Unit) Blacklists (2)

5. METHODS OF CENSORSHIP: KEYWORDS/TOPICS
China
▪ Impeach
▪ Quit the party
▪ Chinese Current Affairs
▪ Chinese World Forum
▪ Tiananmen incident
*Keywords obtained by The Washington Post from
a Chinese blog host provider.
Saudi Arabia
• Gambling
• Human Trafficking
• Pornography
• Anything deemed to be against Islam, public
morals or public order
*Taken directly from Article 6 of The Anti-Cyber
Crime Law (2006)

6. CIRCUMVENTING CENSORSHIP-METHODS
▪ Virtual Private Networks (VPN)-use encryption
to disguise Internet traffic, thereby bypassing
the Great Firewall.
• The Onion Router (TOR)-uses nodes and relays
managed by volunteers to reroute traffic and
disguise a user’s IP address.

7. PROS AND CONS
VPN (PROS)
• Can choose the location of the VPN, therefore
having access to country-specific sites (Hulu,
Netflix, Pandora)
• Many VPNs accept Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency
which is difficult to tie to an individual (though it
is NOT completely anonymous!).
TOR (PROS)
• Run by volunteers (Pro and Con!)
• Difficult to break (though intelligence/LE
agencies have had some success in this area)
• Used by government agencies (rough indicator
of reliability, though obviously not a guarantee)
• Pluggable Transports can circumvent even the
strictest of censors

8. PROS AND CONS
VPN (CONS)
• VPN providers can be discovered more easily
and then blocked
• May be required to adhere to the rules of the
country in order to operate
• Policies regarding retention of Personally
Identifiable Information (IP address) may not be
acceptable for those in corrupt regimes where
accessing illegal (by their government’s
standards) content is punished severely.
TOR (CONS)
• Can be slow at times
• Some technical skill is necessary to set up and
troubleshoot
• If there is some difficulty in installing/setting up,
obtaining assistance can be difficult due to
information about TOR being censored in some
countries (unless a person has an IT friend)

9. QUESTIONS?

10. RESOURCES
• https://www.torproject.org/
• https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2007-08/international-freedom-of-
info/china_2.html
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/18/AR2006021800554.html
• http://www.citc.gov.sa/en/RulesandSystems/CITCSystem/Documents/LA_004_%20E_%20Anti-
Cyber%20Crime%20Law.pdf
• https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/05/top-ten-internet-censors/5222385/#