Guest_Jim_* Posted August 19, 2015 Posted August 19, 2015 The Great Firewall of China is a rather well-known example of a state censoring the Internet its citizens can view, but it is not unique and not limited to those within China. It has previously been discovered that Internet traffic travelling through China will be modified, indicating some level of censorship, even if the source and destination of the information is not within the nation. To tackle this and similar examples, researchers at the University of Maryland have created a routing method so traffic can avoid regions known to censor the Internet. Called Alibi Routing, this method uses a peer-to-peer network to send data around censored regions, instead of through them. To prove the data is indeed taking the scenic route, the peers, or alibis, take advantage of how information cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Of course relying on a peer network can be tricky when there are few participants, and some are near the censored regions, but when simulated with just 20,000 peers, the researchers found that with stricter safety parameters, they could find an alibi 85% of the time. With looser parameters, letting the traffic get closer to the censored regions, the success rate rose to 95%. Now that they have a method to avoid censored regions, the researchers are working to bring it to users by the end of the year, likely via a browser plugin. Source: University of Maryland Back to original news post Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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