Skip to the main content
Past Project

Circumvention

The Berkman Center's Circumvention project is engaged in designing and conducting research aimed at gaining a broad understanding of the usage of circumvention tools, as well as field-building in the area of circumvention research. Activities include a workshop convening circumvention tool developers, a survey of circumvention tool usage, a survey of VPN providers, and an evaluation of circumvention tools to complement research undertaken in 2007.

This project is supported in part by the U.S. Department of State and Internews.


Our Work 14

News
Oct 4, 2012

RB207: Hacking Censorship (Drone Humanitarianism I)

The Internet exists and persists on the border between helpful and harmful, between freedom and totalitarianism, access to knowledge and censorship. This group of hackers…

Aug 18, 2011

New: Three Reports on Circumvention Tool Usage, International Bloggers, and Internet Control

The Berkman Center is pleased to release three new publications as part of our circumvention project.

Publication
Aug 18, 2011

International Bloggers and Internet Control

Infringements on Internet freedom, particularly through Internet filtering and surveillance, have inspired activists and technologists to develop technological counter-measures,…

Aug 18, 2011

The Evolving Landscape of Internet Control

A Summary of Our Recent Research and Recommendations

Over the past two years, we have undertaken several studies at the Berkman Center designed to better understand the control of the Internet in less open societies. In this paper,…

Publication
Aug 18, 2011

2011 Circumvention Tool Evaluation

Given the rising awareness of the potential of the Internet as a political space and increasing government control over the space, it is easy to understand the widespread interest…

Publication
Aug 18, 2011

International Bloggers and Internet Control: Full Survey Results

This document includes the full survey results for the Berkman Center’s International Bloggers and Internet Control survey.

News
Aug 2, 2011

New: Report on Online Security in the Middle East and North Africa

The Berkman Center is pleased to release Online Security in the Middle East and North Africa. This report describes the results of a survey of 98 bloggers in the Middle East and…

Publication
Aug 1, 2011

Online Security in the Middle East and North Africa

A Survey of Perceptions, Knowledge, and Practice

The recent surge in digital activism that has helped to shape the Arab spring has been met with stiff resistance by governments in the region intent on reducing the impact of…

News
Feb 15, 2011

Questions for Secretary Clinton concerning "Internet freedom"

Faculty associate Matthew Hindman provoked an energetic email exchange among members of the extended Berkman Center community today, in anticipation of Secretary Clinton's …

Dec 20, 2010

2010 Report on Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks

This paper evaluates the impact of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on independent media and human rights sites in nine countries, as well as the broader impact of…

News
Oct 18, 2010

New: Circumvention Tool Usage Report

The Berkman Center releases a new report on the usage of tools for circumventing Internet filtering, which finds that simple web proxies are more widely used than other…

Oct 14, 2010

2010 Circumvention Tool Usage Report

This paper evaluates the usage of blocking-resistant circumvention tools, simple web proxies, and VPN services and finds that overall usage of circumvention tools is still very…

Mar 5, 2009

Report release: 2007 Circumvention Landscape Report: Methods, Uses, and Tools

The Berkman Center is pleased to make available its report on techniques and tools for circumventing Internet filtering...

Publication
Mar 5, 2009

2007 Circumvention Landscape Report: Methods, Uses, and Tools

A large variety of different projects have developed tools that can be used to circumvent Internet filtering, allowing people in filtered countries access to otherwise filtered…


People 05

Team