34 lines
2.3 KiB
Text
34 lines
2.3 KiB
Text
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---
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title: Collateral Freedom
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sidebar_position: 30
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---
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Collateral freedom is an anti-censorship strategy that attempts to make it **economically prohibitive** for censors to
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block a resource.
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The diverse needs of businesses to exchange information across international borders makes it impossible to build a
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catalogue of "good" and "bad" networks or websites.
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A censor requires some confidence when they block a resource that it won't be affecting economic activity.
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It’s difficult to achieve accuracy with filtering as most internet traffic is encrypted and must be categorised
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at speed to make blocking decisions.
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As a result, censors will usually err on the side of under-blocking.
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One way to exploit this is by deploying solutions in large platforms that are **“too big to block”**, like public cloud
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providers.
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Public cloud providers host large numbers of clients in shared infrastructure to benefit from economies of scale, but
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this sharing also makes it difficult to know what content is being accessed.
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Similarly, large social networks host content from large numbers of publishers but all traffic between the user and the
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social network is typically encrypted and so the censor cannot know what is being read.
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Blocking the cloud provider would have a negative impact on businesses and would hurt state revenue, and blocking the
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social media platform would cause backlash from the people: neither is an attractive option for the censor.
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Another approach is to use constantly rotating identifiers, as even where a resource may be easy to block once
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identified, a new resource can be deployed quickly to replace it rendering the blocks ineffective.
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Due to erring on the side of under-blocking, attempts to access previously unseen content usually succeed.
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Even with a procedure for screening or approval, blocking by default would bog down innovation and development to the
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extent that it could cease, certainly falling behind other economies.
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This approach is particularly suited for news media where the majority of readers will be interested in an article for
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only a short time after it is published, and if it is later blocked by the censor then the effect will be minimal.
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With collateral freedom on your side **you can have the upper hand** when it comes to making your content accessible to
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your audience.
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