Re: [Pearg] Research Group Last Call for "A Survey of Worldwide Censorship Techniques"

[Chelsea Komlo <[e-mail]>]

Hi David,

On Tue, Jun 2, 2020 at 8:59 AM David Oliver <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> Chelsea, thanks for this.
>
> > First, I recommend improving the document organization to clearly
> differentiate
> >  between a specific censorship technique and corresponding methods to
> circumvent that technique.
>
> I'm still not understanding why - in a document defined to talk about
> censorship techniques - we're talking about circumvention methods. I
> believe it's particularly important to understand because, at least for the
> techniques I'm familiar with, these methods work "above the stack", not "in
> the stack" because we implementors can't have impact on "the stack"
> itself.  IETF addresses "the stack" so, in theory at least, IETF could use
> the understanding of censorship techniques to implement solutions there.
> Why would we (implementors) be engaging with IETF if we do not seek new "in
> the stack" methods of preventing censorship?
>
>
While yes, IETF can certainly address censorship techniques "down the
stack", it is still critical to understand how existing circumvention
techniques have or have not been successful in order to design for the
future. There is a learning curve to understanding how to design for
censorship circumvention and I would hate to see all of the same mistakes
made that are already known to practitioners building circumvention tools
higher up in the stack.

So in short, let's avoid re-learning lessons that have already been learned
in this space.

Chelsea