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More and more countries are blocking undesired websiteson their networks or specifically searching internet traffic for critical and oppositionvoices.

When the internet becomes a state-controlled intranet, users run into problems: They can then no longer access the website of Deutsche Welle or other free media, for example. Social media platforms on which opposition activists had arranged to protest just a short time before are suddenly offline.

Read more:Tor, Psiphon, Signal and Co.: How to move unrecognized on the internet

Whenever a regime censors the internet in a crisis, many users in their helplessness resort to the simplest solutions. These are often virtual private networks (VPNs).

VPNs were developed to allow companies in different locations to connect their internal networks (intranets) via encrypted channels through the internet. But VPNs can also be used to connect a private computer from within a non-free government-controlled network to a server on the free internet, using exactly the same principle.

Read more:OONI: An app for detecting Internet censorship

The website of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is not the only one that Chinese authorities have blocked.

VPNs are now readily available to everyone. Corresponding programs are available free of charge. VPN apps even top some charts. But users usually don't think about the risks in this situation.

VPN apps are plentiful, and the providers' promises are great. If you install their software on your cell phone, you can go online particularly securely, they say. And they promise that your personal data can no longer be accessed by potentially malevolent forces. What is clear: If the VPN works, you can use streaming services from other countries, bypass government censorship and access blocked websites.

A VPN establishes an encrypted tunnel from your smartphone or computerto a remote VPN server. From this endpoint, you enter the public internet. When you surf the web, it looks to the operators of the websites you're visitingas if your computer was the VPN server.

If, for example, you are using a computer or smartphone in Germany but your VPN server is located in Japan, then the operators of websites you visit will thinkyou're in Japan. This game of hide-and-seek is based on the fact that you do not appear with your own IP address, but with that of the VPN server.

Basically, regimes that control internet traffic are able to detect when someone is using a VPN. However, they cannot detect what someone is doing with it, i.e. what data is flowing back and forth in the VPN tunnel.

Some dictatorships have banned VPN use for this reason. Such regimes then block access to VPN servers abroad or, in rare cases, even persecute the users individually. But governments usually cannot take blanket action against every VPN, because many foreign companies also rely on VPNs for their internal company communications.

So as long as governments do not list the IP addresses of foreign VPN servers in their firewalls, and thus block them, it is possible to use them to circumvent censorship.

Here lies the second weak point: All your data makea detour via the VPN provider. But do you really know the company and what it's about? Essentially, you will have to trust your provider to maintain data privacy.

Because the provider operates the tunnel, the company can also seewhich websites you access, when and how often. The provider may also be able to see the non-encrypted content of your communications, such as simple e-mails.

This data can be stored, and especially the data about surfing behavior can also be sold for marketing purposes. For VPN providers, this can be a successful business model. They take money from the customer for VPN use in a subscription model. At the same time, they sell data about web usage to the advertising industry.

In the worst case, however, they also sell or supply data to government authorities. Even if the provider promises not to sell the data, it is already a risk that the data is stored at all. Not a day goes by without a new data leak being reported, whether due to poor security or criminal hacker attacks.

It's better if no data is collected in the first place. If a VPN provider promises it won't do that, I have to trust him. Buta system that does not collect any data in the first place is even more secure.

This is what Tor can do.Tor builds a triple tunnel directly through the Tor Browser. With Tor, you actually don't talk about tunnels, but onion layers, hence the name: Tor = The Onion Routing.

The good thing is that none of these onion layers know your identity and destination at the same time. Which web pages you access, when and how often, cannot be stored anywhere because this information is not available at all. The whole thing is therefore called "Privacy by Design".

Tor is a non-profit project run and financed by many volunteers. It is free of charge for users. But there is one small drawback: The internet connection can sometimes be jerky. Unfortunately, this much privacy comes at a price in terms of speed and convenience.

If you want to be able to surf the internet quickly with your browser, with a foreign IP address, and do not need the utmost protection of privacy, you should use a VPN provider that you can trust as much as possible. It is, therefore, better not to rely on VPN comparison portals that rate any provider well.

These are often not independent, butcontain sponsored links of the VPN providers. Instead, it is better to ask trustworthy digital security experts or read current VPN reviews from reputable trade journals.

Read more:DW websites accessible via Tor Protocol

Under this link you can access DW news via Tor

When computers communicate with each other on the internet, IP addresses are always exchanged. No IP address no World Wide Web. However, the possibilities of identifying individuals based on their IP addressare often overestimated, because IP addresses are rarely firmly tied to individuals.

The situation is similar with cookies. The user can turn these off and cookies have long since ceased to be of great importance to internet giants such as Facebook and Google. This is also reflected in Google's recent announcement that they no longer want to collect 3rd party cookies in their Chrome browser.

Moreover, internet users can now be identified much more precisely via so-called fingerprinting processes. That meansbrowsers collect relevant information such as the time zone, the keyboard layout, installed plug-ins and properties about the creation of graphic elements.

Users can usually be recognized with an accuracy of more than 99% through those fingerprints. The method is very popular with large internet companies. Linked to a login, for example,at Amazon or Google, a fingerprint is also directly linked to a true identity.

Incidentally, these fingerprints are not only collected directly on the sites of these internet giants, but also on third-party websites.

For example, if you visit the website http://www.xyz.com and there are elements such as images or JavaScript from a third server on it, then you are just as visible to this server as you are to http://www.xyz.com.

Shortly after winning a major prize at the Cannes Film Festival with "A Man of Integrity," the Hamburg-based director returned to Iran in September 2017. Iranian authorities then confiscated Rasoulof's passport and banned him from directing new films. In July 2019, he was sentenced to a year in prison. He nevertheless managed to shoot "There Is No Evil" (photo), which won the Golden Bear in 2020.

Abdolreza Kahani migrated to France in 2015 after three of his films were banned in the Islamic Republic and he was prevented from submitting them to international festivals. "We are born into censorship. Censorship affects not just literature, music and film. Censorship begins inside the home," he told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) in a recent interview.

Getting a screening permit for films that premiered at world festivals can take years: Kianoush Ayari's "The Paternal House," from 2012, was only released in Iran last year after the director agreed to make some edits. But a week later, in November 2019, the film was banned, prompting 200 film personalities to sign an open letter condemning state censorship and calling for freedom of expression.

He is one of the few directors to have won the Oscar for best foreign film twice: "A Separation" (2012) and in 2016, "The Salesman" (photo). Farhadi boycotted the second ceremony, which took place shortly after Trump's "Muslim travel ban." Even though Iranian officials were behind Farhadi's Oscar entries, the filmmaker was among the signatories of the 2019 open call condemning state censorship.

Iranian-Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi directed the world's first Kurdish-language feature film, the 2000 "A Time for Drunken Horses" (photo). Following his semi-documentary about the underground indie music scene in Tehran, "No One Knows About Persian Cats" (2009), Ghobadi fled Iran, as intelligence agents repeatedly threatened him and urged him to leave. Those two films won awards at Cannes.

Having permanently left Iran as a young adult, Marjane Satrapi didn't have to deal with Iranian authorities as an author and filmmaker. Her best-known comic book, "Persepolis" (photo) adapted into a film that won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2007, offers a personal depiction of how a teenager can get into trouble with the police by disregarding modesty codes and buying music banned by the regime.

Released shortly before the 9/11 attacks, Mohsen Makhmalbaf's 2001 film, "Kandahar," became a must-see work about the fate of Afghan women. Many of the award-winning director's films are banned in Iran, and he left the country to live in France after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election. His most recent feature film, "The President" (photo) opened the Venice Film Festival in 2014.

The daughter of Mohsen Makhmalbaf is one of the most influential directors of the Iranian New Wave. Her first feature film, "The Apple," which she directed at the age of 17, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998. Two years later, she won the Cannes Jury Prize with "Blackboards. (photo). She then became the youngest person to sit on the jury of festivals such as Cannes, Venice and Berlin.

Winning a Cannes award with his 1995 feature debut, "The White Balloon," Panahi kept receiving international acclaim despite increasing restrictions in Iran. Since 2010, he has been banned from making films and leaving the country, but still managed to secretly direct more works, including the Golden Bear-winning "Taxi" (2015) and "3 Faces" (photo), which won Cannes' best screenplay prize in 2018.

A decade after winning the International Award at the Venice Biennale, the visual artist's feature debut, "Women Without Men" (photo) was also honored at the Venice film festival in 2009. A critic of political injustice, Neshat lives in self-imposed exile in New York. "While I am critical of the West, women artists in Iran still face censorship, torture and, at times, execution," she said.

Author: Elizabeth Grenier

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Bypassing censorship with VPNs is that really safe? | DW | 11.03.2021 - DW (English)