Server-Side Investigation: Characterizing and Measuring VPN Service Providers

Current efforts to understand the state of censorship often neglects the existence of server-side blocking, monitoring, and tampering; especially when private companies such as VPN providers manipulate user communication based on the country the user is from.

The magnitude of this manipulation is unknown. The project will develop rigorous measurement methods to investigate VPN manipulation, build a system to continuously and globally collect data on the phenomenon, curate tools for mapping and comparative analyses of the data and provide the relevant analysis in a centralized and easily accessible repository. The project outputs will shed light on the traffic manipulation and discrimination of users using these VPN services and help censorship measurement better isolate the effects.

Get the word out

Funding to date

2017 $250,000 22 months

Internet Freedom Fund

Total Funding: $250,000

Addressed problems

Blocking, filtering, or modification of political, social, and/or religious content (including apps)
Policies, laws, or directives that increase surveillance, censorship, and punishment

Objective(s)

Research
Software or hardware development

Beneficiaries

Academia
Technologists
Journalists
General public
Activists
Advocacy groups/NGOs

Region(s) archive

Global

Technology attributes

Web application