Taxonomy

The controlled vocabularies that all paper records tag against. Adding a term: edit schema/taxonomy.yaml and open a PR.

Censors

ae United Arab Emirates: synonyms: UAE, AE
by Belarus: synonyms: BY
cn China (Great Firewall): Encompasses GFW operator infrastructure across China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, and the smaller carriers. Distinct from corporate or campus filtering inside China.
synonyms: GFW, Great Firewall, China
cu Cuba: synonyms: CU
et Ethiopia: Identified as a Geedge / TSG export customer in the 2025 Geedge/MESA leak. Belt-and-Road framework deployment.
synonyms: ET
generic Generic / not censor-specific: Use for technique papers that don't evaluate against a specific censor.
gr Greece: synonyms: GR
in India: synonyms: IN
ir Iran: Includes intermediate ISPs (TCI, MCI, Irancell, Rightel, etc.). Implementation is heterogeneous across ISPs and changes during events like the June 2025 nationwide shutdown.
synonyms: IR, TCI, MCI, Mokhaberat
kp DPRK (North Korea): synonyms: KP, DPRK, North Korea
kz Kazakhstan: synonyms: KZ
mm Myanmar: Post-2021 coup the military regime deployed Chinese GFW-derived surveillance via Geedge Networks under the Belt and Road framework. Per the 2025 Justice for Myanmar report.
synonyms: MM, Burma
pk Pakistan: Surveillance and filtering infrastructure built with Chinese vendor technology (Geedge/MESA-derived) plus European and Emirati products. Per the 2025 Amnesty report.
synonyms: PK
ru Russia (TSPU / Roskomnadzor): synonyms: RKN, Roskomnadzor, TSPU
sa Saudi Arabia: synonyms: KSA, SA
sy Syria: synonyms: SY
tm Turkmenistan: synonyms: TM
tr Turkey: synonyms: TR
uz Uzbekistan: synonyms: UZ
ve Venezuela: synonyms: VE

Detection techniques

active-probing Active probing: Censor-initiated connections to suspected proxy endpoints to confirm the protocol before blocking. Hallmark of GFW since 2012; now seen in IR and RU.
asn-blackholing ASN / prefix blackholing
bgp-hijack BGP / route manipulation: AS-level interference: prefix withdrawal, hijacking, or null-routing from the censor side.
dns-poisoning DNS injection / poisoning: synonyms: DNS injection, DNS spoofing
dpi Deep Packet Inspection: Inspecting payload bytes beyond the TCP/IP headers.
esni-eh-blocking Encrypted ClientHello / ESNI blocking: synonyms: ECH blocking, ESNI blocking
flow-correlation Flow-correlation traffic analysis: Matching flows across two observation points by timing/volume signatures.
fully-encrypted-detect Fully-encrypted protocol detection: Generalization of random-payload-detect: detect any protocol where the entire byte stream looks uniformly random. (USENIX 2023.)
http3-quic-block QUIC / HTTP/3 blocking: synonyms: QUIC blocking, HTTP/3 blocking
ip-blocking IP-list blocking: synonyms: IP blocking, blocklist
keyword-filtering Keyword filtering: Censor blocks or modifies traffic based on appearance of specific keywords (URLs, social-media posts, search queries). Common in CN platform-side moderation.
measurement-platform Censorship measurement platform: Methodology / tooling for measuring censorship at scale (OONI, ICLab, Iris, Quack, Encore, Censored Planet, etc.).
middlebox-interference Middlebox / TCP normalization: Censor middleboxes mangling/normalizing TCP that interferes with circumvention.
ml-classifier ML / statistical classifier: Supervised or unsupervised classifiers run over flow features.
packet-injection Packet injection (general): Any in-path injection beyond DNS/RST: HTTP redirects, blockpages, etc.
port-blocking Port-based blocking
random-payload-detect Random / high-entropy payload detection: Censors flag flows whose first N bytes have entropy higher than typical legitimate protocols. The original GFW shadowsocks detection used this.
rst-injection TCP RST injection: synonyms: RST injection, connection reset
sni-blocking SNI-based blocking: Classifying or dropping TLS connections based on the SNI extension in ClientHello.
synonyms: SNI filtering
throttling Throttling / bandwidth shaping: Censor degrades a flow's throughput rather than blocking it outright.
tls-fingerprint TLS ClientHello fingerprinting: JA3/JA4-style cipher-suite ordering, extensions, GREASE patterns.
traffic-shape Traffic-shape / statistical fingerprinting: Classification by packet-size and inter-arrival-time distributions.
website-fingerprint Website fingerprinting: Identify the destination website behind an encrypted tunnel from packet-size / timing patterns.

Defenses

amnezia-wg AmneziaWG (obfuscated WireGuard)
amp-cache AMP cache proxying
anytls AnyTLS
bridges Bridges / private relays: Unlisted relays a censored client connects to first; Tor bridges, Snowflake bridges, etc.
cloak Cloak: Multiplexed pluggable transport that hides traffic behind a real TLS website.
conjure Conjure / refraction-extension: Refraction-networking variant using unused IP space.
decoy-routing Decoy routing: synonyms: refraction networking
dns-tunneling DNS tunneling: synonyms: DNSTT, iodine
domain-fronting Domain fronting: Use a CDN as the apparent destination; route to actual destination via the CDN's HTTP routing.
dust Dust (Wiley 2011 pluggable transport): Brandon Wiley's blocking-resistant Internet transport protocol; randomized handshake predecessor to obfs / ScrambleSuit lineage.
ech-esni Encrypted ClientHello / ESNI: Hide the SNI value from the censor, defeating SNI-based blocking.
synonyms: ECH, ESNI
format-transform Format-transforming encryption: synonyms: FTE
geneva Application-Layer Geneva: Programmatic packet manipulation derived from genetic search (Geneva).
hysteria2 Hysteria 2 (QUIC-based)
marionette Marionette / format-transforming encryption: Programmable protocol mimicry via formal language descriptions (FTE / Marionette family).
meek Meek (HTTP-based pluggable transport)
meta-resistance Meta-circumvention / framework: Papers about how to design circumvention systems generally — turbo-tunnel, Proteus, Marionette, programmable-protocols framings.
mimicry Protocol mimicry: Make the proxy traffic look like a known-allowed protocol (HTTP, TLS, QUIC, etc.).
obfs4 obfs4 (randomized handshake)
pluggable-transport Pluggable transport (Tor PT framework): Generic Tor Pluggable Transports framework abstraction; the bucket for transports without a more specific tag (Lyrebird, FTE, Marionette, etc.).
protocol-versioning Versioned protocol upgrade: Backward-compatible protocol versioning so changes can roll out without orphaning users.
randomization Traffic randomization / shaping: Hide the underlying protocol by deliberate randomization of size/timing/payload.
reality REALITY (TLS handshake forwarding)
reverse-tls Server-initiated TLS: The server (rather than the client) initiates the TLS handshake, defeating active-probing detectors that send a probe ClientHello to suspected proxies.
rotating-spki Rotating server SPKI / fingerprint
scramblesuit ScrambleSuit: Polymorphic network protocol; predecessor to obfs4.
shadowsocks Shadowsocks family
steganography Steganography: Hide circumvention traffic inside an unrelated cover-channel (image, audio, VoIP, blockchain, etc.).
tapdance TapDance: Refraction-routing variant operating at the transport layer.
telex Telex: Original decoy-routing scheme; subsumed by Refraction Networking.
tor Tor (onion routing): Use as a defense tag when the paper specifically evaluates Tor or its bridges, beyond using Tor as plumbing.
trojan Trojan (TLS-mimicking)
tunneling Tunneling inside an allowed protocol: synonyms: domain fronting, tunneling
vless VLESS (V2Ray)
vmess VMess (V2Ray)
water-wasm WATER (WASM-based pluggable transports)
webrtc-pluggable WebRTC-based pluggable transport: synonyms: Snowflake, broflake, Unbounded

Evaluation methods

controlled-deployment Controlled production deployment
formal-analysis Formal / model-based analysis
measurement-study Network measurement study
ml-evaluation Machine-learning classifier evaluation
simulation Simulation / emulation

Visibility levels

community Community: Shared in confidence among circumvention-tool developers; not for public consumption.
embargoed Embargoed: Will become public on a known date (requires embargo_until field).
internal Internal: Lantern team only — partner draft, NDA'd document, leaked material, etc.
public Public: Published openly, may appear on the public MCP endpoint.