GFWeb - Measuring the Great Firewall's Web Censorship at Scale

Explore a 13-minute conference presentation from USENIX Security '24 that unveils GFWeb, a groundbreaking system for measuring web censorship by China's Great Firewall (GFW). Learn about the comprehensive study conducted over 20 months that tested over 1 billion domains and uncovered 943K HTTP and 55K HTTPS censored pay-level domains. Discover key findings about the GFW's evolution, including improvements to address previous vulnerabilities and the revelation of asymmetric bidirectional blocking behavior. Gain insights into the implications for censorship measurement and circumvention efforts, drawn from the largest dataset of GFW-censored domains ever compiled. Presented by researchers from multiple institutions including the University of British Columbia, University of Chicago, Citizen Lab, Carnegie Mellon University, SRI International, and Stony Brook University, this talk provides valuable understanding for those interested in internet censorship, cybersecurity, and digital freedom.