TY - GEN
T1 - A Study of China's Censorship and Its Evasion Through the Lens of Online Gaming
AU - Feng, Yuzhou
AU - Zhai, Ruyu
AU - Sion, Radu
AU - Carbunar, Bogdan
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © USENIX Security 2023. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - For the past 20 years, China has increasingly restricted the access of minors to online games using addiction prevention systems (APSes). At the same time, and through different means, i.e., the Great Firewall of China (GFW), it also restricts general population access to the international Internet. This paper studies how these restrictions impact young online gamers, and their evasion efforts. We present results from surveys (n = 2,415) and semi-structured interviews (n = 35) revealing viable commonly deployed APS evasion techniques and APS vulnerabilities. We conclude that the APS does not work as designed, even against very young online game players, and can act as a censorship evasion training ground for tomorrow's adults, by familiarization with and normalization of general evasion techniques, and desensitization to their dangers. Findings from these studies may further inform developers of censorship-resistant systems about the perceptions and evasion strategies of their prospective users, and help design tools that leverage services and platforms popular among the censored audience.
AB - For the past 20 years, China has increasingly restricted the access of minors to online games using addiction prevention systems (APSes). At the same time, and through different means, i.e., the Great Firewall of China (GFW), it also restricts general population access to the international Internet. This paper studies how these restrictions impact young online gamers, and their evasion efforts. We present results from surveys (n = 2,415) and semi-structured interviews (n = 35) revealing viable commonly deployed APS evasion techniques and APS vulnerabilities. We conclude that the APS does not work as designed, even against very young online game players, and can act as a censorship evasion training ground for tomorrow's adults, by familiarization with and normalization of general evasion techniques, and desensitization to their dangers. Findings from these studies may further inform developers of censorship-resistant systems about the perceptions and evasion strategies of their prospective users, and help design tools that leverage services and platforms popular among the censored audience.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85176128456
M3 - Conference contribution
T3 - 32nd USENIX Security Symposium, USENIX Security 2023
SP - 2599
EP - 2616
BT - 32nd USENIX Security Symposium, USENIX Security 2023
PB - USENIX Association
T2 - 32nd USENIX Security Symposium, USENIX Security 2023
Y2 - 9 August 2023 through 11 August 2023
ER -