This 2015 research paper from Berkeley describes the technique in detail as well as how security and privacy-focused apps including Tor and Psiphon have utilized it for years.ĭomain fronting was used by Signal on Google and Amazon’s cloud to circumvent censorship in countries like Egypt, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It’s easy to do and doesn’t require any special cooperation - but a host like Google and Amazon always possessed the ability to end the practice from being used through their own products. One service is on the outside of the HTTPS request, the real domain is on the inside and censors are none-the-wiser from a technical point of view, unless they block the first domain entirely. The technique uses HTTPS encryption to communicate with a censored web host even though it looks like it’s communicating with another host like Amazon Web Services. “We respectfully urge you to reconsider your decision to prohibit domain fronting given the harm it will do to global internet freedom and the risk it will impose upon human rights activists, journalists, and others who rely on the internet freedom tools,” the senators wrote. Amazon then warned the developers of encrypted messaging app Signal that the organization would be banned from Amazon’s cloud services if the service didn’t stop using Amazon’s cloud as cover. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sent a letter on Tuesday to Google CEO Larry Page and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos over decisions by both companies in April to ban domain fronting.

senators over the tech giants’ decisions to ban domain fronting, a technique used to circumvent censorship and surveillance around the world.

Amazon and Google face sharp questions from a bipartisan pair of U.S.

Amazon psiphon