Accessing google scholar under extreme internet censorship: A legal avenue

Zhen Lu, Zhenhua Li, Jian Yang, Tianyin Xu, Ennan Zhai, Yao Liu, Christo Wilson

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Internet censorship is pervasive across the world. However, in some countries like China, even legal, nonpolitical services (e.g., Google Scholar) are incidentally blocked by extreme censorship machinery. Therefore, properly accessing legal Internet services under extreme censorship becomes a critical problem. In this paper, we conduct a case study on how scholars from a major university of China access Google Scholar through a variety of middleware. We characterize the common solutions (including VPN, Tor, and Shadowsocks) by measuring and analyzing their performance, overhead, and robustness to censorship. Guided by the study, we deploy a novel solution (called ScholarCloud) to help Chinese scholars access Google Scholar with high performance, ease of use, and low overhead. This work provides an insider's view of China's Internet censorship and offers a legal avenue for coexistence with censorship.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationMiddleware 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 International Middleware Conference (Industrial Track)
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages8-14
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9781450352000
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 11 2017
Externally publishedYes
Event18th ACM/IFIP/USENIX Middleware Conference,Middleware 2017 - Las Vegas, United States
Duration: Dec 11 2017Dec 15 2017

Publication series

NameMiddleware 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 International Middleware Conference (Industrial Track)

Other

Other18th ACM/IFIP/USENIX Middleware Conference,Middleware 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityLas Vegas
Period12/11/1712/15/17

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Information Systems
  • Software

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