A Google Update Just Created a Big Problem for Anti-Censorship Tools

The Verge (April 18, 2018) reports that "A Google update just created a big problem for anti-censorship tools."

The Google App Engine is discontinuing a practice called domain-fronting, which let services use Google’s network to get around state-level internet blocks. A recent change in Google’s network architecture means the trick no longer works. First spotted by Tor developers on April 13th, the change has been rolling out across Google services and threatens to disrupt services for a number of anti-censorship tools, including Signal, GreatFire.org and Psiphon’s VPN services.

Domain-fronting allowed developers to use Google as a proxy, forwarding traffic to their own servers through a Google.com domain. That was particularly important for evading state-level censorship, which might try to block all the traffic sent to a given service. As long as the service was using domain-fronting, all the in-country data requests would appear as if they were headed for Google.com, with encryption preventing censors from digging any deeper.