Hoàng Nguyên Phong is a PhD candidate at Stony Brook University, where he studies online security and privacy. He is also a visiting research fellow at University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, where he focuses on internet censorship measurement. His recent paper “How Great is the Great Firewall? Measuring China’s DNS Censorship” explores China’s restrictive cyber policies, and how they impact both the Chinese and global internet. In this lightly edited interview, we discussed the two-way nature of the firewall, how China’s censorship regime differs from other systems, and why anti-censorship technology is important.
Hoàng Nguyên Phong.Illustration by Lauren Crow
Q: What first motivated you to conduct this study and research censorship in China more broadly?
A: During my PhD, the main topic that I worked on was internet censorship and surveillance, because I believe that these two topics are very important nowadays. The internet has become an indispensable means of
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