CensorLess: Cost-Efficient Censorship Circumvention Through Serverless Cloud Functions
Authors: Dayeon Kang (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Jade Sheffey (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Mingshi Wu (GFW Report), Pubali Datta (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Amir Houmansadr (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Volume: 2026
Issue: 3
Pages: 556–574
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56553/popets-2026-0096
Abstract: With the increase in Internet censorship globally, various circumvention tools have been designed and developed. However, the monetary cost of these tools deeply impacts both user choice and the sustainability of provider operations. Recent developments in censorship circumvention research attempted to achieve cost efficiency by utilizing Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) spot instances as bridges, but still incurred substantial expenses related to network connectivity and instance maintenance. In this work, we present CensorLess, a circumvention proxy that leverages the unique benefits of serverless platforms. CensorLess comprises three components:a local proxy that manages client communication and enforces serverless security constraints, a function refresher that periodically regenerates bridges, and a live migration mechanism that maintains continuous connectivity. By design, CensorLess inherits key serverless properties, which are cost efficiency, ephemerality, scalability, concurrency, and high performance. Compared to existing low-cost, state-of-the-art circumvention techniques, CensorLess reduces operational costs by 97%, while simultaneously enabling robust censorship resistance by employing bridge rotation.
Keywords: Censorship Circumvention, Proxy Systems, Serverless Computing
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