CenPush: Blocking-Resistant Control Channel Using Push Notifications
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The rapid increase in global censorship events has stimulated a substantial growth in users relying on circumvention tools. Fighting against censors requires tool maintainers to frequently update client-side configurations and proxy IPs. However, existing methods for doing so require clients to explicitly query for updates. Further, this client-initiated communication relies mostly on ad-hoc and out-of-band channels. This work demonstrates the utility of push notification services as an efficient and sustainable communication channel between tool maintainers and their clients. A push notification channel allows tool maintainers to update client configurations automatically without the need for clients to initiate a query themselves. We develop a general-purpose design for integrating push notifications as a control channel in circumvention tools. We utilize the design to integrate and implement push notifications for use in the popular circumvention tool Tor and demonstrate their utility to push bridge line updates to Tor clients.
Authors: Piyush Kumar Sharma, Diwen Xue, Aaron Ortwein, Cecylia Bocovich, Harry, Roya Ensafi
Institutions: University of Michigan, The Tor Project
Language: English
Subfield: Artificial Intelligence
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4412373419