The war against online censorship and surveillance has recently seen a tremendous development that could turn the tide in favor of freedom and privacy on the internet. Internet infrastructure titan Cloudflare has unveiled support for the Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) privacy feature, creating a sanctuary for free speech advocates and calling into question attempts to block sites already established.

For the uninitiated, as TorrentFreak reported, web blocking has been the entertainment industry's anti-piracy tool of choice for over a decade and a half. Used in over forty countries, this method involves Internet Service Providers (ISPs) blocking access to specific websites, often under a legal directive. After starting with rudimentary DNS blocks, the system has evolved, employing sophisticated Server Name Indication (SNI) eavesdropping techniques, or sometimes a mixture of the two. But it has also been used by governments to censor websites and block access to them.

However, the landscape has begun to change with the emergence of privacy-focused technologies, such as Encrypted DNS, that challenge these blocks. Today, the introduction of ECH is poised to revolutionize this field, rendering Internet Service Provider monitoring efforts virtually, if not completely, ineffective.

Simply put, ECH is an innovative privacy protocol designed to hide internet traffic and thwart surveillance efforts. Browser giants like Chrome, Firefox, and Edge have already given a nod to its implementation. However, for its potential to be fully exploited, websites must also integrate it. Cloudflare's decision to integrate ECH by default into all of its free plans, serving countless websites, represents a giant step toward widespread adoption...

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