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We don't need oppressive regimes to "realize" they're oppressive. We simply need to shift the incentives by making it financially expensive to censor. This is known as "collateral freedom"[1], and has been used to publish censored content in China.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom



This is a bloodless equivalent of using human shields or hiding your forces in a hospital - you involve lots of innocent civilians in hope that the government will not be willing to absorb the sacrifice.


Saying "we can't stop you from blockading, but we won't help you build regime-monitored passages through the blockade" is not sacrificing anyone.


To quote from the comment I replied to:

> We simply need to shift the incentives by making it financially expensive to censor. This is known as "collateral freedom"

In this context, "making it financially expensive" means "banning us would also mean banning lots of other unrelated services, which will have negative impact on both economy and morale of the population".

In the same way, in warfare, using civilians as human shields is "shifting incentives", making it PR-expensive to strike you down.

In both cases, an authoritarian government may be willing to eat the loss and deal with you anyway. And in both cases, you're the one putting innocent people in harm's way.


The adversary is going to shoot down all packets that don't have certain labels on them.

Refusing to put those labels on packets is not putting anyone in harm's way. It's a refusal to help them treat certain classes above others.


In your strategy you only have three choices - put your own label, put someone else's label, or just give up. The labels are necessary for routing. If you put someone else's label on your packets, you're turning them into a potential target.




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