Shared infrastructure
Collateral Damage
Unintended blocking of legitimate services due to censorship techniques.
Read the definitionThe definition and detection notes below retain the published reference wording. They are not a current network test.
01 / Definition
What it means.
Collateral damage occurs when censorship measures affect services beyond their intended targets. This commonly happens with IP blocking of shared infrastructure, overly broad DNS blocks, or keyword-based filtering that matches unrelated content.
The scale of collateral damage varies from minor (a few sites sharing an IP) to massive (blocking an entire CDN or cloud provider). It's often unintentional but sometimes accepted as necessary by censors.
02 / How We Detect This
What we look for.
We identify collateral damage by mapping blocked IPs and domains to their hosting infrastructure. When blocks affect cloud providers, CDNs, or shared hosting, we enumerate other services on the same infrastructure and test their accessibility. We report the ratio of intended targets to affected services.
03 / Examples
What it can look like.
Blocking one site on shared hosting affects 500 others
Telegram IP block disrupts Google services
Keyword filter blocks unrelated educational content
Illustrative examples from the glossary, not incident reports or live observations.
Sources
Read the original.
Reference context & original shorthand
Published bypass label: N/A.
This is the original index’s editorial shorthand. Actual access depends on the network and technique; this label is not a guarantee. The glossary has no per-entry publication or review date.
Related links lead to definitions in the published glossary.
Complete definition →