{
  "id": "palimpsest-news:circumvention-demand",
  "slug": "circumvention-demand",
  "url": "https://palimpsest.info/news/circumvention-demand/",
  "signal_id": "circumvention-demand",
  "headline": "Tor Metrics estimates 2,661 bridge users connecting from China",
  "dek": "Bridge and transport estimates show demand for alternate routes without identifying individual users.",
  "section": "network",
  "order": 6,
  "type": "measurement",
  "priority": "standard",
  "status": "live",
  "published_at": "2026-08-24T05:52:26Z",
  "modified_at": "2026-08-24T05:52:26Z",
  "claim_fingerprint": "sha256:181f05759db24d99620dd8493f9fc5131c265588354321538ff7f5f90868247f",
  "metric": {
    "label": "bridge users",
    "value": 2661,
    "unit": "estimated users",
    "denominator": {
      "label": null,
      "value": null
    }
  },
  "claims": [
    {
      "type": "finding",
      "statement": "Tor Metrics estimates 2,661 bridge users for China in the current reading."
    }
  ],
  "evidence": {
    "url": "https://palimpsest.info/readings/circumvention-demand-latest.json",
    "input": {
      "filename": "circumvention-demand-latest.json",
      "sha256": "b539f7365fc6d27eca51538f3000278d59ace4e9a81d78a7f0e8479a34fdb9dd",
      "bytes": 1077
    },
    "source_timestamp": "2026-08-24T05:52:26Z"
  },
  "method": {
    "summary": "Bridge users = demand for unlisted entry points (the demand-to-circumvent series). Relay users = direct reachability, structurally near-floor behind the GFW. A transport halving while another surges (transport_shifts) is the public fingerprint of a new GFW classifier deployment. Estimates are Tor's, from sampled directory requests; transport rows keep Tor's low/high bounds. No probe traffic is generated by this collector.",
    "version": 1
  },
  "limitations": [
    "Bridge-user values are privacy-preserving estimates and should not be read as exact people or devices."
  ],
  "related_signal_ids": [
    "net4people",
    "ooni-gfw",
    "vantage-fusion"
  ]
}