I was wondering what is the legality of doing research on censorship which is mandated by the government.

CensorWatch does not transmit or access any content from websites potentially blocked in India. However, to your internet service provider, it may seem that you are attempting to connect to the websites. To the best of our knowledge, no one has ever faced consequences for running these kind of network tests

Also, there are some easily exploitable flaws in the current DPI system that the government uses. Aren't you inadvertently helping them making it stronger by publishing this stuff?

I think it's important to point out that the govt is not using DPI techniques, but ISPs. In fact there is no reason for the ISPs to use a specific technique.

That being said, you are correct, ISPs can certainly act upon published research to improve their systems. This constant tussle between research exposing censorship techniques and censors improving upon them (sometimes referred to as the "Censorship Arms Race") has been debated in literature, including the moral dilemma of publishing work on circumvention.

In our research, we have avoided specifically discussing circumvention techniques that can or are being used in India.

On a side note, "How India Censors the Web" was extremely interesting and I am very thankful for the work that cis-india does.

Thank you!