Snowflake is a software package for assisting others in circumventing internet censorship by relaying data requests.

Snowflake was originated by Serene, a hacker and former Google engineer and concert pianist.

[11] The name "Snowflake" was coined as her metaphor for a large number of ephemeral proxies[7] in relation to "ICE Negotiation".

[17][18][19] Tor network can be used to access such blocked sites[16] by acting as a proxy, covering the real destination address of the user's request.

The client then talks directly to the Snowflake proxy, which relays into the Tor network.

[10] In practice, hosting a Snowflake proxy does not seem to appreciably slow one's internet connection[12] or disrupt browsing.

Censors may also install and use Tor, then block all the IP addresses offered as Snowflake servers.

[27][28] If overseas connections from data centers are allowed, but residential and mobile services are restricted to local connections, then Tor bridges may be secretly and illegally set up in local data centers.

[10][31] A simple proxy, like a virtual private network (VPN), has only a single relay.

This means that the server address of the VPN has to be known to every user, making it easier to block.

[10] For instance, at the beginning of October 2022, during internet disruptions related to the Mahsa Amini protests, VPNs in Iran would drop connections every few minutes.

[29] The VPN itself also knows which end-users requested which pages, allowing VPNs to engage in surveillance.

[30] Snowflake came to be widely discussed online in the first week of October 2022, as a way of combatting internet restrictions in Iran during the Mahsa Amini protests,[10] and a guide in Persian was released.

Usage of the Tor network is becoming more common in Russia, Belarus, and Iran, as of 2022[update], as internet censorship in these countries has become more strict.