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http://www.pcworld.ca/news/column/bb830f92c0a8000601afdbbbcc1563a2/pg0.htm
Beating Internet Censorship - The Canadian Way
2009 Jan. 9th
by Lee Rickwood
New tools and techniques for bypassing online censors are being developed in Canada, and used around the world.
Please note: Attempts to bypass online censorship may violate local or international law. Carefully evaluate the risks involved and potential consequences of any such violation - beforehand!
Instead of connecting the world, the Internet is being used to divide and restrict it.
That's the unfortunately reality today. National governments, private corporations and public institutions are limiting, restricting or completely preventing access to online information.
It may be happening purposefully (either overtly or covertly), such as when state governments restrict Internet access by citizens, whether using their own or someone else's computer.
It may be happening unintentionally, such as when a college researcher seeks information about breast cancer, only to be stopped cold by overly restrictive or poorly implemented word filters installed on Web servers.
But there are ways to avoid Internet censorship and to circumvent Web filtering. One of the best new tools for doing so comes from Canada - in particular, The Citizen's Lab at the University of Toronto.
Communicate Freely - In More Ways Than One
It's called psiphon; it's freely available open source software. For the most part, it's simple to load and easy to use.
But its impact could be huge.
It turns any Internet-connected PC (Windows and Linux at present; work on a Mac version is underway) into a personal, encrypted server capable of retrieving and displaying Web pages for users that connect to it.
In its most basic implementation, someone here in Canada downloads the software. They note an IP address, and create a proprietary password.
They give a friend or trusted connection in another country that address and password - they do so privately, of course, in any way appropriate.
Then, that friend types in the IP address and password, and using an https encrypted transmission protocol, they use psiphon's blue address bar, not the usual - unencrypted - search engine or address field.
They have not had to load any software themselves - they simply connect to a unique Web address that has been composited and protected by psiphon. The traffic between the Psiphon Administrator component and the user is completely encrypted; however, the Administrator can view the logs of the user's traffic.
Internet Values and Value at Stake
"What we're trying to do with psiphon is build a technology that supports that original notion of innovation that drove the Internet," explains Lab Director Ronald Deibert.
"[T]he guarantee of uninterrupted access to free information" is what is at stake, says Professor Deibert, whose background and training as a political scientist - not a computer scientist - shows through clearly.
The Citizen Lab started in 2001, as a research and development centre for "politically-motivated hacktivists." Among other activities, it operates the Open Net Initiative, collaborating with organizations around the world on matters of online access, cyber security and Internet censorship.
One obvious outgrowth of their research into online censorship was a better idea of how to get around it. By studying how the 'Net is controlled, they have better developed ideas about loosening that control.
Ideas, and actual software.
In December 2006, psiphon was publicly released, with the stated aim of helping people get around Internet censorship - something Deibert is not alone in calling "a growing and pervasive problem."
Deibert documents that growth and pervasiveness as the editor of Access Denied, a book that examines the political, legal, social, and cultural contexts of Internet filtering. Not just the mechanisms and politics behind Internet censorship, but the technology that powers it, the ethical considerations for corporations that supply tools for blocking and filtering, and the implications of Internet filtering for social, political or professional communities that often rely on the Internet for communication.
Internet filtering takes place in at least forty countries worldwide - and not just those "usual suspects" like China, North Korea, Iran or Saudi Arabia. Deibert's book clearly establishes that sophisticated Internet content control mechanisms are also in place here in Canada, in the United States and a number of European countries.
In the book, Deibert also shows how filtering techniques affect not just the content, but also the platform. Access to Skype, Google Earth and other IP protocols are being denied in some situations.
Deibert and his development team do not see psiphon as a tool to avoid inconvenience and get more free movies.
They are concerned about the lack of access to global communications systems that have promised to help people around the world. That may seem like purely a political motivation, but Deibert understands the important of the Web to professional development and industrial innovation, too. The example is the impact on international road warriors and other traveling businesspeople, whose access to important company information or corporate documentation could be negatively affected by international Internet restrictions.
What's more, with the continued development of Web 2.0 and the sharing of more than just text files and Word documents - video content and other time-based media, for example.
Deibert describes the next version of psiphon as capitalizing on the Web 2.0 content explosion. It will allow access to streaming media, including YouTube, and other working on other protocols. And it allows secure uploading of video.
So far, well over 200,000 downloads of the psiphon software have taken place (there's no way of knowing how many people use it).
Its popularity is not by itself a guarantee of longevity, however. The software is free right now, so future revisions and maintenance - even with the support of the open source community - needs some solid underpinning.
So psiphon is going to market.
Deibert is convinced there is a value in the guaranteed delivery of media to consumers who want to access it. There's an institutional and corporate value that can be commercialized, one that can contribute to the value that was identified in the first place - preserving the Internet for the 21st C. |
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