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This resembles the project for circumventing parental controls, Psiphon

Not much you can do at that point besides feel sorry for their citizens.

If the government really didn't care, I would agree with your point. However, I think they really do care.... They have just realized that in the current circumstances, it's more effective to keep wearing the happy face and lose some trust than to open up and try to improve legitimacy.

However, it's a really precarious balance. It works right now because the government has the power to keep most people quiet. This way, not as much talk is spread, and only a few people at a time get upset enough about the lying and oppression to really start trying to affect change, and those few people can be stopped. However, there are tools which are a threat to that balance because they let people be really noisy about the lies and rile other people up. They've evidently identified Gmail as one of these threats, and are now blocking it.

The act of blocking Gmail shows that they care a lot about what people are saying about the lies. At the same time, it shows us that there is something we can do besides feel sorry for their citizens-- and that's advance the tools that let people be noisy. We're a geeky bunch, and we've all heard of them before: Tor, I2P and Psiphon all help people communicate openly. All of those organizations could use your support, whether that's donating money or just running a Tor relay. And if you're really committed, all of those organizations have open positions!

I know that it seems like this is totally out of our control sometimes, and often I feel like there's nothing I can do besides just go, "damn, I'm sorry," but actually, it turns out that we really want to, we can help.

It's there now...

Direct link is http://psiphon.ca/download.php

Windows-only .msi file, though. Looks like the source (or Linux tarballs) aren't up yet.

Through the site in the article or this url

http://psiphon.ca/download/psiphoninstall.msi