Slashdot Mirror
Canadians To Douse Chinese Firewall
FrenchyinOntario writes "Researchers at a University of Toronto lab are getting ready to release a computer program called Psiphon, which will allow Internet users in free countries to help users in more restrictive countries (like China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc.) to access the Internet by getting past the firewalls and getting around "rubber hose cryptoanalysis" which is a drawback of other anti-firewall programs as it reveals a user's tracks if discovered by authorities. Operating through port 443, Psiphon will allow users in monitoring countries the ability to send an encrypted request for certain information, and for users in secure countries to send it back to them. The UofT's Citizen Lab hopes to debut Psiphon at the international congress of the free speech group PEN in May."
There will always be ways for dedicated and savy people to get through firewalls for purposes such as this. However, on the large scale, it does little to affect the access to censored information by the public in general.
I could be wrong, but in a case like this, the Tor system might actually be worse; normal Tor operation says that you only have to trust that most of the nodes are legit onion routers. However, in the case of China, I believe that you need to trust that the first node is legit. Why? Because if that first node is the Chinese embassy or another node owned by China, and your IP is coming from a Chinese netblock, then your secrecy is blown.
At least with this system, you're encouraged to form a relationship of trust with the node you're communicating with.
No comment.