Slashdot Mirror
Psiphon Now Available For Download
eldavojohn writes "Project Psiphon has been released for public download under the GPL. CNN has coverage of the Canadian research project that 'works by first allowing a person in a country like Canada that does not censor Internet content to set up a user name and a password for a person in a country that does — China, for example.' While this idea is certainly nothing new to Slashdot, the fact that software like Psiphon is becoming publicly available is interesting. For a quick simplified 'How it works,' Psiphon has a Flash demonstration." Not a moment too soon, apparently. China is moving to assign IDs to bloggers, to register their real identities and track their statements online.
2) On the other hand, I'm sure there *are* plenty of people who could make enthusiastic use of web browsing from some stranger's IP. But I'm sure they'd never get you in serious trouble, right?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The U.S.S.R. would still exist today if it hadn't been for all those folks "hiding" behind fax machines, getting the word out.
Vision and Courage are great but they don't exist without information.
One individual revolutionary isn't going to change anything. One revolutionary that spreads his ideas to others and builds a following can. Thats why their internet is censored in the first place. It blocks the message and blocks the crucial organization of followers.
If the military person in question posts something that will cause risk to others in doing their JOB, then I would hope the government would tarck down the person setting up this "service" for said military person, and find out who they set it up for...If they refuse, toss them in jail in a 6x8 solitary confinement cell, forever until they do.
I'm all for free-speech. I'm not all for free-speech that can bring risk of life to others in the military (directly).
Oh knock it off with the "EVIL CORPORATIONS!!! EVIL UNITED STATES!!!". You know if the U.S. declared a technology embargo to China, self rightous dweebs like yourself would be all up in arms that "Corporations are trying to intimidate the soveriegn nation of China and undermine socialism", just like you already do with Cuba! Censorship existed in far greater extremes in China back in the day when China was as anti-American and anti-Free-Market as yourself. Tell me the U.S. corporation that was making censorship possible back in the days of the cultural revolution, when censorship meant that having the wrong views would get you starved to death in a work camp or killed by firing squad? Since the opening of China to foriegn buisnesses, average income has increase by 1500% just in the poorest parts of China, music / movies / and books are available from all over the world, and personal freedom and expression are far greater than during the Communist era. In fact, Chinese censorship is more a dying holdover from the days when China was ruled under YOUR anti-corporation ideology of choice.
The only thing that would happen if the U.S. stopped selling data technology to China, is that they would buy it from the Europeans instead (this is what has been happening with weapons technology - The U.S. refuses to sell high tech weapons to China, and so China buys the same or similiar weapons from Europe). That, and then you would switch to calling the U.S. refusal to sell the technology as "Economic Imperialism" and you would be all up in arms about that.
I think that most people who rant about China filtering the content of their internet users are forgetting one thing.... China is not our country. They have the right to run their society any way they see fit. We tend to look at the world in a particular way, and if it doesn't match our ideal of the way things are supposed to be, we think we have the God given right to change it. Do we really have that right? How would we feel if an outside interest group decided that we needed to be changed and that our laws should be circumvented? When Yahoo stated that they would obey Chinese law and filter content, that's the price they had to pay to do business in that country, just like any foreign company would have to follow our laws when doing business here. I don't blame them for that, they want to make a profit like everyone else. The bottom line is this... China has it's laws and their citizens have to obey those laws, just as we must obey the laws in our own country. Giving the average Chinese citizen the ability to circumvent those laws is not doing them a service since the Chinese government turns dissidents into organ doners.