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.
This is a fantastic service! It would be a great way for the troops in Iraq to get their message out; since they recently had a big crack down too. China is not the only place where you can be prosecuted / persecuted for what you write online.
Dominant Meme
The article says the data between the proxy and user is encrypted. I think the idea is there is no single point of failure. Each user has one 'contact' in the 'free' country. Even if the proxy is identified and blocked you're only cutting off one user. Whereas usually you block the servers at the source, stopping everyone from seeing it.
But also for Americans. More and more of us are going to schools, universities, and workplaces that install and use content filtering/firewalls. Where I work most of /. isn't blocked (obviously), but curiously enough, the games and ask sections of slashdot are blocked.
Most blogs and web forums are blocked as well. The sad thing is, a major part of my job is research, and more and more important information is coming via those venues (at least in my field), and other sites that being blocked.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
Brilliant. But you don't win freedom or anything else by hiding somewhere and spreading nonsense on the internet. If you want things to change, the way forward it to go out there and take the risks. The ones who don't have the courage very rarely have anything real to say. Look at our own history in the West: it is littered with examples of who changes were brought about because of the struggle of those who had vision and courage. The same thing is happening in China, and not at all slowly when you compare to how things went in Europe. Just look at what has happened in the last 20 years; did people in eg. UK ever go through such enormous changes in so short a time?
You bring up some important points. The 'contact' is putting his trust in the guy he's helping do the circumvention. Its the same idea as an open wireless network. Even if you don't mind sharing your bandwidth with strangers, do you trust them to not download kiddie porn or run a phishing scam over your internet connection? That'll probably come back to bite you in the ass if they do.
Your first point depends on how hard it is to detect that some one is using this circumvention software. They're doing something illegal obviously, but that goes without saying.
lol. I want my 30 seconds and 15 IQ points back.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
The Hippocratic oath that doctors take includes the statement "First, do no harm". What country has the corporations that are creating the architecture to allow the Chinese government to censor material? The answer is the US - Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Cisco and other corporations have been who have implemented this censorship for the Chinese government. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me to say you are setting up "free zones" in "free countries" to help evade censorship, when the people who control the capital in the US are the ones who have implemented the censorship in China. If this were a free country, the obvious answer would be to just have these corporations stop implementing the censorship in China. Instead, that, which is the only solution that makes any sense, is not even thought of, and instead these PR "free zones" are set up, so that Chinese people can attempt to evade (at their own personal risk) the censorship which is set up by US corporations, including the US corporations like Yahoo who helped China hunt down dissidents like Shi Tao. This stuff is a joke, if you want to stop censorship in China, stop implementing it in the US.