A new tool aimed at circumventing Internet filters used by repressive regimes was released yesterday, offering hopes for freer access to information for activists, journalists and others.
The "psiphon" software, developed at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, offers more potential for bypassing government censors than most other tools because it allows simple access and leaves no traces on the computers of people who use it, developers say.
Psiphon, released through the Open Net Initiative, a project of four universities in the US, Canada and Britain, "operates on private social networks of trust," said Ronald Deibert, director of Citizen Lab.
Deibert said psiphon functions like a virtual private network (VPN) used by many companies and organizations to securely transmit data, but without the cumbersome installation of VPNs.
"We've designed it to be very easy to use," Deibert said, adding that other software aimed at maintaining anonymity on the Internet can be complex to use.
"The user does not have to install anything. They connect to the software with a unique user name and password and Web site address," he said.
Because the system relies on a connection through a proxy computer outside the country, "there is nothing authorities can block," Deibert said.
With psiphon, a user in a country such as China, which limits the information that can be seen on the Internet, connects to a proxy in another country that allows them to bypass restrictions.
Even if authorities located someone using the bypass tool, they would only be able to shut down a single "node" or contact and this would not affect others.
And because the data is encrypted over the connection, he said authorities can only see there is a connection to another computer. To read the data, censors "would have to have sophisticated code-cracking technologies at their disposal, and it would take a long time."
The psiphon software itself is downloaded to a computer outside the repressive country, making it an access point. As a result, its benefits may be limited to people who have contacts outside their country.
Deibert said that the small networks using this would likely include expatriate communities of Chinese, Iranians or others in the West. But it could also include writers traveling to certain nations or people involved in non-governmental activist organizations.
Julien Pain of the human rights group Reporters Without Borders said psiphon is "a very good tool" for those seeking to bypass censorship in hardline regimes.
But Pain said psiphon might be limited to wealthier people who have family or friends outside the country.
"The everyday Internet user in China probably won't know anyone in the West," he said. "It's very innovative but no software can solve the censorship problem."
Activists say Internet blocking has spread from a handful of countries like China and Iran to as many as 40 governments, including in Africa.
"Online censorship is spreading," Pain said.
Deibert said that he expects thousands of people to begin using psiphon in countries such as China, where activists have been jailed for Internet activities, but also dozens of others which have some limits on the Web.
"Over the last five years, the Internet has been carved up, colonized and militarized and is losing the properties we associate as being an open forum of free expression," Pain said. "We are trying to restore the original promise."
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS