[Infowarrior] - Web censorship 'bypass' unveiled

[Richard Forno]

 Web censorship 'bypass' unveiled

A tool has been created capable of circumventing government censorship of
the web, according to researchers.

The free program has been constructed to let citizens of countries with
restricted web access retrieve and display web pages from anywhere.

The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab software, called psiphon, will be
released on 1 December.

Net censorship is a growing issue, and several countries have come under
fire for blocking online access

Human rights organisation Reporters Without Borders recently released a list
of 13 countries it believed were suppressing freedom of expression on the
net, including Syria, China and Vietnam.

But the Citizen Lab, which is based at the Munk Centre for International
Studies at the University of Toronto, believes its program will allow
surfers to bypass web censorship.

Psiphon works through social networks. A net user in an uncensored country
can download the program to their computer, which transforms it into an
access point.

They can then give contacts in censored countries a unique web address,
login and password, which enables the restricted users to freely browse the
web through an encrypted connection to the proxy server.

'E-avesdropping'

The Citizen Lab said the system provides strong protection against
"electronic eavesdropping" because censors or ISPs can only see that end
users are connected to another computer and not view the sites that are
being visited.

It added that using small trusted networks as a delivery mechanism made it
more difficult for censors to find and shut down psiphon.

However, it also warned potential users that bypassing censorship could
violate laws, and urge them to consider potential consequences of doing so.

Ronald Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, told the New York Times:
"Governments have militarized their censorship efforts to an incredible
extent so we're trying to reverse some of that and restore that promise that
the internet once had for unfettered access and communication."

Beta testing of the system began over the summer, and the free program will
be launched on 1 December.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6187486.stm

Published: 2006/11/27 12:20:08 GMT