, Psiphon is a communal tool for helping others access parts of the World Wide Web denied to them by their governments.</p>
<p>Restrictive regimes, such as the Chinese or North Koreans, often block huge swaths of the Web from its citizenry, from dissident sites and pornography to western news sites and blogs. This leads to much anguish in those areas, and there has been something of an Internet arms race as those who want the freedom of information and those who act to suppress it each vie to outdo one another.</p>
<p>That’s where the cool idea behind Psiphon comes in. <span id=)
Many of the methods of circumventing Internet roadblocks have taken the form of proxies of one sort or another. The problem here is that the proxies can be identified and the parties hosting them punished. Psiphon takes the proxy out of the affected country. Any reader in an uncensored country might download the software and host it for those less fortunate. The Web users in the censored countries then use your connection to browse the same unrestricted Internet you do.
The idea is based on numbers: if only a handful of users install the software, then it can be blocked easily. But if several thousands use it, then it gets hard. And the more users who share their connection, the more difficult it is for the Internet cops to block them.
The point-to-point traffic is encrypted, and leaves no trace of its use on the client computer. This marks a great way for those behind the digital curtain to peek through, and a great way for average Web users to help out their fellow man. A worthy project that’s overdue, to be sure.
Psiphon Project [Project Homepage]
I wonder if this open-source technology would violate the law. I mean isn’t it equivalent to providing cable to your neighbor illegally? Could you be held liable by your ISP?
What about content that is considered to be illegal in some parts of the ‘free world’ but not others (for example, child pornography in Canada)? Will Psiphon facilitate access to such sites as well? I know that freedom of speech and information can often be a double-edged sword, but I do have to wonder who will bear the brunt of any legal action that may result from the user of Psiphon - the server provider or the actual user?
I wouldn’t be surprised if software like this eventually resulted in renewed calls for establishing a global body to control the Interenet (of course, one where China would have a strong voice).
Both autocratic and democratic governments are adopting filtering technologies to deny Internet content to their citizens.
There are few media usages as abhorrent as child pornography and publishers and users should be prosecuted vigorously. Watermark technologies can flag such users and result in prosecution.
‘psiphon’ serves the world citizen by denying governments the opportunity to censor their citizens’ rights to knowledge and political thought.
NetRightsAdvocates.com
just curious, what’s wrong with the word hacktivist? heh :P