Check this out. There is a new tool to circumvent government bans on Internet sites out now. It’s called “Psiphon:”

Researchers at University of Toronto plan to introduce a software tool on Friday that aims to help people in countries that censor the World Wide Web.

Psiphon (pronounced sigh-fawn), a web-based utility, lets individuals in a country that censors the internet sign on to a server that gives them secure access to web pages anywhere, bypassing government restrictions.

Its creators plan to launch the software at the Protect The Net conference at the university’s Munk Centre for International Studies, where psiphon emerged as a project of Citizenlab.

This is especially good news for readers in China, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East trying to access blogs and websites critical of their governments or critical of Islam.

Like they say, information wants to be free. And where there’s a programmer, there’s a way.

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More info: You can download the program here:

Spread the word.

Update: Readers have e-mailed a couple of caveats. First, it appears George Soros helped fund the initiative. If people use the program in order to access this blog, or view the Mohammed cartoons, or speak out against the ChiComs, it doesn’t necessarily bother me that Soros money helped them do so. More worrisome is this e-mail warning from reader Paul:

If you’re going to mention this software, you should probably also mention
the following :

Anyone running the ‘host’ or server-side software, becomes what is called a
‘proxy server’. When the users request for a page comes in, the proxy
server goes out and gets the page, encrypts it, and returns it to the user.

Now – if that page happened to be, for instance – child porn, guess what
? The SERVER ( you ) is recorded as going to that site ( IOW, your
computer that you are making available to someone you don’t know in China
), and YOUR computer is recorded in your ISP’s logs and elsewhere as
downloading any images obtained, etc. Then, when you re-send that page to
China, you are now an international distributor of child porn.

Also, you are now acting as an anonymizing server for potential hackers,
jihadists, etc.

This Psiphon thing is an interesting concept, and well-intended, but, as
with everything, ‘no good act will go unpunished’.

Also be sure to check out the chatter at Slashdot before downloading. (hat tip – reader Guy)

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Previous:

Censoring blogs in India
Blogger backlash in India
Don’t block the blog
Banned in Pakistan
Who’s banning your website?
Another blog banned in the UAE
Banned in the UAE
Jawa Report banned in India
The China-Google Protest Logo Album
More China Google protest logos