University of Toronto launches web censorship workaround tool

A team of researchers based in Canada have created a solution they hope will help overcome web censorship issues, particularly in countries where governments retain control on who browses what, where and when.

From Friday this week, users will be able to download psiphon, which has the potential to transform PCs into encrypted severs capable of accessing blocked sites and retrieving and displaying associated web pages.

The system has been created by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, as part of an Open Society Institute-funded project.

To work, psiphon relies on social networking comprised of trusted psiphon providers, who install and administer servers, and those who login and access that server resource using a unique web address and password.

End users don't have to install any software on their machines; they simply connect to a psiphon server, or psiphonode.

Anyone monitoring that particular user's web activity will be aware that they have connected to another user's computer, but it will be difficult to pinpoint which sites they visit once there.

Even if one psiphonode is detected and shut down, others will continue to operate independently, as is the nature of social networking.

"The problem is growing exponentially," Ronald Deibert, Citizen Lab's director, told the New York Times.

"What might have started as censorship of pornography and Western news organisations has expanded to include blogging sites, religious sites, health information sites and many others.

"Governments have militarised 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."

But despite the technology's ability to circumnavigate certain web restrictions, the lab urged users to still tread carefully before embarking on net activity that may be against their country's law.

Email to a friend

Print this page

Social Bookmark this article: What is this?

Digg

Delicious

Reddit

StumbleUpon

Slashdot

Google

Facebook