‘Human rights software’ helps Iranian dissidents connect
OTTAWA, (AFP)
Software developed by a Canadian lab to circumvent online censorship
has been downloaded by more than 18,000 Iranians in the last 10 days,
says its developer Rafal Rohozinski.
A thirst for online freedom in Iran, as well as in China, Myanmar and
other authoritarian hotspots, has led to a sudden proliferation of all
technologies designed to overcome curbs on news and social networking
Internet sites. “This speaks to the hunger for access to information
when it’s being denied,” Rohozinski told AFP.
Iranians angered by the results of the country’s presidential
election that returned hardline incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
to power have been using social and media sites such as Facebook, Flickr
and Twitter to communicate and organize. They have also been posting
videos of violent post-election protests and clashes to video-sharing
sites such as YouTube.
But more and more, Tehran has fought back by blocking access to news
and social networking Internet sites. Psiphon overcomes this by punching
thousands of tiny holes in computer firewalls and opening new pathways
in order to access blocked content. If a user wishes to view a blocked
BBC News website, for example, Psiphon enables them to link to a proxy
to view the content. If censors shut down this access, a new access
window opens up, and so on.
It is “human rights software,” said Rohozinski, who also recently
helped uncover a shadowy cyber-espionage network based mostly in China
that had infiltrated government and private computers around the world.
The network, known as GhostNet, infected 1,295 computers in 103
countries and penetrated systems containing sensitive information in top
political, economic and media offices, researchers at Toronto’s Citizen
Lab said in March. The idea for Psiphon emerged out of a project
launched by Toronto, Cambridge, Harvard and Oxford universities to track
Internet censorship. |