Beijing Olympics creating demand for U of T censorship circumvention tool

In December 2006 the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab introduced Psiphon, a censorship circumvention computer program to open Internet access to residents of countries with repressive governments. A year later, the Citizen Lab has launched an enterprise-class version of the so-called human rights software tool to meet the demand from those entering China for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. "Media companies will have thousands of journalists descending on China, which is the most heavily filtered country in the world," says Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, an international R&D facility- funded by the Open Society Institute and the U of T's Centre for Innovation Law and Policy-that operates at the intersection of Internet censorship and human rights. Many mediacos are scrambling to find ways that will allow their staff to circumvent the ‘Great Firewall of China' and access unfiltered Internet to research and transmit their stories. When the free, open-source software was first released global response was overwhelming, says Deibert. "We were getting blitzed by journalists, activists and other people who want to get around censorship but lack the technical skills to do so," he says. "And many large media companies also came to us, asking for a solution for their staff working behind firewalls in repressive countries."To counter censorship at an organizational level, the Citizen Lab has created a company called Psiphon Inc. to act as a service provider for a variant of the software model that operates as a service, he says. Unlike the standalone version, no software needs to be downloaded on a journalist's computer or the media company's corporate network. Instead, hosted nodes are created and managed by Psiphon Inc. on their behalf. "We're already working with a couple of media companies now, and we're in talks with a few others," he says, adding this work is by necessity quiet and confidential to avoid alerting authorities.Deibert explains that the only reliable circumvention model is establishing an encrypted connection to a computer based outside the censoring country and assuming the guise of that external IP address to access or transmit information on the Web. With the standalone version of Psiphon, dissidents can appeal to trusted friends, families and human rights organizations outside of their censoring countries to download the software to provide them with a proxy IP address. With the enterprise version, the safe IP addresses are provided and managed entirely by Psiphon Inc. Network managers need only to distribute accounts to staff and trusted sources. While the Chinese Olympics are creating major demand for the service this year, Deibert hopes this stimulus will help create a long-term, sustainable business that will feed profits back into research to refine and improve the free version of the software. For example, the enterprise version will work with streaming media such as video, but at present the standalone version doesn't. And some technical difficulties need to be overcome. For example, no circumvention technology today can create access to YouTube. "It's a complex coding process to have Java working through proxies," says Deibert.With the increasing proliferation of circumvention technology, some authorities have retaliated by shutting off the flow of all encrypted Web traffic out of their countries. For example, Deibert says Burma shut off all communications after last year's riots. But this drastic measure has a huge economic price tag, as financial transactions comprise a major part of encrypted traffic but authorities have no way of distinguishing it from undesirable traffic. "Capitalism trumps censorship," says Deibert. "No one will want to invest in countries that shut off financial flows. This creates a terrible dilemma for them, which is exactly what we're trying to do."The Citizen's Lab has also developed a user-friendly guide that explains key terms, models and factors people should consider, depending on whether they're users or providers of circumvention technologies. "It explains what type of information you should be giving users, how to manage accounts, and so on," says Deibert. The guide has been translated into seven languages, including Chinese, Burmese, Arabic and Russian. "We work with human rights organizations who are conduits for this, and also with networks of people working as security consultants and trainers," he says. Deibert warns there are some circumvention technologies that can create serious trouble and lead to arrests. Some unencrypted, or open proxy, technologies are created by unknown external providers and offered to potential dissidents on email lists and forums in repressive countries. "Since these are publicized, the authorities know about them, and the traffic is in plain text, so it's easily monitored and intercepted," he says. Worse still, some of these are in fact "honey pots" set up by authorities to entice people so they can catch them, he adds.

Beijing Olympics creating demand for U of T censorship circumvention tool

Broadcast | January 14, 2008

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