Project Psiphon and the Great Firewall of China

Today's Globe has a report on the next project to come out of Ron Deibert's Citizen Lab. Psiphon is a software tool that will allow Internet users in countries that practice not only 'net censorship and filtering, but jailing of 'net dissidents as well.

Psiphon is designed to eliminate a drawback of anti-filter programs: incriminating the users behind the firewall. If found by authorities, that anti-filter software can lead to coercive interrogation, a bid to uncover the suspect's Internet travel secrets using a tactic known to insiders as "rubber-hose cryptoanalysis."

Mr. Villeneuve built a system that won't leave dangerous footprints on computers. In simple terms, it works by giving monitored computer users a way to send an encrypted request for information to a computer located in a secure country. That computer finds the information and sends it back, also encrypted.

[Technorati tags: psiphon | deibert | citizen lab]