A New Way Around Internet Censorship?
China is stepping up Internet censorship, telling hotels and cafes they need to monitor public Wi-Fi usage or face fines and punishments.
China is already one of the most heavily censored places in the world — along with places like Burma (Myanmar), Iran and many Middle Eastern countries.
Now, new software being developed at the University of Michigan may help Internet users find away around the blockages. Alex Halderman is an assistant professor of computer science at the university, and one of the developers of the new system, called Telex.
He tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that right now, most people in censored countries connect to third-party servers outside the country to get around censorship.
These machines "receive connections from people inside the countries and then bounce them off to whatever censored website the user wants," Halderman says. But it's usually not long until the censoring government finds and blocks one of these outside servers.
Halderman says Telex will get around this problem by turning the entire Internet into an anti-censorship device. The system has two parts, he says.
"First, there's software that you install on your computer. And then there are devices that we call Telex stations, that Internet service providers (ISPs) outside the country doing the censorship put on the pipes of the Internet. That is, on the wires that are carrying traffic."
So if you're in China, and you want access to a banned site like YouTube, you just type YouTube.com into your browser, and the Telex station will see that connection, and disguise it as something innocuous. You might be watching YouTube, but to a censor, it will just seem as if you're visiting a harmless, non-blocked site.
Halderman recognizes that the Telex system will require cooperation from Internet service providers on a large scale if it is to work.
"We like to envision this technology as a possible government-level response to government-level censorship," he says, with governments providing incentives for ISPs to install Telex.
But what if terrorists or other bad actors want to use Telex to disguise their visits to banned sites?
"Unfortunately, there are already effective ways that terrorists could potentially visit websites like that without being tracked down," Halderman says.
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R75.20 software adds a proxy that terminates SSL sessions so the traffic can be run through security filters. Customers can configure exceptions so, for instance, employees may carry on SSL transactions with their banks without it being decrypted by
This is because, in some cases, multiple individuals may be represented by a single IP address (or small number of IP addresses), because they access the Web through a firewall or proxy server. Conversely, individual users can have multiple IP
The days when a company could simply un-friend social media — hiding it behind a firewall so employees couldn't access it — are disappearing faster than yesterday's "Trending Now" topics on Twitter. With an estimated 70% of social-media use coming
And he says right now, in many authoritarian countries, the state deploys a firewall between their own Internet systems and the rest of the world. ALEX HALDERMAN: Citizens in these countries have been trying various ways to get around this for years.
Facebook is Blocked at Work – How Can I Access ? | Ninja Proxy Surfing
Yes I know it is addictive, yes I know you love to spend hours on there – which is probably the reason Facebook is blocked at your work. I did some work on a content filter last year at a medical company – we didn’t actually block anyone but just monitored the sites the employees were visiting. The amount of time some individuals spent on Facebook, MySpace and Ebay was simply incredible – one individual was spending 30 hours a week regularly on these sites !!!
The idea of monitoring these sites initially was to make a solid case for blocking these sites. You see the company had quite a relaxed Internet Usage Policy and they were quite happy to allow people access during lunch hours, breaks and after work. But obviously if you’re spending that amount of time surfing the web you aren’t doing much work!
So we Blocked Facebook …..
Now for ordinary people who just want to keep in touch, or check in occasionally this can be a bit annoying. So I want to tell you how these sites are blocked and how you can access them. First of all though you should check your employment and internet policies – if there’s stuff in there about not accessing these sites and phrases like subject to disciplinary action appear then you’re probably best waiting until you get home. Accessing sites that your employer has blocked on purpose is likely to get you into trouble – but hey that’s your choice.
Facebook Blocked By Firewall – Using A Web ProxyThe very simplest way to block access to a web site is just by using a proxy or firewall. Here you just create a simple black list of web sites which will not be allowed through. So for instance in this case we might have the URL – www.facebook.com or perhaps the IP address of the Facebook servers or perhaps both. All internet traffic will go through the firewall or proxy so when you request any sites in this list you just get redirected to another page (usually a warning page).
This is the way everyone used to do this, however it’s pretty easy to get round now. If you look on the internet on ways to access Facebook at work or school you’ll normally find the suggestion to use an external proxy (they’ll have names like ninjaproxy or shadow proxy or something stupid like that! What happens here is you got to proxy web site where you type in your URL (e.g. Facebook) the proxy then fetches the page and displays it in a little frame for you. From your site you are communicating with the proxy server (not Facebook) and so the Firewall does not block your request.
@ This way I can use it for work IRC too, as it's behind a firewall and requires a proxy anyways.
Just found out my super secure work doesn't block twitter but does get a firewall hardon for twitter proxy sites. Today must be opposite day
Guys, use a proxy at work/school to get around the firewall. Pretty sure browsers have settings to use one.Proxy Work Firewall - Bookshelf
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