22 November 2006

What's a Chinese netizen to do if he happens to find the BBC a legitimate news outlet but his government disagrees? Countries like China and Saudia Arabia regularly censor the Internet, which means that some citizens in those countries are regularly trying to evade the government blocks. Come December 1, they'll have a new tool—psiphon.

psiphon is currently in development at the Citizen Lab, a part of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. The project's goal is to allow surfers in countries with censored 'Net access to connect to web proxies posted in uncensored countries. Unlike other anonymizing or proxy services, psiphon relies on "networks of trust" to distribute the proxy addresses, hopefully making psiphon nodes more difficult to find and block.