New Tool to Circumvent Government Censorship on Web

Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto announces tool to help Internet users circumvent government censorship of the Web. The Psiphon software, developed by CitizenLab at the University of Toronto, is downloaded onto a computer in an uncensored country, becoming the host computer.  The site describes the tool as follows: "The host then provides the login and password to a trusted friend, family member, or colleague in a censored country; this person can then use the host computer as a proxy to search the web, censor-free."  Wikipedia has an entry about the new Hacktivist tool describing the technology.  Like Cult of the Dead Cow technologies,  Psiphon attempts to ensure free and anonymous information sharing and communication in countries that practice censorship (intended use) but it also takes advantage of existing social networks to distribute open access and enable users to circumvent centrally-imposed filtering systems.  This takes a lesson from grid technologies for distributed access, not simply to promote more computing or processing power, but freedom of speech, something David Johnson and I discussed in Society's Software.