An interesting background information article about censorship on the web by the good people of Wikileaks
In Internet history, 1994-2004 was the era of the pioneers. 2004-2007 was the era of the merchants. Now we’re entering the era of the bullies. Everywhere in the world, sites are going dark, arrests are increasing, more people are going to prison. The Web just celebrated its 20th birthday. Nobody used to take it seriously, but those days are gone.
Although Wikileaks was obviously founded as a response to online censorship, and may therefore be biased, the article does paint a pretty clear picture of Big Government Versus The Web.
In Thailand, using a proxy can land you in prison. The software gets around nonetheless, on USB keys or disks, competing these days with virtual private networks (VPN), encrypted gateways that are used, for example, by multinationals for secure online communication with their foreign branches. The solution is so simple that Edwin, in Wenzhou concludes, “If we really wanted to fight cybercensorship, all we’d have to do is invest a few million dollars in a massive VPN and distribute the links and keywords for free to Internet users. End of story.”
Full article here
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