BURMA DIGEST

                      A Campaign Journal for Human Rights of All Ethnic Nationalities in Burma          10.12.2006

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Breaking open the Floodgates

Psiphon gives us a another way

 

_ By Taisamyone

In early November this year, Reporters Without Frontiers released a blacklist of the 13 worst ‘Enemies of the Internet’ – not surprisingly, Burma is on the list.  The list identifies those countries that are suppressing freedom of expression on the Internet.  Reporters Without Frontiers (Reporters Sans Frontières - RSF) has been particularly outspoken regarding the connivance of Yahoo and other major internet service providers with the government of China.  The RSF initiatives in this area are not the only ones involved.  Amnesty International has been equally critical of Yahoo.  RSF  accused Yahoo of providing China with information that helped to identify and convict two internet writers.  Li Zhi was jailed for eight years in 2003, after posting comments that criticised official corruption.  Writer Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years in prison in April 2005 after criticising human rights abuses.  "The internet has become a new frontier in the struggle for human rights," said Kate Allen, UK director of Amnesty International.  AI have established a new website specifically for people interested in supporting this crucial Human Rights issue.  Irrepressible.info is a campaign site - it aims to harness the power of the internet to mobilise people all over the world to take a stand against repression.  It hopes to mobilise those who have of us with freedom of expression to use to help those who don’t. 

RSF have also prepared a detailed support package for people who want to get around the internet firewalls that repressive regimes install.  It explains the different types of ‘circumnavigation’ technologies and provides links to all the useful sites that offer such applications, such as proxy servers.  The information and downloadable guides for combating Internet censorship are all available from the RSF website, and should be obtained by anyone wishing to help our friends in Burma, China or any other of those countries that restrict Internet access (‘Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents’).  RSF have also released their annual RSF Worldwide Press Freedom Index – and Burma features as 164th out of 168 countries, with a score of 94.75, just worse than China with 94.00.  North Korea at the bottom of the list gets a score of 109.00.  We should also take note of the fact although some northern European countries get scores of 0.5, the UK with 6.5 and the USA with 13.00 come in the list at 27 and 53 respectively.  Freedom of the press is still something that even the most developed countries need to monitor and take action to safeguard our basic ‘Article 19’ Human Rights.

The RSF articles on ‘Technical ways to get around censorship’ discusses the various software products and services provided as proxy servers or anonymisers, etc. as options for getting around the firewall from a country in which censorship is prevalent.  These come with a warning – some require the use of software loaded onto a computer and hence providing evidence of the activity deemed illegal in the user’s country.  Sites that are centrally hosted (e.g. proxy servers) can be blocked by a country’s firewall making it difficult to access.  And of course whoever uses a computer in such a country should be sure to delete any ‘history’ and ‘temporary internet files’ accumulated from web searches, as these may be used as evidence of accessing banned sites by Burma’s snoopy spooks.

Psiphon has been designed by a group at the ‘Citizen Lab’ based at the University of Toronto who want to help people in those countries where Internet censorship is prevalent – they are  a Human Rights based group who want to help Human Rights campaigners and those affected by restrictions in freedom of information around the world.  “The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media and world civic politics.” Psiphon have given particular care to ensuring that those who use the system in the country where Internet censorship is prevalent are protected from being detected by the authorities.  The safety of protecting the individual from detection by repressive regimes, like that in Burma, who persecute individuals for accessing news outside their control is paramount. 

Psiphon is perhaps unique in the web circumvention in that the service is not provided by a central hosting company or by the need for the user to install software.  Psiphon relies on those of us who own broadband connections using our own computer as a hosting service for our friends and family in Burma.   Psiphon software is downloaded by people in uncensored countries and then, once installed, the computer address obtained from the Psiphon installation is sent by secure means (by hand, telephone, secure or encrypted e-mail) to a limited number of family and friends inside Burma.  They use this Internet address to access our computer and thence via Psiphon access news and information from sites that have been banned within Burma.  Our computers in uncensored countries are acting as anonymous proxy servers for our contacts in Burma.  Thus, we need to be careful ourselves in using this software – and will rely on the trust that we have in our friends and family in Burma.  The Psiphon installer sets up and administers their own secure network and invites trusted ‘Psiphonites’ in censored countries to use this network.  Psiphon uses the same secure encrypted communication link protocol (‘https’) that is used by banks, e-mail and e-commerce sites for transferring confidential and financial data, so the data transmitted and retrieved by the user inside Burma cannot be interrogated by the firewall software or the government snoops. 

The Psiphon system has already been used by trial testers inside countries that have severe Internet censorship and so far they have accessed news and information safely.  Successful Psiphon relies on this level of trust between us and our contacts.  The technical details of how to set up the system and how to set up ‘routers’ that many broadband users have are available via the Psiphon forum, although it takes a bit of time to familiarise oneself with the technicalities.  The forum is on hand to help anyone who has trouble setting up or who wants to test out an installation outside Burma first.  Psiphon will need a number of people to become familiar with it and take the plunge to commit to using it for it to grow into an effective means of communication for a substantial number of people in Burma to benefit. 

Only a limited number of people can use our home computer as a server at any one time and most of us only have limited broadband bandwidth to offer (an always-on broadband connection is required for the hosting computer).  But the more people start installing Psiphon in the free world, the more people in Burma will be able to access news and information for themselves.  Although firewalls can block specific sites - they know how to block VOA and BBC websites as well as  proxy server sites – they don’t know how to identify Psiphon sites.  If thousands of individuals set up their computers to use Psiphon, the censorship authorities will not be able to identify or track them - then the Internet will become available to anyone in Burma who can access a computer and has a 'Psiphon-node' friend outside – but I’m not sure what happens in Burma’s Internet Cafes, where any external access is limited and closely monitored – perhaps our readers can report back on this – Psiphon users have tested the security via internet cafes in Iran and China.

For those of you interested in pursuing the Psiphon route, I recommend reading the information on RSF, irrepressible.info and Psiphon – join in and make a difference.  We can use our Internet Liberty to help those whose who do not have the freedom to access the Internet. 

 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 19 http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/index.htm

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

 

Quotes

“The human rights situation in Burma is dire, with freedom of expression a serious casualty. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has come to symbolise the fight for democracy and free expression in Burma, has spent a total of eleven years under house arrest. … ARTICLE 19 commends Suu Kyi for her relentless spirit in championing freedom of expression in the face of extreme adversity and urges the UN Security Council to adopt a binding resolution on Burma calling for an end to human rights violations, including freedom of expression, to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners, and to put in place a process leading to the holding of democratic elections.”

ARTICLE 19 press release: 13 November 2006

http://www.article19.org/pdfs/letters/burma-letter-to-unsc.pdf

 

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Comments:

Min said _

But, what if your computer is hacked, or effected by a virus, or if your line is tapped? Even if you can get away from the first two easily, line tapping is a big deal for everyone, esp. in those infamous countries for human right abuses. And does Burma have broadband without line?

Tai Sam Yone replied _

Hi Min. Hacking and Viruses can be prevented with a good Firewall and Virus protection software. e.g. I use Panda Titanium, but there are many others. If the line is tapped, the tapper can't read what data is sent or where it originates as it is securely encrypted - they only know that some data has been transferred from a remote website which they do not have access to - but using an Internet Cafe should be better than using a home computer. The Psiphon team are a Human Rights focused team so they are aware of all these issues, and their Forum has more information and comments from other users. The user in Burma doesn't need the broadband connection. Only the computer running the Psiphon Node outside Burma.
 

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