Jul 312011
 

University of Michigan is working on some interesting internet technology that should allow people to visit websites (YouTube, frex) that are banned by the countries they are in (China, frex):

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/31/138872976/a-new-way-around-internet-censorship

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.

Neat.

And not exactly relevant, but also on the NPR website:

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/31/138639711/math-can-predict-insurgent-attacks-physicist-says

Guy predicts terrorist attacks with math. How weird is that?

 Posted by at 3:46 pm

  4 Responses to “Can’t Stop The Signal”

  1. “”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.”

    They want governments to provide incentives to private companies to install a way to foil the censorship of governments? I’m sure the Chinese government will go for that scheme *rolleyes*

    • > I’m sure the Chinese government will go for that scheme *rolleyes*

      I think you misunderstood. The idea is to get *other* governments to pass such incentives. If the Swedes, say, passed tax breaks for ISPs that installed Telex, then Swedish ISPs could be used to defeat Chinese censorship.

      • No, I got that. But how many Chinese get their internet from foreign service providers? Certainly at least some of them buy domestic, and I doubt the Chinese government would allow the domestic providers to engage in this scheme.

        Also, even if you stuck with foreign service providers and the governments of foreign countries, I think interest in providing genuine incentives would be limited, because they would be asked to be funding weapons which could ultimately be turned against them. They would also be asked to do something which ticks off China. Since both Europe and the US imports a lot of cheap crap from China, the governments of these nations might not be too keen at this prospect.

  2. University of Toronto already has created a similar thing. I shall google it in the morning.

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