Block directory authorities, is it possible?

Paul Syverson syverson at itd.nrl.navy.mil
Sun Jan 14 23:28:29 UTC 2007


On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 12:15:02PM +0800, Kevin Smith wrote:
> 
> Reason C) seems pretty reasonable, and also provides a reason as to
> why both Torpark and psiphon have been blocked.
> 
> >From the Torpark Support page: "Your donation can help bring democracy
> to those who have no choice, freedom of speech to those who are
> silenced, and break down the walls of censorship worldwide."
> http://torrify.com/support.php
> 
> >From the psiphon homepage: "psiphon is a human rights software project
> ... that allows citizens in uncensored countries to provide unfettered
> access to the Net through their home computers to friends and family
> members who live behind firewalls of states that censor."
> http://psiphon.civisec.org/
> 
> On the other hand, the Tor developers have publicly made note of the
> ability of Tor to circumvent the Chinese firewall, calling China "a
> global active adversary with a lot of manpower and money, and severe
> penalties to discourage people from trying."
> http://wiki.noreply.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#China
> 
> Given the fact that access to these smaller projects has been blocked,
> I think the "Tor is small enough to be flying below the radar"
> argument has some strikes against it. I think there must be some other
> reason(s) in addition to this one as to why Tor has not been blocked.
> But what is that reason?
> 

If our suspicions about reasons are right, we should do what we can
to maintain those reasons if it doesn't mean going to great lengths.
This entry should be changed. Removing it might send the wrong message,
and give fodder to tinfoil hats. But it could easily be generalized
to talking about the blocking problem, and mention the 
"Tor for Freedom" button rather than the "help China" button.
and of course the subpage link "#China" should be changed to
something like blocking resistance.

-Paul

(P.S. Yes I know it's a wiki, but I think it best for all if I
do not edit it directly.)



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