Google Accelerator

It's been suggested that Google's new Accelerator can be used to defeat Internet censorship. Although it may be partially effective in doing so, it certainly does not do so anonymously or securely. For example, using the Google Accelerator from within China it can be partially sucessful -- some blocked content is accessible, some is not. As Fons Tuinstra reports access to some sites can be intermittent -- at first Google News was inaccessible, later it was accessible. Not all requests for content are directed through the Google Accelerator. Some requests are made directly to the server being requested. In the case of accessible a blocked site (news.google.com) from China, if the first request was a direct request it would be blocked as usual, however, the seoncd was likely to the Google Accelerator's cache. In the case of ages with many images, some connections may run through the Accelerator others may be direct connections, so the success for circumvention purposes will vary.

However, even when the connection is made through Google's Accelerator, the originating IP is passed along to the host.

REMOTE_ADDR: 72.14.194.31
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR: 128.100.171.24

Google's Accelerator does not provide anonymity and can be sucessful in circumventing censorship if the requested content is already cached by the Accelerator. Since al the traffic is is plain text it can be intercepted by any upstream intermediary (government, ISP, etc..) and any blocking done by keyword will also still be functional.

Anonymity & Blogging

Anonymity and blogging is a hot topic. In addition to a panel at BlogNashville a variety of guides have recently come out. The EFF has published a guide on "How to Blog Safely". It is a general discussion of blogging and anonymity. Another guide by Ethan Zuckerman, " A technical guide to anonymous blogging", focuses on the pragmatic side of blogging anonymously.

The one thing, which I noted in the comments is that people who want to be anonymous should not rely on the use of open public proxies. Although the use of such a proxy can sheild your IP address from the host you're connecting to it may send through identifying headers and all the traffic between you and the proxy is generally in plain text and easily intercepted by anyone (ISP, government, workplace) sniffing traffic upstream. For anonymous communications, try TOR, now sponsored by the EFF.

However, I don't want my comments to be interpreted as falling into the "no matter what you do you can be tracked down" category. Rebecca MacKinnon's account of the Anoniblog meeting indicates that this point was brought up a number of people. While not disputing the theoretical possiblity of such an omnipotent adversary I think the key is pointing out what technologies work well in specific situation and fully informing users of potential weaknesses. Rather that trumpet a defeatist approach, we should note that people are risking imprisonment and other nasty consequences for publishing information online. They are taking these risks without technologies or non-technical practices that help sheild them from such consequences. There are technologies that work well to provide security and anonymity and given the specifics of the end-user's situation -- technical capabilties and legal/consequencial environment of the country of residence -- such technoogies can provide a layer of protection that such users do not currently enjoy.

Publication Bans

A comment on Bitch. Ph.D.'s blog tackles the issue of "publications bans" in Canada. Recently a publication ban was ordered by Justice Gomery on specific testimony related to the "sponsorship scandal". A U.S. blog published the information despite the publication ban. The ban was partially lifted, but Gomery has now extended the publication ban.

That night I watched CTV news (I watch The National too) and was surprised that they clearly identified the blog that broke the publication ban. A quick Google search turned up the results. The blog was actually inaccessible that night, but the Google cache was accessible.

Human rights in the Blogosphere

Amnesty gets in the blog game:

The new media landscape is evolving at unprecedented speed and one of its most powerful weapons yet is the mighty blog. It is arguably the year of the Blogosphere, a phenomenon that has profound implications for press freedom and human rights.

But, is blogging "Electronic civil disobedience"? In some cases, I don't see why not.

Go get your Civiblog!

Military Censors... Badly

It seems that the Pentagon's procedure of censorsing documents is not working out too well. A recent report concerning the killing of Italian Agent Nicola Calipari and the wounding of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena has just been released. Calipari was escorting Sgrena to the airport after securing her release in Iraq, Sgrena had been held hostage in Iraq for more than one month. (BBC background info) . Many pages of the military's inventigation had been censored, however, if you download the pdf and simply copy 'n paste the censored sections you can read the full contents of the report. BBC reports that a Greek student first discovered this and informed Italian newspapers which have now published the report in full. You can download the censored and uncensored version of the report here.

In addition to names, places and military tactics the censored portions concern some of the specific details of how the road block was set-up, the communications set-up and the report's reccommendations. One extremely odd censored section is the folowing footnote on page 29:

2 (S//NF) 2 VOIP is a technology that allows telephone calls to be made using a broadband internet connection instead of a regular (analog) phone line.

But, I think it was to obscure the fact that the US military uses VOIP to communicate, not to prevent us from knowning that the US military knows what VOIP is. The Italian report is due shortly.