WiFi Week: Getting Online Where You Can't
5/08/2008 at 10:20 AM
Tags: WiFi Week, WiFi, Free WiFi, Travel Tech (all tags)
It's WiFi Week, which means we're investigating the state of wireless internet on the road. Today, getting online in anti-internet destinations.
When we covered the state of international WiFi on Tuesday, we didn't mention that not every country would give you access to the same internet. In other words, just because you've found a signal, you might not be able to do whatever you want online.
A number of countries limit certain sites and certain content. Among them are China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Syria and Tunisia. Reporters without Borders maintains a list of "Enemies of the Internet" that includes these and six other nations. Myanmar famously shut down all internet access during anti-government uprisings last year.
What can you do when you need to log on and your connection is compromised? After the jump, some options.
Boing Boing's Guide to Defeating Censorware
Chances are, if it's a technique to defeat censorship software, internet super-site Boing Boing has already heard of it. The crew maintains this list of techniques for skirting content filters. Among the techniques you'll find listed are the use of proxies, the use of TOR and the use of Google's translation feature to anonymize your browsing. These aren't guaranteed to work, but they're a good start if for some reason you aren't able to bring up a particular website or blog.
Reporters without Borders
The press freedom advocacy group has a primer on internet filtering. If what you just read didn't make much sense, you'll find it easier to understand this guide, which explains both how 'net censorship happens and how you can defeat it.
Like Boing Boing, Reporters without Borders recommends the use of web-based anonymizing services that can get you onto a page or two. You won't be able to use some of the listed websites in every situation, though, as they're eventually discovered and blocked by filtering software. More technical--and therefore more robust--ways of bypassing censorship are also listed. Be sure to have your geek friend handy to translate.
What's up with China?
Of all the nations that regulate the web, China has to be the most famous, if only for the flashy name its filtering has been given: The Great Firewall of China. Thing is, that's not really what the censorship effort is called. As James Fallows reported in a terrific Atlantic article:
Disappointingly, "Great Firewall" is not really the right term for the Chinese government's overall control strategy. China has indeed erected a firewall--a barrier to keep its Internet users from dealing easily with the outside world--but that is only one part of a larger, complex structure of monitoring and censorship. The official name for the entire approach, which is ostensibly a way to keep hackers and other rogue elements from harming Chinese Internet users, is the "Golden Shield Project."
Fallows rightly notes that the real name is totally creepy, but he also indicates that the control system is nowhere near as effective as China would have us believe. As he sees it, the censorship harms the Chinese more than visitors to the country. For more on the Golden Shield, check out the Wikipedia page about it.
Getting Serious
If this all seems like a bit too 007 for you, it shouldn't. The world's sometimes a dangerous place, especially if you're blogging from the road. (Remember the journalist who was jailed in Egypt in April, only to be released thanks to Twitter?) Be careful out there, and if you need to browse on the sly, try Circumventor.
Related Stories:
· WiFi coverage [Jaunted]
· Hotel WiFi Week 2008 [HC]
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