Rhonda Mahony over at Wild Bee has posted a fine introduction to TOR, open-source software that allows you to volunteer your computer for global privacy.

We've written about TOR before. Here's how David Talbot described it in Digital Dissent Sidestepping Censorship:

In a place like Zimbabwe, where saying the wrong thing can get you killed or thrown in prison on treason charges, you take precautions: You’re careful about whom you talk to; you’re discreet when you enter a clinic to take pictures. And when you get to the point of putting your information on the Internet, you need protection from the possibility that your computer’s digital address will be traced back to you.

Maybe, at that point, you use Tor, one of several Internet anonymity systems that encrypt data or hide the accompanying Internet address, and route the data to its final destination through intermediate computers called proxies. This combination of routing and encryption can mask a computer’s actual location and circumvent government filters; to prying eyes, the Internet traffic seems to be coming from the proxies. At a time when global Internet access and social-networking technologies are surging, such tools are increasingly important to bloggers and other web users living under repressive regimes. Without them, people in these countries might be unable to speak or read freely online.

Unlike most anonymity and circumvention technologies, Tor uses multiple proxies and encryption steps, providing extra security that is especially prized in areas where the risks are greatest. Paradoxically, that means it’s impossible to confirm whether it’s being used by the Zimbabwean bloggers.

(Thanks, Boing Boing.)

Source: Wild Bee 

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