People living under repressive regimes will soon be able to access the web using the internet connection of friends in censorship-free countries
FOR people living under repressive regimes censorship is an everyday reality, and browsing the internet freely is impossible without some serious technical know-how. This week Google threw its weight behind an idea that lets people circumvent censorship by using the internet connection of a friend in a non-censored country.
A collaboration between the University of Washington in Seattle and non-profit firm Brave New Software, uProxy lets users share their internet connection with friends on social networks through a browser extension.
When both parties have the uProxy extension installed, one can forge an encrypted link through the other person's browser and out onto the internet via their social network connection. As well as giving people access to censored content, it could allow people in the UK to watch the US version of Netflix via a US friend's connection, for example, or those in the US to log in to the BBC iPlayer to catch the latest episode of Sherlock.
So far it has only been tested in a closed trial for selected users, but its developers promise to open up the code to curious security researchers. This will also ease fears that any back door may have been left open for authorities such as the US National Security Agency to access and spy on users' browsing habits. Censors can't stop uProxy simply by blocking social networking websites either because, instead of the standard web, it accesses the contact lists via background, hard-to-block online processes.
UProxy was funded by Google's charitable arm, Google Ideas, and the firm is also helping in its development. And it isn't the only anti-censorship tool that uses our friends to get online. Lantern – another Brave New Software project – also relies on your social network to find a trusted computer to connect to the wider internet. Unlike uProxy, it can use friends of friends, widening the pool of potential proxies. Like anonymising software Tor, it is funded by the US Department of State.
Adam Fisk, CEO of Brave New Software, says there are advantages to using a person's social network in this way. For one, censors will have trouble finding and blocking the IP addresses of all your peers. With Lantern and uProxy, the more people that use the service, the harder it is to censor, as more and more trusted proxies become available.
"We're capitalising on the emergence of social networks," says Raymond Chang, a graduate student at the University of Washington who is working on uProxy.
Many anonymising tools still require a high degree of computer literacy to use, although there are some apps that allow people to make encrypted calls and send emails. Google makes its money through easy-to-use web applications, so it's reasonable to expect that uProxy will exhibit some of the same characteristics.
Lantern may also be easy to use, as the plan is to build Gmail encryption right into the system, with all the complicated key exchanges hidden from the user.
Dan Staples of the Open Technology Institute in Washington DC says letting users place trust in people they know for access to the internet is unique. "No matter what, I have to place my trust in someone when I use digital technology," says Staples. "I think the uProxy and Lantern projects are taking a positive approach."
This article appeared in print under the headline "Get online via your friends"
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