US IP Address - How To Get One

When living outside of the United States there are a couple of reasons why you should use an anonymous proxy to surf the Internet.

1. If you need to access US-based websites, they might be blocked because of your IP address.
2. If the country you are in censors the Internet, by using a private proxy you can bypass their filters and gain unrestricted access to any website.

Here's an example of using anonymous proxy from China.

If you need to change your IP address to be a US IP address, Sign up for a free trial of Private Proxy at www.privateproxysoftware.com.

Anti-Hacking Laws Must be Updated

Lawmakers are busy looking into the 1986 anti-hacking law primarily because it no is no longer up to date with the current online “culture”. Without the needed changes, the law would punish even innocent web surfers. But those concerned with its updating are very careful because changing the penalties might not sink the law’s teeth in legitimate criminals. Revising the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act should not set aside the civil liberties of users while seeing to it that cyber-criminals are prosecuted.

One important revision that has to be made is in the power of government to penalize users who violate a website’s terms of service agreements. A law school professor openly said that the present state of the law is harsh. He added that it threatens the civil liberties of Americans who simply give false information on Facebook and other sites.

The professor gave some typical examples in his written testimony of how millions of users give fake information. He wrote that a user could be held criminally responsible for simply writing that he goes to the gym every day when in fact, he goes there only once a month. He added that the millions of users who supply false information about their height, weight or age could be considered criminals. He also mentioned a study that suggested 8 out of 10 users provide false information in their profiles. Incredible, but there are millions of Americans out there who are cyber-criminals!

One critic deemed it necessary for lawmakers to spell out what the law actually means, particularly with the phrase “exceeds authorized access”. This will set the limits of employers to penalize those employees who break terms of service agreements. The same critic also said that the revisions should make those federal employees who are handling confidential information answerable.

Such initial steps and suggestions would narrow down the prosecution threats to those breaches committed by government employees. A letter was co-signed by organizations that have been known to protect consumers and citizens. They laid down their common concern of defending people who break site service contracts by “accident”.

Is It Unconstitutional?

It seems that there is an issue building up regarding teacher-student communications. In Missouri, a state law prohibits teachers from having private communications with students over the internet. This triggered a teachers’ association to file a lawsuit naming the state, the governor and the attorney-general as defendants.

A Senator from Missouri defended the new state law, saying that it does not violate free speech or any other rights. These were the grounds stated in the teachers’ complaint, filed by the Missouri State Teachers’ Association. The Senator said that the law doesn’t stop any means of communication. It only prohibits private communication between educators and students who are minors. Teachers and students are allowed to communicate over the internet only if parents, administrators and the general public can view the internet site.

With the adoption of the law, schools are required to fine tune their policies to comply with the law. Teachers, through their association, reacted negatively, and said that banning this kind of contact is unconstitutional. Trying to explain their opposition, the teachers cited the vagueness and broadness of the act. According to them, there are no clear boundaries between which conduct is permitted and which is not. They added that the law seems to curtail the exercise of the First Amendment rights, including that of free speech and association among others.

The Senator who sponsored the bill wondered why the teachers are now against it. She said that these teachers even helped with the drafting of some of the language in the act. She commented that the teachers seem to be suing over their own work. In response, a spokesperson of the teachers’ association defended the group and explained how the opposition came about. He said that the teachers did not review the final language of the social media provisions.

Actually, this prohibition is just a part of the larger bill that is intended to prevent sexual abuse by teachers on students. Such incidence is sometimes rooted in a private relationship between them that eventually goes overboard. On the teachers’ side, they contend that the majority of their private online contact with students is education-related. In general, this kind of relationship can be helpful, especially for shy students or those who have difficulty with assignments.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The US Military and Proxies

Right now, the servicemen and servicewomen of the US Military are overseas fighting for your freedom. They chose to serve in the military knowing full well that someday they might be put in harm's way. These dedicated men and women put country above their own safety. Now in far away countries, they defend us on the front lines. Over the years, these front lines have changed. Yes, the danger is still there, but so are options to relieve their boredom. Enter the Internet. Just like us, they have access to the world wide web.

So what would a soldier want to access on the Internet? Believe it or not, one of the things they do is watch TV online. They can catch their favorite programs or watch hockey. Most of the major networks put their some of their newest episodes online. For others, they can access media sites that aggregate content. Another outlet for media is the online newspapers like the New York Times. Or maybe they want to read their home town newspaper online. Today most, if not all papers, have an interactive version. So between TV, sports, and newspapers, they can catch up on the current US media and news.

There are also several social networking websites out there that they can use to keep in touch with friends and family. Sure e-mail works to an extent, but if you have ever used any form of social networking, you know exactly how much simpler it is. You can type a message on your homepage, and suddenly all of your friends and family will be able to see it. Soldiers are very pressed for time, and sometimes there just isn't an opportunity to respond to every single person. This makes social networking extremely important. There is a problem however, a huge problem. Sometimes soldiers cannot get to the websites that they need. Why exactly? Well let's talk about it.

The purpose of companies streaming their television shows onto the internet is so that people will see them, and eventually decide to buy them on DVD. People outside the country however will not be able to buy these because they are simply unavailable. Companies decided that they were actually losing money because such people couldn't get a hold of their products! They didn't seem to consider all of the people IN the United States that were buying. After all, what could it hurt if a few foreigners watched an episode of The Office, or even Stargate Universe? Well you wouldn't think that it could hurt at all, but the production companies didn't quite see it that way. For this reason they started to block IP addresses outside of the United States. The same went for several social networking websites because they suffered from the same advertisement problem. This however did not stop the military personnel from viewing their favorite websites. They instead turned to proxies.

For those who don't know, a proxy is a server that one can connect to. This server will then connect you to the internet via it's own connection. What does this accomplish? It provides you with a new IP address which is based in the United States. You are not visiting websites via your own connection, but instead you are using the ISP that the proxy subscribes to. What you're dealing with there is surfing the internet using a computer across the ocean. The moral aspect is up to you, but if you get a proxy with decent encryption, the ISP you use overseas will never know the difference. This is also a great way to protect your privacy. By using a proxy you will be able to hide your identity while catching up on your favorite shows. The one thing you don't want to do in a war zone is broadcast who you are and what you are doing. With that in mind, start shopping for a good proxy today. Once you arrange a good one, you will be able to sit back, relax, and enjoy your favorite shows.

Chinese Milk Producer Pays to Have Negative Publicity Censored

It may seem like I am picking on China today, but they are just putting themselves in the spotlight with yet an another controversy regarding Internet censorship . Australian news TheWest.com.au reported that a PR company acting on behalf of Chinese milk producer Sanlu, asked Baidu, China's leading search engine, to censor and stifle any negative publicity about tainted milk....twice.

Sanlu agreed to buy $640,000 worth of advertising from the search engine, as long as Baidu would censor and screen any negative press associated with the milk scandal. Thousands of infants have been hospitalized, with four deaths, with kidney illness after drinking Sanlu's product. The milk produced by Sanlu was tainted with melamine, which was used to "add" protein to watered down milk. Without going into very complex chemistry details, melamine is not good. It is 66% Nitrogen and has flame retardant properties, which can easily be turned into plastics, glues, and a ton of other such products. It is somewhat common to use melamine to cover up and mask low levels of protein, but adds no nutritional value.

Sanlu has since ceased production, but without first trying to bribe Baidu. Of course it is important to keep in mind that Baidu does abide by Chinese Internet laws, so it is possible the Chinese version of Baidu has been censoring content based on the regulations in place. It is bad enough that the Board of Directors at Sanlu need to water down the milk so they can increase their profit, but adding melamine to fool the tests is just ridiculous. Why would they take the risk, especially since it is common knowledge (in that industry) that melamine causes renal failure and kidney stones? And just to boot, the melamine they used wasn't even the purest grade since that kind would have been too expensive to use. Sanlu used lower grade melamine that could contain urea and ammonia. At least poison the country with the best toxins you can find...

China Spies and Censors Skype Users

Beginning this month, many news sources (including Cnet and PC Magazine) have been reporting on the Chinese version of Skype that spies on certain "sensitive words" and blocks them from servers if needed. Skype is a software that allows you to make phone calls over the Internet and use your computer's microphone and speakers to communicate with others. It is sort of like a beefed up version of AIM, but along with instant messaging allows you to video conference and make phone calls.

It was only a matter of time after the Olympics left town that China would be back to spying and Internet censorship. Skype president, Josh Silverman, admitted that he knew TOM (Silverman's partner company in China) would be closely monitoring Skype users. Reports released by Canadian researchers stated that TOM is, "engaging in extensive surveillance with seemingly little regard for the security and privacy of Skype users. This is in direct contradiction of Skype's public statements regarding their policies in China." Millions of bits of data are tracked and stored, including personal information and contact details, for any chat that TOM-Skype is in charge of. Along with this, certain keywords related to Falun Gong, Taiwan, and anti-government statements are all closely monitored.

If this wasn't a big enough problem, reports show that proper safeguards are not being taken to ensure the data is not leaked. The data that is collected and stored is encrypted, but the encryption keys are kept on the same servers. Anyone with knowledge of hacking or cracking can just grab the information and decrypt it at their leisure. This is a major privacy issue, no matter what country you live in or how many freedoms you have.

Users contacting China via Skype are at risk just the same since log files are kept on any connection that passes through TOM-Skype. If Internet privacy was already a concern for you, then Chinese Skype just added another privacy risk to your plate.

Breaking Down the Great Firewall (part 2)...

As an update to my recent post about China's Great Firewall it seemed appropriate to discuss the methods for bypassing the Golden Shield Project. With the Olympics in full swing, and nearly halfway over, it is only a matter of time before China's government re-bans the websites and Beijing is again part of China's Internet censorship program. Chinese officials lifted their ban on certain websites after journalists were upset that many of the sites they needed to access were unavailable because of the GSP. Once the final medal is awarded it most likely won't be much longer before China is back to banning as much content as possible, so it is important to know ways to bypass the Great Firewall and maintain Internet privacy.

The following methods may seem familiar, as they are used for anonymous surfing, but they do in fact work rather well for circumventing the GSP and gaining access to banned sites.

• Anonymous Proxy servers: Anonymous proxy servers based outside of China can be used to access blocked content. The sites are blocked only to Chinese citizens and therefore if you surf using a U.S.-based proxy server then you can gain access to restricted sites. The website will read the IP address and give you permission to view the site. At the same time, the server will hide your IP so that anyone snooping the connection will see a person from Tulsa, OK surfing the Internet. As an added bonus a good proxy server will also encrypt the data being transmitted so that anyone spying can not view the information.
• Foreign companies can apply for a local website hosted in China. While this method does not apply to an individual user attempting to access a banned site, it is a method to bypass the Great Firewall since the company's content does not have to go through the Great Firewall (but the company does have to apply for a local ICP license)
• Using secure tunnels such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN). GSP can't filter secure traffic that is being communicated and therefore secure tunnels provide a way for users to access content and create sites that would otherwise be banned.
• Onion routing networks, such as Tor, can be used since it requires a network of computers to encrypt and mask your information. This method is, in essence, very similar to an anonymous proxy server. The major drawback of Tor is that you do not know who set up the anonymous connection you are passing through. As noted in an earlier post, you really have no idea who set up the connection and therefore anyone can invade your privacy through this trusted network. If a group of grad students and professors can do it, why wouldn't the Chinese government?
• FreeGate: a software utility created for Iranian and Chinese citizens to bypass any Internet censorship attempts by the government. The software finds open proxies, which are not blocked and can be accessed by any user, and penetrate firewalls. This useful tool is a bit controversial as it has been reported to be a Trojan virus.
• Reporters without Borders offers a "Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents" (PDF) which gives detailed information and tools for blogging and surfing anonymously. The handbook gives detailed instructions, including screenshots, for setting up a blog and remaining anonymous.
  

Breaking down the Great Firewall...

No, this isn't a clever campaign to start a world movement to get rid of the Great Firewall and liberate China's netizens. With the arrival of the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, it seems that this would be an appropriate time to focus on The Great Firewall of China, or the Golden Shield Project (as it is officially known). The Golden Shield is a censorship and surveillance program run by China's Ministry of Public Service. While the Chinese government has been using the Great Firewall to censor and block websites in China since 2003, many of us do not have a full understanding of the Golden Shield Project and its intricacies. This article is not meant to start a revolution against the Chinese government to bring down the Great Firewall, but a means to gain a better understanding of something that many Americans and Europeans have little knowledge about--Internet censorship using GSP.

While most Americans and Europeans do have the right to choose what sites they visit and surf the Internet freely (again the keyword is "most"), other countries' citizens are stifled by government censorship of the Internet. In China any site that expresses opposing views or states a negative opinion of the government is banned. Not only will the site be banned, but the authors may face criminal charges and a lengthy prison sentence. While many sites have recently been unblocked by the Chinese government because of the Beijing Olympics, many other sites including, pro-democracy advocates, Taiwanese government and media, and blog sites are still banned. The idea of having privacy rights or any type of Internet privacy is a concept that many Chinese citizens have little understanding of.

The concept of the Great Firewall started in 1998 and began operating in 2003. The need for the GSP stemmed from Communist regimes fearing that the Chinese Democracy Party would develop an extensive and powerful network that couldn't be controlled. The GSP acts as a firewall (hence the nickname) and blocks content based on IP addresses and a massive database of banned websites. The IPs are banned and prevented from gaining access to blocked content basically by using a proxy server the opposite way we would use it (think: reverse proxy). GSP combines IP filtering with DNS poisoning to maintain control over the Internet in China.

Along with IP blocking, URL-, DNS-, and Packet-filtering, the GSP has a unique characteristic: it doesn't just ban sites based on these methods, but also bans websites based on the content. This blog would be banned instantly because it shows methods for gaining access to "forbidden sites," but also any content that is considered subversive by the government would be subject to banishment (this means any pro-democracy, pro-Tibet, and pro-anything else the Chinese government is against).

The final point that has been brought about because of the Great Firewall is self-censorship. While sites that should be banned do slip through the cracks, many Chinese citizens end up practicing self-censorship and not visiting these sites anyway. It makes perfect sense: Just because the site hasn't been banned yet, is it still okay to look at? Why take that chance and end up in prison like many Chinese bloggers do? The thought that you are being watched by the Golden Shield Project even if the site is allowed on the network is a mighty force...people tend to act differently when their bosses, or the authorities, are paying attention.

China partially lifts its Internet censorship and restrictions

CNSNews.com has reported that China is loosening their restrictions on Internet censorship, something that privacy advocates have been pressuring China to do for years. With the Olympics coming to town, the Chinese government has lifted many of the tight controls which previously restricted its citizens from freely surfing the Internet. The important part of the story is that these restrictions have not just been lifted at the Olympic games compound, but in other parts of Beijing as well. This ultimately means that Chinese netizens can now use Wikipedia, BBC China, and non-government sites such as Amnesty International and Reporters without Borders. These sites, along with many other have been banned by the Chinese government via The Great Firewall.

For the first time in years, or ever in some cases, Chinese citizens have the the chance to surf the Internet freely and see China from a different point of view. The Chinese government banned many websites that do not coincide with their point of view and Chinese citizens did not have the opportunity to see things from an outside perspective. Chinese netizens had to resort to anonymous proxy servers and other methods to maintain their Internet privacy. People can now openly view and dialog some of the major issues facing China such as: air pollution, Tibet, media censorship, and human rights.

The lifting of the ban came about due to an overwhelming demand from foreign journalists that were angered because they could not visit certain sites they needed. While the ban being lifted is a big deal in China, many sites are still censored and unable to be accessed. Reporters without Borders has stated that their English-language site is no longer banned but the Chinese-language site is. Many Tibetan advocacy sites and the Chinese Human Rights Defenders site still faces the restrictions placed by The Great Firewall.

Although the system isn't perfect, China did agree to loosen the restrictions for the Olympics. This is a step in the right direction, as far as human rights are concerned. While Chinese government and media will always defend their Internet censorship policies, the rest of the world still sees it as a way to oppress their people even more. The major question posed to Chinese citizens is: Does an average person really worry about the censorship? Do they want to know about the U.S. or U.K.'s view on China's government policies? Or is it a case of ignorance is bliss and as long as they have a job, shelter, and food for their family?

China's at it again....

The alleged human rights abusers are not helping their case after the problems in Tibet. According to The Tech Herald China is trying to censor the internet in U.S. owned hotels during the Olympics this summer. The Chinese government is being accused of "exerting pressure on U.S. owned hotels to install Internet filtration systems that will censor online content during the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing." The accusations come at the hand of U.S. Senator Sam Brownback. He stated that the Chinese government sent orders to at least two hotels, and continued to say that China is turning the 2008 Olympics into the "Olympics of oppresion."

China wants the U.S. owned hotels to install internet filtration systems to be used to censor certain online content during the Olympics. My guess would be....any news sites, blogging sites, Wikipedia, and Google. This is the trend within the Great Firewall, so most likely the same content will be banned by the government during the games. I wonder how many laptops passing through customs will have some kind of anonymity software installed? My guess is...too many to count. Some more information on internet privacy and maintaining anoymity can be found here.

China plans to reopen Tibet....or do they?

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the plan to reopen Tibet...well who knows. Chinese authorities will not release any information regarding the reopening of Tibet's borders to foreigners. Originally, the date to reopen was set to be May 1st, but now it is uncertain when this will happen. Certain "reliable reports," according to the article, state that Tibet won't reopen until the start of this year's Olympic games.

This isn't really something that seems unexpected. With all the things that have been going on in Tibet, this is just the icing on the cake. China's Great Firewall limited all news access about Tibet. Chinese citizens could not search for news updates about the current situation since Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube are all blocked by the Chinese censors. Surfing through a proxy server was the only hope Chinese citizens had to find information, that is until the Chinese government shut down all forms of media in Tibet and made all foreigners leave the area.

I know the use of proxy servers and other internet privacy tools must be on the rise in certain parts of the world. Chinese citizens are not allowed to view websites that are outside China's borders, severely limiting the news and information flow through the country. Bloggers and media face severe penalties if they post things that the Chinese government finds offense or does not approve of. The need for anonymity becomes more important every day. I know I will be using a proxy server...I do not do anything illegal therefore I shouldn't be tracked when using the internet, and the same should especially go for the Chinese citizens who can't even look up information on Wikipedia or use Google.

While I am glad I have certain freedoms that others do not, who knows how extreme censorship can become...therefore I will continue using my proxy server to stay anonymous.

And next on the agenda.....Limiting the U.S. control over the internet.

Article from the Seattle Times.

"The U.S. has too much control over a tool that's used by over 1.4 billion people worldwide." There is basically the gist of this article. Thank you, come again.

Anyway, the U.S., in its never ending "superiority," is not being told they have too much control over the Internet. Tech experts are meeting in Brazil, with this being the topic of interest. Not how to stop e-mail scams, phishing, spamming, hacking, cracking, and all other types of -ing, but instead how to stop the U.S. from having so much power over the Internet. Brazil and China apparently, as well as some other countries, are wishing that the U.S. will shift control to an international body to govern the Internet.

-Initial thoughts about this: How easy will it be to censor the Internet then if a conservative country (and not Republican conservative, but women not allowed to show their faces or ankles conservative, for example) has their representative leading this governing body?

Well apparently, there are quite a few people with the same train of thought.

Some other great information is presented in the article including thoughts on ICANN, but it all takes a backseat to the "Evil Empire" running the Internet....Oh no!