Software Will Let Users Dodge Government Internet CensorshipSoftware Will Let Users Dodge Government Internet Censorship

In the fight against state-enforced censorship in countries such as China, there's a role for diplomacy. But the more powerful tool might be technology, such as new, free software to help people slip past Net censors using the computers of friends and family abroad.

Developers from the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies planned last week to release open source software called psiphon that lets people in uncensored countries turn their computers into "psiphonodes"--personal, encrypted servers. Others can log on to them from censored countries, viewing Web sites without directly connecting, making it difficult to censor.

It's not bulletproof. If people only give their computer address to a trusted few, it should be difficult for censoring governments to identify and block a psiphon server. But censoring governments could catch on to bypassing software if they detect an encrypted connection to a computer in another country.