The China Internet Freedom Project -- by To The Point News
Submitted by peterl on Tue, 04/29/2008 - 22:50
To The Point News published an article on The China Internet Freedom Project, and GIF was mentioned.
The group that built this special network and tools like DynaWeb and UltraReach and recent additions, GPass and FirePhoenix, is the Global Internet Freedom Consortium or GIF."
You may have never heard of GIF, but it is easily the largest and most mature anti-censorship operation in the world -- loved by users, loathed and attacked by censors. The technology is such a threat to censorship that the study of counter-measures against GIF's technologies has even been published in the computer science journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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But GIF technology just keeps gaining ground. People love the tools because they're easy to use and they work. With advanced security features, they also offer much-needed protection in the fierce cat and mouse game that plays out in cyberspace.
With limited funds and limited manpower, the members of GIF are maintaining the network and struggling to keep up with the demand in closed societies for access to a free Internet. After the protests began on March 10, 2008 in Tibet, for example, the number of hits to the DynaWeb and UltraReach anti-censorship portals from Tibet skyrocketed from the daily average of 120,000 before March 10 to more than 800,000.
The cyber warriors at GIF, such as Bill Xia and Peter Li, who develop anti-censorship tools offer their software products for free because supporting freedom is their mission. They don't think anyone should run into a brick wall trying to look something up on Wikipedia or get a visit in the middle of the night by the secret police just because they typed in some "sensitive term" in a web browser.
The service GIF provides is invaluable and the impact goes far beyond the Internet. When the people in closed societies have gained a taste of freedom and are given a way to share information, they will no longer tolerate tyranny.
With the tools and smarts of those at GIF backing them, these citizens finally have a way to tear down the walls, both real and virtual, that conspire to keep them separated from the rest of the world.
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See the full article is at
http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/3179/87/
Our Mission
Inform, connect, and empower the people in closed societies with information on a free Internet.
Our Vision
The Great Firewall will be taken down as the Berlin Wall.
We Stand Together
To fight the Goliath of repressive Internet censorship, we, a few leading companies and grassroots organizations on the front line, formed an alliance, the Global Internet Freedom Consortium.
Background
There is no freedom without freedom of information. There is no freedom of information without Internet freedom.
