May 20, 2009
Sending Shivers Down the Back of Dictators Everywhere: "The Circumventor"
Thats amazing stuff right there. Bypassing internet censorship could change the Middle East quicker, more cheaply and with a better outcome than anything else going on. The developer is the same person who devised Yemen Portal's program that bypasses internet censorship in Yemen. From the Yemen Times:
CAIRO, May 16 — A new tool to circumvent website censorship named "Alkasir" was released today in its BETA version 1.0 and is now in the public domain. The release comes after the software was publicly revealed for the first time in Cairo yesterday during the first day of the "Blogging the Future" summit organized by the Kamal Adham Center for Journalism Training and Research.The software, whose name originates from the Arabic word 'alkasir', meaning 'the circumventer', is now accessible and according to its developer, Walid Al-Saqaf, an be downloaded directly from the web at Alkasir's website.
"l-Kasir is a project carried out with the support of the MidEastGate ongoing program to expand access to information in the Middle East. The program is implemented by MideastYouth.com, "a nonprofit network supporting freedom of expression and activism online," Al-Saqaf said during a session he presented in front of an audience of bloggers and journalists representing many countries from around the world.
It was revealed in the session that alkasir is capable of tracking and circumventing censorship of websites by applying a multi-layered and distributed technique depending on a central service for storing information regarding blocked websites and other servers to provide tunneling channels for users of the program.
