China and Iran at Bottom of Report on Government Censorship

News / May 19, 2016 / Leave a Comment

How does Internet freedom compare between different countries? A report out this week from Freedom House aims to answer that question by ranking countries according to online censorship policies. The report, titled “Freedom on the Net 2015,” presents information about Internet censorship in 88 countries. It assigns each country a score while also providing reports …

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Bleep: A P2P, Secure and Private Alternative to Skype for VoIP

Peer To Peer, Privacy-Respecting Services / May 19, 2016 / Leave a Comment

Is Skype private? Not really. Bleep offers a better option for making free and private voice or video calls over the Internet using VoIP. Skype, the leading VoIP app, offers basic privacy features, most notably built-in encryption. But Skype is closed-source software, which means only Skype developers know how it truly works, or what information …

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Houthi-Controlled Yemen Extends Internet Censorship

News / May 19, 2016 / Leave a Comment

Add Houthi-controlled Yemen to the list of places currently subject to government-sponsored Internet censorship. With the help of a Canadian company, Houthi rebels in Yemen’s civil war are blocking online content. The Houthis are an ethnic group that effectively seized control of Yemen over the last year. They weren’t the first to introduce Internet censorship …

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How to Ensure All Your Traffic Goes through a VPN on Linux

Privacy-Respecting Services, VPNs / May 19, 2016 / 3 Comments

Is your VPN protecting all of your online activity? Depending on how the software is configured, it may not be. But if you’re using Linux, it’s easy enough to force the VPN to encrypt all of your traffic. Here’s how. Some VPN servers and clients are configured by default to route only certain traffic through …

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Ukraine’s Cyberpolice Plan Registry of Censored Websites

News / May 19, 2016 / Leave a Comment

Ukraine became the latest country to introduce systematic online censorship this month with the government’s announcement of a “cyberpolice” force. According to the government, the main purpose of Ukraine’s cyberpolice is to combat criminal activity on the Internet, such as identity theft, phishing, money laundering and digital piracy. The force’s creation is part of a …

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Russian Censors’ Effort to Block Tor Suffers Setback

News / May 19, 2016 / Leave a Comment
Censored Person

Internet censorship in Russia has grown more difficult for the government. A company hired to identify and monitor people who use Tor to circumvent online censorship has jumped ship. In 2014, the Russian government contracted with the Central Research Institute of Economics, Informatics and Control Systems “to study the possibility of obtaining technical information on …

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Using Mailvelope to Keep Emails Private with PGP Encryption

Privacy-Respecting Services, Private Email / May 19, 2016 / Leave a Comment

Using an email provider that doesn’t track you is one way to help protect your email privacy. But that’s only half the battle. Encrypting your email is also important. Here’s how to do it using Mailvelope. Mailvelope is an email encryption tool that uses PGP to prevent unauthorized access to email content. PGP is the …

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Australian Government Accepts Digital Identity and Monitoring Policy

News / October 26, 2015 / 1 Comment

Australians aren’t required to carry physical ID cards. But they may soon have to carry the digital equivalent when using the Internet, according to a new policy that threatens online privacy in Australia. On Oct. 20, the Australian government announced its acceptance of measures that would enforce a “federated-style model of trusted digital identities.” The …

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