SOPA (Stop Internet Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are two bills that came to a vote in Congress in January 2012.  These bills were supposed to help fight copyright infringement on the Internet, but, if they passed, the government would be able to block certain websites for most Internet users.  This gave the government far too much control.

At first, there didn’t appear to be a problem and it was thought that both bills would pass in the Senate and House.  A protest staged by some popular websites showed Internet users what their Internet would look like if the bills were passed.  Sites like Wikipedia blacked out their sites for a day.  This got people to understand that giving the government full Internet control was a dangerous thing and a letter-writing campaign began.  Thousands of letters were sent to state representatives telling them to vote “No” on both of these bills.  The campaign worked and in October 2012, the bills were taken off the table.

With that threat out of the way, Internet users thought it was safe.  Then, an international treaty, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) came up.  ISPs (Internet Service Providers) would have to “monitor and censor online communications” under ACTA.  Not only was this seen as a threat to privacy, it was also seen as threatening to our freedom of speech.  During the panel discussions on this, some of the points were leaked out to the public.  Citizens of quite a few European countries took to the streets to protest the passing of this treaty.  The protests worked.  In July, the treaty was voted against by the European Parliament and was taken off the table all over Europe in December.

During this time, lawmakers in Washington, DC didn’t give up on their plan to remove copyright infringing content from the Internet.  The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and the Cybersecurity Act (CSA) were brought up.  Though both bills caused concern, the one that was considered most dangerous was CISPA.  This was because so many who were set against SOPA were now supporting CISPA.  The bill was supported because companies found that under it, they could share personal information with the government without consent and not have to worry about litigation.  Even with this support, both of these bills were taken off the table by the middle of November.

“Renesys”, a company that analyzes and studies network connections and their locations have reported that the creation of proxy servers around the world and their use by Iranians has been slowing down lately. The government is catching on; the use of these proxies and their advertising is so public that the government has no problem blocking their citizens from using them. Although the government is finally becoming aware of these proxies, it truly is a global effort to produce them and allow their users anonymous and secure browsing.

Almost two thousand proxies have been created and shared by users all around the globe. Old proxies are being found by the Iranian government and blocked, and by identifying key characteristics of proxies, they are able to identify and shut down new ones just as quickly. This active oppression of its citizens blocks their political struggle and any other injustices from the rest of the world. This just shows how important it is for people in free countries to create proxies for the less fortunate to use.

Renesys explains how proxies function: They are a piece of software you install or a website you visit. Either one protects your identity and allows you uncensored Internet access. The website or computer you are going to acts as a middle-man in the website to computer exchange. The website or software changes your IP address, which acts as a nametag for your computer, to something different, and therefore, stops you from being tracked. When you go through a proxy server, the proxy goes and gets the website you requested, and brings it you. The proxy doesn’t know anyone is behind the scenes pulling the strings either. In fact, if someone were to access your browsing history, all they would see is the name of the proxy site over and over again.

The Chinese government won’t budge on their resolution that all computers to be sold in China will contain censoring software. In fact, it seems they are going even further! They are thinking about recruiting some 10,000 people to be Internet monitors; find bad sites and report them.

The plan was offered up for discussion on Tuesday. This goal is to create a system that can “purify society.”

They are definitely on the offensive. One group, the China Illegal Internet Information Reporting Center, has been seeking out sites and warning them to take down their offensive content. They are afraid of no one, even going after the Chinese Google for hosting vulgar images and sexual content!

China has always had a history of interfering with people’s freedom rights by censoring and blocking content deemed inappropriate, or harmful to their Communist party. Internet-savvy citizens can easily get around these blocks through a myriad of ways, but this new computer installation software could prevent them from doing so any longer, and they are up in arms.

In Beijing, a 21-year old girl stabbed and killed an official of the Communist Party as he tried to force himself upon her. Normally this story would have stayed low and local, and the girl would have been charged with manslaughter in a discreet case, but the Internet has changed all of that.

When the story got posted online that the girl was going to be charged on a count of manslaughter, outrage among the public broke out. The Internet community was so against this decision that, to quell the e-riot, Chinese officials had to censor and ban vehement online comments.

Under intense public pressure, the court exonerated the girl of any manslaughter charges and declared her free to go. The Internet is a medium to tell the plight of forgotten mistreated and not allow them to be pigeonholed, and this is a prime example of this truth. The courts wanted to put this girl away because it was a Communist official, but the people would allow none of that injustice. Bob Dylan was right, the times are a’ changing.

China continuously seems to be putting themselves in the bull’s eye these days because of its love affair with Internet censorship.  The latest fiasco, reported by TheWest.com.au, is that a public relations company representing the Chinese milk-producing company, Sanlu, asked China’s largest search engine, Baidu, to block any negative publicity about milk that’s been tainted.  That’s called CENSORSHIP.  And they didn’t ask once, but twice.

To sweeten the pot, the company made a deal to buy advertising from this search engine to the tune of $640,000, as long as they continued to censor anything negative about the milk scandal.  I’m sure you’ve heard of it.  Thousands of young children being hospitalized with kidney illness after drinking watered-down milk boosted with “melamine’ to give it more protein.  Four infants died.  This stuff is 66% Nitrogen and flame retardant.  It can be turned into glue, plastic and other products.  It contains no nutritional value whatsoever.  Unfortunately, it is commonly used to hide low protein levels in products.

As many devious people prowl the Internet and try to intercept exchanges of information, encrypted anonymous surfing is becoming more important on a daily basis. Because of this, the amount of people searching for the best way to become anonymous in their web surfing is growing everyday. US Military personnel are not exempt from this need to hide their identity and activities on the web.

The use of an anonymous web proxy can allow you to do more than just hide your IP address. It also allows you to have more freedom to explore websites that are restricted for some reasons, including government restrictions. Many schools, offices, organizations impose these restrictions, but our focus is on bypassing government censorship for military personnel abroad.