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.

Although the U.S.A. had a large amount of proxies running from it due to its widespread democracy and freedom, many other countries were represented as well. India, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Vietnam, and surprisingly, China, who has the biggest problem with Internet censorship of all! (Ever heard of “The Great Firewall of China?”) In all, there were almost eighty-seven countries running anonymous proxies for less-than-democratic nation’s citizens to enjoy and browse anonymously on. This truly shows that the use and creation of proxies is a world-wide effort, and everyone is involved.

Renesys has some advice for those who wish to help and create an anonymous proxy. First, they say not to wait until “tanks are in the streets” to take action and create one, because governments are most suspicious then and will be searching doggedly to find those trying to evade their security laws. And lastly, research ways to make your proxy not look like a proxy, because oftentimes these governments have a list of characteristics to look for in a proxy, and when they find them they will block it. If your proxy doesn’t exhibit these characteristics however, they will think it is a normal Internet connection and not block or censor you.

If you wish to take the steps to step up a proxy and help a friend overseas, do some research and figure out how to configure it well to make it anonymous, secure, and most of all, remain as a pseudo-proxy. It all comes down to this: if they don’t think you are a proxy server, they won’t block you!

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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.

The software, called Green Dam Youth Escort, will be used (as stated by the company) to block pornography and other sexually explicit content, but some suspect it is just another device to stop people from visiting websites with opposing political views.

Once people got a hold of the software, and began dissecting it, some major flaws were found. After some extrapolation, they found that computers running the Green Dam software could actually be commandeered by some interloper with a mind to break through the bugged security. While the Chinese officials have claimed they ordered programmers to fix this, American companies like Dell and HP are worried for customers. They have asked China to reconsider this technology, but to no avail. Unfortunately, they can’t just refuse to sell to China either; a large part of their customer base is the Chinese.

The largest manufacturer of computers in China, Lenovo, refused to make comment on the subject and revealed no information.

This discrepancy of information was created Monday, when the English written newspaper in China, The China Daily, reported from an unofficial source in Ministry of Industry and Information Technology that the Chinese government was planning on making the software come on a separate disk, or just installed in preliminary set-up files: it would be optional.

As telephone call after telephone call went into the Ministry, it turns out the speaker wasn’t speaking the truth, and they offered no backup of what he or she said. This means, as of right now, no plans are made to rescind the mandatory software.

A couple of days later, the Ministry contacted computer companies and told them that the software may be delivered in disk form, but must be installed as back-up files to the computer. This solidifies the Chinese’s stance; the software is on the system no matter what.

New controversy is boiling over this situation. One software company, called Solid Oak Software, is coming down hard on the two companies that programmed the Green Dam program, Jinhui Computer System Engineering and Dazheng Human Language Technology. Solid Oak claims that these two companies plagiarized a lot of their programming code for the Green Dam software. The two Chinese companies acknowledge the similarities, but deny any stealing or copying of Solid Oak’s programs.

Solid Oak is deciding whether or not to take legal action, and has sent numerous letters to urge HP and Dell to halt production of these computers with the Green Dam software installation.

This software has been proven to hold security bugs, and while developers are working on them, it’s hard to get everything. This will be as important a time as any for Chinese citizens and netizens to stay safe and protected online. An anonymous proxy will help them in their Internet ventures, and it could probably even get around the ridiculous blocks that will be instated. Staying anonymous under these peeping eyes is a greater necessity when, not only is a government watching you, but so is some software on your own computer.

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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.

This case has proven to be a catalyst of social change, and many past and more to follow will solidify it. People are fed up with officials treatment of them. Experts say that the once downtrodden are slowly waking up to the epiphany that they can fight and have a voice, even in the authoritarian and austere China.

China still rules with an iron fist over Internet users though, employing masses to monitor online traffic and with their self-imposed blockades that have come to be known by the epithet “The Great Firewall Of China.”

Late last year, an official in the Guangdong Province beat up a young girl and sneered at the operator of the video camera, “I’m above the law.” In a supposedly Communist egalitarian nation, photos were taken of a Nanjing city official who was seen wearing a super-swanky watch and smoking some luxurious 22$ dollar a pack cigarettes. Earlier this year, an Internet investigation revealed footage of Chinese officials beating a prisoner to death, and offered no mitigations in their favor. Recently, a team of officials in the Yunnan Province “beat” a strain of rabies that had broken out by beating and killing almost 50,000 dogs.  The Internet community blew up over this blatant flaunting of power, and rattled the minds of the oppressed peoples with a new round of jading: Was everything really equal in Communist China?

The people have decided to fight back. Some are civil-minded, and simply post a dissertation of their grievances, but others are out for blood: they sometimes post personal information, embarrassing slander, or simply bombard the offending party with incendiary messages.

And they have seen positive sanctions! The man who beat up the girl was incarcerated the extravagant official was given the boot, the Chinese jailors having to serve time themselves, and the anti-cur dog beaters were socially ostracized for their canine genocide.

The young girl’s story (Ms. Deng) has been more sonorous than all of them; accumulating almost 4 million blog posts. She defended herself in court with a telling of the story.

On May 10, Ms. Deng was washing dishes in her restaurant when Huang Weide, a local official came in and demanded she take a bath with him. The bath of their restaurant was often used for prostitution but Ms. Deng herself was not one of the them. After she refused, a struggle led to the bathroom, where Weide and his two cohorts tried to hold her down. One of them was Deng Guida, (No relation to Ms. Deng) who was stabbed and killed after Ms. Deng reached in her purse to get a knife to protect herself. She was incarcerated and actually taken to a mental institute because police found prescription anti-depressants in her bag.

A blogger, Wu Gan, heard about her case, put it online, and propagated it to the world. He supported Ms. Deng, and even helped her buy a lawyer. In an effort to pacify the public, the court released her on bail. Soon enough, scared by the negative P.R. and intense backlash they were getting about the case, the nation began to censor blog posts, and even block people from these areas where the incident occurred.

Inspired by the whole fiasco, a group of young people randomly amidst a throng of people in downtown Beijing, carrying a woman with a mask on and completely wrapped in white. After they set her down, they left a sign saying “Anyone could be Ms. Deng.”

These are turbulent times, and especially so with a social change in order. If a blogger hadn’t of been able to use the Internet to reveal this Ms. Deng’s mistreatment to the world, she would likely be sitting in jail right now. There must always be free and unrestricted access to the Internet at all times.

Censorship sometimes limits this necessity. If the government begins to censor such important information, the citizens should turn to an anonymous proxy for justice. This can do a number of things, including getting by these government blocks. Once by them however, it is important to not be caught. This can be done also. An anonymous proxy will actually change your IP address, which can act as a device that shows your location, who you are, etc. So have no fear, once the proxy gets you the inside access, you will have no fears about being caught accessing what you should be able to anyway, because they cannot trace your IP address, for you will adopt the proxy server’s. So if the peeping government came by to find out who you are, with the IP changer in place they would see the proxy server’s name, and not yours.

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Even with this larger than life persona, these soldiers are just average people. They value family, happiness, and fun just as much as everybody else. When they signed up for duty, it was with the knowledge that they might have to leave their home for a long period of time. This is just part of the duty, but it doesn’t take away from the ache going away from their home and country will cause.

While traveling or being stationed internationally, some military members get homesick. If you are in a different country for an extended period of time, loneliness can easily dominate your trip. If soldiers begin to find themselves forgetting the smell of an old fashioned barbeque, or the pleasure of hanging out with friends and family, then maybe watching some good old American television is a great way to restore their morale.

Unfortunately re-runs of “The Honeymooners” get old quickly and can lead to a strange affinity for communism. Only kidding, but it can get boring.

Along came internet TV, a godsend to the nomads of the globe. Imagine a soldier’s joy when they get a chance to connect back to their culture, and feel at one with the U.S. again. They could catch up on affairs overseas, whether it is watching the stock market, or just to see what antics Britney Spears has been up to lately.

Soon enough though, media companies wised up, and blocked these homesick people from connecting with their familiarity. Media websites, just like TV, are sponsored by advertising. And most US advertisers do not want to show American ads to people in other countries, it’s a waste of their money.  So all these media websites had to do was read your IP address, which shows that you are not located in the U.S., and once confirmed you were blocked, you got the boot, and quite possibly a “this site has been blocked” message. What is a serviceman to do?  They’re still Americans, probably still a good target for the advertising, but due to geographic location, they are out of luck, right?

Wrong, a private proxy server is the cure to any military member’s intercontinental woes. The media sites that block out-of-country visitors can be defeated by use of a private proxy server. These servers can change your IP address to an American one, and the sites will give you your rightful access to their content. American Military are still citizens of the U.S., and their ability to surf the Internet freely should not stop even though they are away from their homeland.

So a proxy is a simple solution to bypass these virtual roadblocks. Here’s how it works. All Internet connections wear a nametag, (called an IP address) that contains information such as location, server ID, etc. When your computer pulls up to the online blockade, the blockade guard (the internet site) reads your nametag, and if you are not on the approved list, you are kicked out. The proxy would enable your computer to wear a different nametag, so that if you are in Turkey for example, the guard could be made to believe you are in America, and allow you access.

Just as important to our military members abroad, an anonymous proxy does as its name says it should; it keeps you anonymous. The soldier can surf all of the sites that he or she wants without fear of a foreign government busting down their door.  This is true if the proxy offer an encryption service, which encodes and convolutes all data that is entered or output on their computer. This way even if the local government monitored their Internet connection, they would find no incriminating information. Everything is encrypted and would be completely unreadable.

Military personnel around the globe are already using this technology when on Military networks. It makes sense that they should use it for their personal surfing too. An anonymous proxy is perfect for less-than-democratic nations that they are oftentimes stationed in. Censorship has run rampant throughout the world. Countries around the globe such as Turkey have taken the liberty (or lack thereof) to block sites such as the rebellious You Tube. An Oxford Professor even had his personal site blocked due to its conflicting beliefs to a famous Turkish Creationist. It is one thing when people are up to criminal business, but stopping people from reading the New York Times online, or just catching their favorite performance on American Idol again, should not be done. George Orwell would be rolling in his grave if he saw we hadn’t heeded the warning of the dystopian 1984.

On the subject of censorship, the use of an anonymous proxy will help get by government instated blocks. As stated before, our military personnel’s’ rights don’t go out the window just because he or she is stationed in some desolate country. They can beat the foreign censorship. An anonymous proxy will change the user’s IP address, and as before stated, can change it to a U.S. one. More importantly however, this technology is vital in countries where such Internet activities as YouTube are outlawed! Our military personnel don’t want to be incarcerated in a completely different country simply for his or her Internet viewing.

Some of these American military personnel area also business-minded while abroad. For some, work is more therapeutic than play. Instead of enjoying YouTube and other leisure sites, they are surfing the money-markets, doing investments, and staying up to date in the rapidly changing capitalist economy. Everyone knows how well some of these countries uphold and value public security and I bet they would have no ethical problem snooping on a few bank transactions, or some passwords to various sites. Not only is a proxy good for relaxing and reconnecting, it is necessary for doing business while in these ethically ambiguous places.

Everyone has felt the effects of homesickness; maybe you’ve had to stay away for a weekend on a business trip, or even felt homesickness on a leisurely vacation. This is not an imaginary phenomenon, and military personnel stationed outside the U.S. feel it every day. They need something to remind them of home, of freedom; something to look forward to. The endless days away from home seem to pass more quickly if they have a vision of home in mind. The Internet is a great way for them to connect with their culture they were pulled away from. Unfortunately, censorship, ridiculous laws, and other deterrents could stop them from using this comforting device.

An anonymous proxy will combat and effectively defeat this threat on their sense of belonging. They can go where they want on the Internet without being blocked, and without fear of a foreign police force arresting them for updating their FaceBook account, watching videos on YouTube. Proxies are the way for our patriots to stay sane on the forefront of battle, and keep them connected to home in faraway foreign lands.

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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.

Sanlu isn’t producing milk any longer, but it still tried to pay off Baidu to hide what it did.  You have to remember that Baidu follows Chinese Internet laws and censors content it is supposed to by regulation, so it does engage in such activities. Still, it’s bad enough Sanlu watered down its product to make a larger profit at the expense of children’s health, but to add melamine to cover it up is insane.  It’s common knowledge that the ingredient causes kidney stones and renal failure.  And they used a cheaper grade of melamine to save more money, the grade that can contain ammonia and urea.  If you’re going to poison a nation at least use a top-notch toxin.

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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.

There are instances where there is limited choice when it comes to accessing the Internet. This means that there is limited freedom, and service men and women would only get to access websites which the government of the country they are stationed in believes to be harmless, and block those that are they considered objectionable.

This foreign government restriction can be easily bypassed through the effective use of an anonymous proxy. Even with the more stringent measures employed by the more repressive governments, an anonymous proxy can tunnel through those filters.

Most Middle East countries have these types of restrictions. In these countries, people are fed with information that would lead them to believe in a certain way. Their government does this by imposing continuous control and monitoring of Internet activities. All surfers are tracked, and anyone who views sites that are considered immoral or objectionable by the government could go to jail.

Some specific countries that enforce censorship are China, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Syria. Some of them block websites while others block by keywords. There are different reasons for censorship that vary from country to country – culture, religion, political, etc. It is also worth noting that many of these countries enforce very strict censorships on other media that already infringe on the rights of their people, it’s not just the Internet.

It is in this kind of situation where the need for anonymity on the Internet becomes very important. With the principle of free exchange of ideas and information, it is an advantage if one can hide their identity, which can be effectively done by using an anonymous web proxy.

The use of a proxy is advocated by many groups of individuals who uphold, protect and promote the fundamental human rights such as freedom of speech and the right to privacy. They believe that cyberspace should neither have borders nor limitations for exchange of data and information. Due to the action enforced by local authorities in some countries, there is a greater need to bypass government censorship. Using anonymous surfing to bypass government censorship is a sure way to ensure that people, and specifically US Military personnel stationed around the world have uncensored access to the Internet.

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