Cyrus Farivar blogs,
Dare I say it, “green hat” hacker extraordinaire Austin Heap (See SF Chron a few weeks ago) and a group of domestic and foreign techie folks wanting to help Iran have announced the upcoming release of Haystack. Heap writes on his blog that it’s a “new program to provide unfiltered internet access to the people of Iran. A software package for Windows, Mac and Unix systems, called Haystack, will specifically target the Iranian government's web filtering mechanisms.
Here's the Haystack site (nothing there at the time of this blog post).
Related reading: Clerical Leaders Defy Ayatollah on Iran Election (NYT)
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In as much as Western tech companies help develop the tools of the great firewall, we can only hope that "green hat" hackers keep an eye on making such software useful and known to the masses in our supposedly unfiltered democratic paradise, without any secret hooks put in by THE MAN.
Update from Mr. "Hat":
http://twitter.com/austinheap/status/2507026298
plz Digg. thnx.
Hopefully they invent one for the Australian internet next...
Now maybe someone can give us a Tor GUI that just works, without making me try to understand the fundamental reasons why it works and the way it is built.
I want a simple software that anonymizes me successfully without the pages and pages of info/instructions. If it isn't easy, I won't use it. I know, I'm lazy.
Suggestions?
" . . . all the conservatism in the world does not afford even a token resistance to the ecological sweep of the new electronic media."
-- Marshall McLuhan
they need to create a similar tool for china--and quickly
#4: Ian McCloud - Well said sir: if you don't have to understand something to use it, it's "technology"; if you do have to understand it to use it, it's "art".
#4: Ian McCloud
If Tor is to complicated for you, I recommend you try out a current version of... Tor. Seriously. The interface has been streamlined exactly for the lazy user. Go to the Tor site and download the Vidalia bundle. It will literally install itself.
Would this approach work to defeat Phorm?
In which case, I'd like one for the UK, too, please.
(although, clearly, Iran, China, and Australia are in worse straits than us. After you, guys.)
May I point out that your accompanying picture is of a hay bale and not a hay stack?
Thank you.
Austin is a smart guy, with smart volunteers behind him. I was able to help with their previous project (ProxyHeap) but this new one is outside my expertise.
If you want to help but don't sling net code, hit up Austin's blog for a PayPal link.
I appreciate the haystack metaphor -- but why did you use a photo of a hay bale?
My delicate prairie sensibilities are offended.
-- MrJM
@nadreck+ian mcloud: When dealing with a web browser or a computer game, yes, dumbed down is good, and the app should "just work" for a user with zero knowledge.
Computer security software is different though, in that the result that it produces (security) is not readily apparent to an uninformed user. How do you know whether clicking the big red "encrypt email" button actually did anything? How do you know if the little green light really means Tor is running correctly? If a Norton Antivirus icon in your system tray tells you you're "Protected", are you really?
Obviously one can't know everything about how every computer security mechanism works, but the less one knows, the more vulnerable one is to being fooled by a malicious attack on the user, as opposed to the software. We see this all the time with phishing, where a perfectly good security system (SSL) is bypassed by attacking the user's lack of understanding of the software, rather than the software itself.
So I'm not saying you should have to be a computer security expert to be secure - you don't. I'm just saying we shouldn't aspire to be able to use security software while completely ignorant of its workings.