Why did the Toronto Star run a New York Times story yesterday about Psiphon, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab project to circumvent internet censorship? After all, we wrote in May about the Star running an more in-depth story by its own staff writer more than 6 months ago. Was this a new form of newspaper recycling?
The NYT article appears to be timed to preview the software’s launch, scheduled for this Friday.
I noticed an interesting juxtaposition of two recent news stories. On one hand, we had an announcement last week about Canada’s major ISPs announce an initiative to begin filtering illegal content from their network; and, this week we’ll watch the launch of Psiphon software, designed to help criminals circumvent such filtering.
The original Toronto Star story in May raises some interesting issues of research ethics:
Sometimes the lab performs tests remotely, taking control of unprotected computers inside the censoring country without permission. This poses an ethical controversy, but Deibert says it’s for the greater good: “We don’t worry about that too much.”
The Lab even has “black boxes,” mini-sized computers that can be “planted” discreetly inside these countries to run the tests. “This kind of research is illegal in almost every country we do it in”
Is ‘criminal’ too harsh a term for Psiphon users? By the Lab’s own admission, The content being ‘liberated’ is otherwise illegal in the country of the user.
To what extent is Psiphon going to be used to evade the efforts of Project Cleanfeed Canada, thereby liberating child exploitation images from the repressive regime here that seeks to limit internet freedom.
Last May, Michael Geist expressed his support for Psiphon:
“These initiatives are exciting,” says Michael Geist, an expert in law and the Internet at the University of Ottawa. Any ethical qualms in using Psiphon to circumvent the censorship regulations of a foreign country should be put to rest, he says. “There are international instruments that override even sovereign governments, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
But Professor Geist is supportive of the Cleanfeed project, and continues to host a lively dialog on his blog.
Will as much research effort be expended on technology solutions to help enforce what democracies define to be illegal content?