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Tor Project, a Walpole-based company, helps Egyptians avoid Internet censorship during protests - Walpole, MA - Wicked Local Walpole
http://www.wickedlocal.com/walpole/arch ... z1GXsc7gnFWALPOLE — As Egypt was in the throes of a revolution, a small Walpole company played a key role in keeping the country connected to the rest of world – even when that was the last thing its government wanted.
The Tor Project says it offers anonymity online. Egyptians were able to use the free software to hide their physical location while connected to the Internet and circumvent government surveillance and censorship.
“The goal is to basically give people control again,” said Tor Executive Director Andrew Lewman.
Tor software was downloaded 36 million times last year worldwide, Lewman said, with about 500,000 on and off users of the privacy portal each day. Before protests began in Egypt, however, people in the country didn’t utilize the software as much as other activists around the world.
At the start of January, only about 200 to 300 sessions were originating from Egypt per day, he said. By the time the Egyptian government basically shut down the country’s Internet and blocked cell phones late last month, those numbers increased tenfold.
Sessions from Sweden and France were also up since those countries were able to provide some Egyptians with dial-up Internet service during protests, said Lewman.
Tor statistics are hard to report precisely, he said, because numbers are purposely kept “fuzzy” to protect the identity of users, but it’s not hard to tell that the Egyptian uprising was the direct cause of a significant spike to the system.
Tor representatives held a workshop in Egypt late last year to conduct general training about the positive uses and the risks of the Internet. Although, the trip was educational in nature, it certainly foreshadowed things to come, albeit inadvertently.
“It wasn’t about telling people about Tor. Our intent wasn’t to freak them out and make them paranoid,” Lewman said. It did, however, give Egyptians an idea of what they could do should they need to maintain their privacy – an idea they would need just a month later when they were ousting their president out of office.
He said the software provided protection to activists and people who were simply trying to stay in touch with loved ones and keep up with information from outside of Egypt. Those lucky enough to have access the Internet were able to act as information hubs for others and messengers without fear of governmental surveillance or backlash.
“We know we’re making a difference,” said Lewman.
Tor got its start in the ‘90s when two MIT students were working with the Navy on the onion routing program (the genesis of Tor’s name) – the technique of anonymous communication through computer networks via encrypted connection.
Lewman said the students asked Navy brass if they ever thought of using such a system with the Internet. When the Navy was not interested, the students created Tor.
Originally, the idea was to protect users from marketing devices that take personal information from unsuspecting Web browsers. That has evolved in many ways since then as seen in Egypt, said Lewman. People are now using the service to circumvent their government’s control.
Lewman joined the Tor project as a research and developer in Asia when he witnessed Chinese citizens attempting to bypass their government’s censorship to get news from the BBC or CNN or just stay in-tune with the latest Hollywood gossip.
Internet freedom is a western concept that hasn’t caught on yet throughout the rest of the world, he said.
The Chinese are, not surprisingly, some of the highest users of Tor, said Lewman, due to common censorship. Users from Germany and the United States round out the top three.
Germany was the first European Union nation to implement a data retention directive that allowed the country to record the Internet usage of its citizens. Tech savvy Germans looked to keep their privacy.
“Most of them trust their government, but not that much,” said Lewman.
Americans now know more about how much personal information is given to an outsider just by clicking on a webpage than they did when Tor was starting up and they are looking to block that.
“All this stuff is done by default when you browse a website,” Lewman said about how easy it is to gain knowledge about people online. “People get freaked out.”
Victims of crime also use the software to prevent “cyber stalking,” he said.
Lewman said citizens of Iran are often in Tor sessions and Tunisians also took advantage of the software en masse during protests before their government was recently dissolved.
Citizens don’t revolt because they can’t connect to Facebook, he said, but Internet blockades do upset more people than would otherwise be affected by a particular political movement.
Of course, Tor cannot pick and choose who uses the platform, so there comes some bad with the good.
“Technology is technology,” said Lewman about criminals using Tor to hide from authorities on the Internet. The difference, he said, is criminals have no qualms about stealing an identity to hide themselves while there is little a law-abiding person can do to protect their privacy without onion routing.
Lewman said Tor often gets flack from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, Interpol and other law enforcement agencies but those same authorities use Tor to hide their affiliation to the law when investigating Internet crime. He also points out authorities that don’t need ISP addresses to catch criminals – there are often a variety of other traditional avenues to catch a criminal.
Prior to 2006, Tor was operated by a group of brainiacs working out of Lewman’s Dedham home. When it became increasingly impractical to hold meetings at an ironing board, the company moved to Walpole where it shares a small office in downtown with a law practice.
Tor is run by 10 paid workers out of Walpole but utilizes contractors from around the globe, Lewman said.
The not-for-profit project does receive donations, but is primarily funded by research and development work done by Tor employees for governmental organizations.
Lewman said he and the others have purposefully kept a low profile in Walpole, but Tor became substantially more recognized as media outlets shined a spotlight on the project when Egyptians flooded the streets in Cairo.
“I don’t know if the press has helped or hurt yet,” he said, adding the company will simply continue to do what they have been doing.
Some national and international political leaders predict the successful protests in Egypt will spark other uprisings in the Middle East. Even if that’s not the case, Lewman predicts Tor usage will continue to rise.
Many people in need of Tor are not technical experts and expect privacy at the push of a button, Lewman said. Although Tor representatives travel extensively to hold workshops regarding Internet circumvention, they strive to do just what it is those people expect of them.
“Our goal is to make it that easy,” he said.
