Legal Research

Finally Somebody Explains It!

I was watching the last few minutes of the PBS NewsHour last night. Margaret Warner was interviewing Reza Aslan, author and assistant professor at UCal Riverside and Robert Faris of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society about the role Twitter is playing in disseminating info on the chaos in Iran. Warner asked Faris:

“Give us a little more, for those of us who aren’t technologically as savvy as some of these young people are, how exactly the protesters are using these various avenues? And which ones are still up and running, and which ones are pretty much shut down?”

Faris said a lot of words but didn’t answer the question. So Warner tried again: “But explain, then, how they can still continue to use Twitter, because that is Internet-based?”

And again Faris dropped the ball. Blahblahblah.

“Answer the #%$$^%* question! Tell her about proxy servers! Tell her about Tor! Auuuuuugh!” I yelled at the screen. My wife, munching on the disgusting green goo she calls avocado, looked at me like I was about to go off the deep end. (Which I was. So I went into the kitchen to do the dishes instead.)

Anyway, today the WSJ Digits blog does just that. (Finally!) The post quotes Andrew Lewman, the executive director of The Tor Project, as saying that he’s seen Tor users with Iranian IP addresses double in recent days.

I’ve been testing Tor for about 8 months now. It’s easy to install and use, although it really slows your Web traffic. But I’m just playing around with it — for many Iranians, Tor is their only way of letting people know what’s going on in their country.

Full post as published by Jenkins Webblits on June 18, 2009 (boomark / email).