The US International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) have partnered with Anonymizer to provide an email and newsletter service that uses changing URLs to allow Iranian citizens to access sites that have been blocked by the government. The URLs are also promoted on Voice of America and Radio Farda. Once a URL is blocked, a new one is provided – the voanews.com and radiofarda.com servers act as a trusted intermediary, and the service even includes a SafeCookie feature for sites that use mandatory user cookies.
Ken Berman, program manager for Internet Anti-censorship activities at the IBB : "The links to the service provided within the emails point to either the VOA or Radio Farda sites, but they can go anywhere on the Internet. Dissident sites, religious sites, the L.L. Bean catalogue — they are free to explore the Internet as they wish, in an unfettered fashion."
Importantly, Anonymizer’s technologies also mean that it’s impossible for the authorities to find out which sites an individual has visited.
Formed in 1996, Anonymizer, Inc has over 100,000 paying subscribers worldwide. The new Iranian service to similar to the one they have provided in China and other countries censoring net access.
Anonymizer
Radio Farda
Published by
Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.
Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.
At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.
After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.
These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
View all posts by Fraser Lovatt