Developer Withdraws Anti-Censorship Software for Iranians

Epoch Times: Iranians, however, are not without alternatives, even if Haystack has to be mothballed. Software that proved pivotal in facilitating last year’s protests to take place, was created by the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIF) and includes FreeGate, UltraSurf, and GTunnel.

GIF, formed in 2006, has a mission to “build a pioneering online platform that breaks down the Great Firewalls blocking the free flow of information penetrating into, moving within, and originating from closed societies (e.g., China and Iran) via the Internet,” states the GIF website.

Different member organizations of the consortium have contributed a total of seven different software products to allow those living under totalitarian governments to punch through Internet censorship without being caught by the authorities.

A July 23, 2009, Wall Street Journal article stated, “GIF has an impressive history of aiding anti-authoritarian movements in real time. When Burmese monks and others rose up against their military rulers in August 2007, its programs saw a threefold increase in average daily hits from Burma.”

According to the GIF website, most consortium members are “Falun Gong practitioners exiled from China, and many were also Tiananmen Square students in 1989.” The GIF software packages were originally designed to keep Chinese citizens safe from the world’s largest totalitarian regime while they seek freedom on the Internet. Read more...

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