First of all, if you’re expecting me to tell you to sign a petition about David Cameron’s wide-ranging and vague internet censorship proposals (if you thought that he was just censoring erotica, then you are very very wrong), then you’re best going here instead.
Call me cynical, but I’m not a huge believer in internet petitions. After all, politicians [on both the right and the left] are driven by ideology and a whole host of things other than the actual wishes of the people or the values (such as free speech) which should be central to any so-called democracy.
I’m hoping that common sense will prevail and David Cameron’s ludicrous and patronising plan to censor the internet will go the way of the Poll Tax, Identity Cards, SOPA, PIPA etc.. But, in the event that it doesn’t, here are two things you can do before it comes into effect to prepare yourself.
I say “before” because, once Cameron’s web filter comes into effect, this page (or even this whole blog) will probably be blocked as soon as I even mention the word “Peacefire”.
This is because “web blocking circumvention” tools are one of the many critera for blocking things, along with “web forums” and, mysteriously, “esoteric material” – whatever that is .
Seriously, even the BBFC look incredibly liberal in comparison to this filter….
Talking of Peacefire, this brings me on to the first point on my list.
1) Sign up to Peacefire’s mailing list: Peacefire are a free speech group who have been campaigning about internet censorship and helping people to get around it for quite a few years.
Anyway, they have this cool feature where they will e-mail you a list of proxy servers and circumvention sites every 3-4 days [since this is as long as it usually apparently takes for the blocking companies to block them].
This is probably a good idea, since I’m guessing that obvious proxy sites like HideMyAss will probably be one of the first things to go when David Cameron blocks out a significant portion of the internet.
2) Download UltraSurf while you still can: UltraSurf is a proxy-based web browser which was originally developed in order to help people in China bypass governmental internet censorship.
It’s a sad state of affairs when people in Britain (one of the first countries to invent parliamentary democracy) may have to use a tool which was originally designed to allow people in China to access Falun Gong, Tibetan Independence, Tiennamen Square-related, foreign news etc.. websites [well, there I go, this blog is almost certainly banned in China now].
Anyway, you don’t even need to install anything on your computer to use Ultrasurf – you just download and unzip the file and click on the “UltraSurf” icon and it’s ready to go. In fact, you can even carry it around on a USB drive and use it anywhere.
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There are probably countless other things you can use too, but it’s probably a good idea to research them sooner rather than later..
PekoeBlaze Uncut 