Burmese web surfers escape Internet censorship

The Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIF) announced that their anti-censorship infrastructure is gaining popularity among Burmese web surfers, enabling them to circumvent Internet censorship amid the recent crackdown by the Myanmar military junta.

UltraReach Internet Corp. (UR) and Dynamic Internet Technology, Inc. (DIT), two of the Consortium’s member companies, were receiving over 120,000 average daily hits from IP addresses originating from Burma in September, a sharp increase from less than 40,000 back in August. DIT also witnessed Burmese postings on blogs with photos of the protests and their crackdown in Myanmar, through DIT’s anti- censorship portal. Such a surge of censorship-escaping activities is in sync with the recent protests and crackdown in Myanmar.

Both UltraReach and DIT have been developing anti-censorship technologies to circumvent Internet censorship in oppressive regimes, especially in China. In addition to UltraReach and DIT, a few other companies are members of the Consortium. They are developing anti-censorship tools of all shapes and flavors. Some of the tools, such as “Ultrasurf,” “Freegate,” “Garden,” “GPass” and “FirePhoenix,” are very popular among web surfers in China who are eager to explore the world behind the Great Firewall.

“We are developing an Underground Railroad in cyberspace, to help web surfers escape the monitoring, tracking, and blocking from their oppressive governments,” says Alex Wang, VP of the World’s Gate, Inc., another member company of the Consortium.

Source: 901 am New media news