Hackers Are Developing Anti-Censorship Software

Jul 16 2001

LAS VEGAS - A group of hackers is finishing wor on software that would enable human rights workers to acces censored Web sites, in a move that ratchets up the "arms race" between free speech activists on the Internet and governmen censors in Asia and the Middle East.

The software, called "Peekabooty," was scheduled to b unveiled this past weekend but was pushed back to later thi year to make sure it adequately protects those using it, sai Oxblood Ruffin, a leader in the group.

"We believe that access to information is a basic huma right guaranteed by law," he told Reuters following a weeken session on the project at the DefCon conference for hackers an network security advisors. "It is going to be an arms race."

Already there have been efforts to thwart the project. Th United Arab Emirates blocked access to the Web site of hacke group Cult of the Dead Cow last year right after the grou announced plans for the anti-censorship software, said Bron Buster, another member of the group, which calls itself

"Hactivismo."

Along with the UAE, countries that prevent their citizen from accessing certain Web sites they deem political o pornographic include Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, China and Nort Korea, the group said.

The Peekabooty software will circumvent filters designed t block access to Web sites by going around them, using distributed privacy network, according to a Hactivismo fac sheet.

Nearly 30 volunteers are working on the project, includin lawyers, programmers, students and human rights workers in th United States, China, Canada, Europe, Israel, Taiwan and Sout Korea, the group said.

At the conference, human rights workers urged hackers to d what they could to use technology to advance human rights.

Patrick Ball, deputy director of the American Associatio for the Advancement of Science and its Science and Human Right Action Network, said encryption had helped his group save live and bring human rights abusers to justice.

"Hacking is finding things out. It is knowledge, especiall when things are hidden, obscure and important," Ball said.

The Cult of the Dead Cow is known for making a splash a DefCon. In 1999, the group released Back Orifice, which can b used by malicious hackers to gain unauthorized access to PC running Windows 95 or Windows 98.