Hide and seek on China's anonymous internet
The link above is to anti-censorship software for Chinese citizens. Also, totally sweet that despite being genius enough to write anti-censorship software, they are seemingly not genius enough to translate the description into Chinese, so they can figure out what the hell it is actually for. I can only assume it is because they do not want JingJing and ChaCha to read it in Chinese. No less, worthposting as it relies on word-of-mouf' to keep it real. ...God, I hope my user-generated content makes it.
"The link above" was this one: xifuchun.com. And we have to admit, after clicking on it and seeing the headline "Operation: Anti-Censorship" we thought it must be some kind of hoax. And our skept-o-meter really went off after reading the blurb below it:
Anonymizer's new anti-censorship software enables Chinese citizens to safely access the entire Internet filter-free, while free from oppression and fear of persecution or retribution. The program expands upon Anonymizer's history of human rights efforts which provide a censor-free Internet experience for those in oppressed nations.To download your Anonymizer anti-censorship software, simply enter your email address below. Please ensure your email is correct because Anonymizer will send you regular email updates with the newest IP addresses to use with your software.
Shanghaiist didn't enter our email address or download anything -- we are relatively happy with the proxy servers we use when we need them. (We have a personal proxy server, but really this tried and true one is pretty reliable.) Imagethief, however, did download Anonymizer and gave it a test drive. He would later call his post on the service "scandalized," be we are happy to know that Imagethief's skept-o-meter is programmed similarly to ours. The people behind Anonymizer -- yes, they are real -- actually responded to Imagethief's post, and now everyone is friends. Maybe. Anyway, Anonymizer says "[a] fully translated version will be available soon."
Shanghaiist isn't much of a techie -- we just play one on the internet -- so we're not really sure what, if anything, makes Anonymizer different from all the other anonymization tools out there. Maybe it is similar to TOR? Perhaps some more knowledgeable Shanghaiist readers can chime in. Or, who knows, maybe the crew at Anonymizer will leave a comment on this post.