[liberationtech] Reporters Without Borders and Torservers.net partnership

[Moritz Bartl]

Hi Enrique,

Thank you for your kind words. We're definitely interested in more
partnerships, and we still have some funding for that. I posted more
details some months earlier on the Libtech list: For a non-tech NGO, we
can take care of basically everything (coordinating with ISPs, providing
IP space, administration of the servers). If the NGO has some tech
staff, we can teach them to maintain the server themselves, which is
better for diversity since we can remove our own access after the setup.
A tech NGO with enough experience can even do their own installation and
DDP allows us to fund this, within some boundaries.

Moritz

On 04/25/2014 02:21 PM, Enrique Piracés wrote:
> Hi Moritz,
> 
> This a great step. Congrats to Torservers, Hivos/DDP, and RSF. It may
> be useful to post how this will be implemented as to clarify what it
> takes for implementation and encourage other organizations to join the
> effort.
> 
> Best,
> Enrique Piracés
> Vice President, Human Rights Program
> Benetech
> 
> https://www.benetech.org
> https://www.martus.org
> https://www.twitter.com/epiraces
> 
> Moritz Bartl:
>> Hi!
> 
>> As many of you know, Hivos/DDP funds us to run a large number of
>> Tor bridges (and exits!). For diversity, we want to spread this
>> across as many organizations. Ideally, orgs are not running high
>> bandwidth exits and bridges at the same time. I'm very proud to
>> announce that one of our partners for the bridges is Reporters
>> without Borders.
> 
>> We're still looking for more partners, so if you're organization
>> is interested in working with us, let me know!
> 
>> Here's today's press release:
> 
>> https://blog.torservers.net/20140425/reporters-without-borders-and-torserversnet-partners-against-online-surveillance-and-censorship.html
> 
> 
> ( https://en.rsf.org/reporters-without-borders-and-25-04-2014,46196.html )
> 
>> ------------------------- Reporters Without Borders and
>> Torservers.net, partners against online surveillance and
>> censorship Fri 25 April 2014 by RSF
> 
> 
>> Reporters Without Borders and Torservers.net have joined forces to 
>> create and maintain 250 additional relays for the Tor network.
> 
>> “In doing this, our two organizations are thumbing our noses at
>> the entire world’s censors,” said Grégoire Pouget, the head of the
>> Reporters Without Borders New Media desk. “Whatever the technical
>> means deployed to control information, there will always be
>> circumvention methods that many organizations including ours will
>> not hesitate to deploy.”
> 
>> “Anonymity is important for the full expression and realization of
>> civil liberties. On the Internet, safe and unmonitored
>> communication can only be established through methods of trusted
>> decentralized anonymizing services like the Tor network.”, added
>> Moritz Bartl, the founder of torservers.net.
> 
>> Tor is free software and an open network that helps to improve 
>> protection of privacy and the security of Internet communications.
>> Using the Tor network ensures protection against a form of network 
>> surveillance known as “traffic analysis.” This type of surveillance
>> can be used to discover who is communicating with who and, in some
>> cases, even to identify who you are and where you are located.
> 
>> Journalists use Tor to communicate in a safe and anonymous manner
>> with sources, whistleblowers and dissidents. Tor can also be used
>> to circumvent website blocking in many countries. Many Internet
>> users in China, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey use Tor to access
>> Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
> 
>> In some countries that want to monitor and control all Internet 
>> connections, public access points to the Tor network are blocked.
>> In partnership with the Tor Project and torservers.net, Reporters
>> Without Borders has therefore created and will maintain 250 new
>> entry nodes to the Tor network. As these entry nodes will not be
>> made public, authoritarian governments will not be able to block
>> them.
> 
>> To find an entry node if Tor is blocked in your country, you can
>> contact the Tor Project at help at rt.torproject.org or Reporters
>> Without Borders at wefightcensorship at rsf.org.
> 
>> Reporters Without Borders will also make the details of these
>> non-public bridges available within its network and during the
>> seminars on circumventing censorship and protecting communications
>> that it organizes throughout the world.
> 
>> Torservers.net is an independent, global network of organizations
>> that help to protect human rights to freedom of opinion and
>> expression by running high bandwidth Tor relays.
> 
> 

-- 
Moritz Bartl
https://www.torservers.net/