[liberationtech] U.S. State Department anonymization laptops

[Florian Weimer]

* Patrick:

> I'd love to see the exact reference if you can find it.

James Harkin, »Neue Medien in Syrien«, translated by Bernhard Schmid.
Lettre International 104 (spring 2014 edition), p. 33.  Sadly, I have
not found the English original online.

Relevant quotes are:

»Die amerikanische Botschaft in Damaskus hatte ihn [Amjad Siofy] und
seine Freunde mit Proxy-Software und Satellitentelefonen versorgt, mit
denen sich die Internetüberwachung des Regimes umgehen ließ. Man habe
die Sachen über eine Organisation mit dem Namen Damascus Revolutionary
Council verteilt, sagte er mir, aber das sei „nur Theater“ gewesen; es
sollte nur niemand mitbekommen, daß Amerika bei der Bewaffnung der
syrischen Revolution aushalf.«

Approximate back-translation: “The U.S. embassy in Damascus supplied
him [Amjad Siofy] and his friends with proxy software and satellite
phones, with which they could evade the Internet surveillance of the
regime.  He told me that the items were distributed by an organisation
named Damascus Revolutionary Council, but this was ‘mere theater’;
nobody should notice that the United States helped the Syrian
revolution by arming it.”

There is a longer section in the article later on (»Katz und Maus«,
p. 35) which discusses the Office for Syrian Opposition Support
(OSOS), non-lethal aid (»nichttödlicher Hilfe«), and the supply of
satellite phones, high-tech walkie-talkies, proxy sofware, etc. to the
tune of 123 million USD in 2013, mostly to the Free Syrian Army.