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Using 'Feed Over E-Mail' to Beat the Great Firewall in China

by Terrence O'Brien on August 4, 2010 at 07:15 AM

man using emailGetting around censorship in countries like China is never easy. It often devolves into a game of tug-of-war between the government and its people, who are forced to resort to tricks like setting up proxy servers to circumvent the restrictions on browsing. But a new tool created by researcher Sho Ho could greatly simplify bypassing blocks like the Great Firewall (of China) when it lands this September.

Called Feed Over E-Mail (FOE), the tool needs only two basic components to function: access to an e-mail account hosted outside the censored area, and the FOE client, itself. Information, including files and news content, is encrypted and sent via e-mail. With the program, users can open and decrypt those contents on a local PC while leaving little trace online, since FOE is difficult to detect or block. And, because the data is sent via e-mail, users can set it up without ever actually visiting censored or banned sites. A Windows version will land in September, and Ho hopes that other developers will volunteer to port the system to other operating systems, including mobile devices. Expect FOE to be all the rage for information-hungry Beijing residents this fall. [From: Technology Review]

Tags: censorship, china, E-mailClient, email, EmailClient, encryption, feed over email, FeedOverE-mail, FeedOverEmail, foe, privacy, top

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