Ten years. One decade. 3,650 Days. That’s the jail time that a group of seven Saudi political activists face. Their crime? Encouraging people to protest their government on Facebook. No one knows what really gave them away online. What is known is that if these seven Saudis had been using a proxy server, instead of a ‘cover my @$$’ it’s a ‘hide my ip’ situation, then it is very likely that they would still be protesting online instead of locked away.
A proxy released by idcloak acts as an all purpose anonymous shield of ip addresses hence identities of those who are online encouraging protest. Proxies and activists should go hand in hand as oppressive governments across the globe have moved to block access to certain websites, track dissenters down and arrest them or execute them. It has happened in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Brazil, and in other areas where government leadership is abhorrently opposed to the people expressing themselves freely.
This new idcloak anonymous web proxy allows users to scan the web for news sites that their government blocks, to access social media sites that have a bad habit of spreading news virally in a matter of a few hours. Whereas some governments choose to block access to the social media sites, others have chosen to keep them up and use them to track the dissenter to his front door quickly. Leaders of protest groups are identified quickly and easily.
But if activists access the sites with the new proxy by idcloak, the government cannot trace the user’s ip address either through email, messages or tweets. The company has also introduced a free SSL proxy that encrypts online activity so that they cannot be intercepted between the proxy server and the user’s computer.
Some thought must be given to how the activist accesses the proxy he must always access the profile through the SSL proxy, occasionally access a different proxy for posting and always remember to delete their browsing history. The proxy ensures that the government can’t track your whereabouts online, but if by some chance they were to obtain your computer, the record of your visits to the proxy site would be recognized immediately.
While the use of social media sites has changed communication, increased awareness of news other networks were not showing and opened a world up to the injustice that occurs on a daily basis around the world, these sites can be used to target, locate and silence opposition. Right now, seven Saudis are learning that lesson the hard way. Freedom of Speech is a great thing, but the sad fact is that it just doesn’t exist in every country.
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