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Open Technology Fund
The Open Technology Fund (OTF) is an American nonprofit corporation that aims to support global Internet freedom technologies. Its mission is to "support open technologies and communities that increase free expression, circumvent censorship, and obstruct repressive surveillance as a way to promote human rights and open societies." As of November 2019, the Open Technology Fund became an independent nonprofit corporation and a grantee of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Until its formation as an independent entity, it had operated as a program of Radio Free Asia. History The Open Technology Fund was created in 2012 as a pilot program within Radio Free Asia. Under U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the State Department adopted a policy of supporting global internet freedom initiatives. At this time, RFA began looking into technologies that helped their audiences avoid censorship and surveillance. Journalist Eli Lake argued that Clinton's policy was "heavily influenced by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet Censorship Circumvention
Internet censorship circumvention is the use of various methods and tools to bypass internet censorship. Various techniques and methods are used to bypass Internet censorship, and have differing ease of use, speed, security, and risks. Some methods, such as the use of alternate DNS servers, evade blocking by using an alternate address or address lookup system to access the site. Techniques using website mirrors or archive sites rely on other copies of the site being available at different locations. Additionally, there are solutions that rely on gaining access to an Internet connection that is not subject to filtering, often in a different jurisdiction not subject to the same censorship laws, using technologies such as proxying, virtual private networks, or anonymization networks. An arms race has developed between censors and developers of circumvention software, resulting in more sophisticated blocking techniques by censors and the development of harder-to-detect tools by re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dropbox (service)
Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox was founded in 2007 by MIT students Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi as a startup company, with initial funding from seed accelerator Y Combinator. Dropbox has experienced criticism and generated controversy for issues including security breaches and privacy concerns. Dropbox has been blocked in China since 2014. Concept Dropbox brings files together in one central place by creating a special folder on the user's computer. The contents of these folders are synchronized to Dropbox's servers and to other computers and devices where the user has installed Dropbox, keeping the same files up-to-date on all devices. Dropbox uses a freemium business model, where users are offered a free account with set storage size, with paid subscriptions available th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TrueCrypt
TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file, or encrypt a partition or the whole storage device ( pre-boot authentication). On 28 May 2014, the TrueCrypt website announced that the project was no longer maintained and recommended users find alternative solutions. Though development of TrueCrypt has ceased, an independent audit of TrueCrypt (published in March 2015) has concluded that no significant flaws are present. Two projects forked from TrueCrypt: VeraCrypt (active) and CipherShed (abandoned). History TrueCrypt was initially released as version 1.0 in February 2004, based on E4M (Encryption for the Masses). Several versions and many additional minor releases have been made since then, with the most current version being 7.1a. E4M and SecurStar dispute Original release of TrueCrypt was made by anonymous developers called "the TrueCrypt Team". Shortly aft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signal (software)
Signal is a cross-platform centralized encrypted instant messaging service developed by the non-profit Signal Foundation and its subsidiary, the Signal Messenger LLC. Users can send one-to-one and group messages, which can include files, voice notes, images and videos. It can also be used to make one-to-one and group voice and video calls. The Android version also optionally functions as an SMS app, but this functionality will be removed in 2023. Signal uses standard cellular telephone numbers as identifiers and secures all communications to other Signal users with end-to-end encryption. The client software includes mechanisms by which users can independently verify the identity of their contacts and the integrity of the data channel. Signal's software is free and open-source. Its mobile clients are published under the GPL-3.0-only license, while the desktop client and server are published under the AGPL-3.0-only license. The official Android app generally uses the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ricochet (software)
Ricochet or Ricochet IM is a free software, multi-platform, instant messaging software project originally developed by John Brooks and later adopted as the official instant messaging client project of the Invisible.im group. A goal of the Invisible.im group is to help people maintain privacy by developing a "metadata free" instant messaging client. History Originally called Torsion IM, Ricochet was renamed in June 2014. Ricochet is a modern alternative to TorChat, which hasn't been updated in several years, and to Tor Messenger, which is discontinued. On September 17, 2014, it was announced that the Invisible.im group would be working with Brooks on further development of Ricochet in a ''Wired (magazine), Wired'' article by Kim Zetter. Zetter also wrote that Ricochet's future plans included a protocol redesign and file-transfer capabilities. The protocol redesign was implemented in April 2015. In February 2016, Ricochet's developers made public a security audit that had been spons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nitrokey
Nitrokey is an open-source USB key used to enable the secure encryption and signing of data. The secret keys are always stored inside the Nitrokey which protects against malware (such as computer viruses) and attackers. A user-chosen PIN and a tamper-proof smart card protect the Nitrokey in case of loss and theft. The hardware and software of Nitrokey are open-source. The free software and open hardware enables independent parties to verify the security of the device. Nitrokey is supported on Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, and BSD. History In 2008 Jan Suhr, Rudolf Böddeker, and another friend were travelling and found themselves looking to use encrypted emails in internet cafés, which meant the secret keys had to remain secure against computer viruses. Some proprietary USB dongles existed at the time, but lacked in certain ways. Consequently, they established as an open source project - Crypto Stick - in August 2008 which grew to become Nitrokey. It was a spare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWiki. It was developed for use on Wikipedia in 2002, and given the name "MediaWiki" in 2003. MediaWiki was originally developed by Magnus Manske and improved by Lee Daniel Crocker. Magnus Manske's announcement of "PHP Wikipedia", wikipedia-l, August 24, 2001 Its development has since then been coordinated by the Wikimedia Foundation. MediaWiki is written in the PHP programming language and stores all text content into a database. The software is optimized to efficiently handle large projects, which can have terabytes of content and hundreds of thousands of views per second. Because Wikipedia is one of the world's largest websites, achieving scalability through multiple layers of caching and database replication has been a major concern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GlobaLeaks
GlobaLeaks is an open-source, free software intended to enable secure and anonymous whistleblowing initiatives. History The project started on 15 December 2010 and the first software prototype was announced on 6 September 2011. Relevant figures in the first development are Arturo Filastò, Claudio Agosti, Fabio Pietrosanti, Giovanni Pellerano, Michele Orrù. Operation GlobaLeaks utilizes Tor Onion Services in order to guarantee the anonymity of the source. Once the submission is performed the data is encrypted and made available only to configured recipients. The platform does not store anything permanently and the submitted information and files are deleted as soon as possible with a strict data retention policy. The process is generally improved by suggesting sources and recipients to use Qubes OS or Tails operating systems while connecting to the platform. Implementations By 2021, GlobaLeaks has been internationalized in 40+ languages and implemented by several thousan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TextSecure
TextSecure was an encrypted messaging application for Android that was developed from 2010 to 2015. It was a predecessor to Signal and the first application to use the Signal Protocol, which has since been implemented into WhatsApp and other applications. TextSecure used end-to-end encryption to secure the transmission of text messages, group messages, attachments and media messages to other TextSecure users. TextSecure was first developed by Whisper Systems, who were later acqui-hired by Twitter. The application's source code was then released under a free and open-source software license. In 2013, TextSecure's development was picked up by an independent group called Open Whisper Systems, who merged it with an encrypted voice calling application called RedPhone and renamed the product as Signal. History Whisper Systems and Twitter (2010–2011) TextSecure started as an application for sending and receiving encrypted SMS messages. Its beta version was first launched on May ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commotion Wireless
Commotion Wireless is an open-source wireless mesh network for electronic communication. The project was developed by the Open Technology Institute, and development included a $2 million grant from the United States Department of State in 2011 for use as a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), concomitant with the Arab Spring. It was preliminarily deployed in Detroit in late 2012, and launched generally in March 2013. The project has been called an "Internet in a Suitcase". Commotion 1.0, the first non- beta release, was launched on December 30, 2013. Commotion relies on several open source projects: OLSR, OpenWrt, OpenBTS, and Serval project. Supported hardware Ubiquiti: * PicoStation M2, Release 1 & 1.1, DR2 * Bullet M2/M5, Release 1 & 1.1, DR2 * NanoStation M2/M5, Release 1 & 1.1, DR2 * Rocket M2/M5, Release 1 & 1.1, DR2 * UniFi AP, Release 1 & 1.1 * UniFi Outdoor, Release 1 & 1.1 TP-Link: * TL-WDR3600, Release 1.1 * TL-WDR4300, Release 1.1 Mikrotik: * RB411AH, Release 1.1 See ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cryptocat
Cryptocat is a discontinued open-source desktop application intended to allow encrypted online chatting available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. It uses end-to-end encryption to secure all communications to other Cryptocat users. Users are given the option of independently verifying their buddies' device lists and are notified when a buddy's device list is modified and all updates are verified through the built-in update downloader. Cryptocat was created by Nadim Kobeissi and further developed along with a community of open source contributors and is published under the terms of the GPLv3 license, although it has since been discontinued. History Cryptocat was first launched on 19 May 2011 as a web application. In June 2012, Kobeissi said he was detained at the U.S. border by the DHS and questioned about Cryptocat's censorship resistance. He tweeted about the incident afterwards, resulting in media coverage and a spike in the popularity of the software. In June 2013, securi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Source Code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source code. The source code is often transformed by an assembler or compiler into binary machine code that can be executed by the computer. The machine code is then available for execution at a later time. Most application software is distributed in a form that includes only executable files. If the source code were included it would be useful to a user, programmer or a system administrator, any of whom might wish to study or modify the program. Alternatively, depending on the technology being used, source code may be interpreted and executed directly. Definitions Richard Stallman's definition, formulated in his 1989 seminal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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