Psiphon

Christmas is about to come a little bit early for millions of people around the world thanks to researchers from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab. They are poised to stick a nifty little piece of software called Psiphon into the collective stockings of people living in totalitarian regimes.

Countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been restricting access to much of the internet with nasty firewalls that keep their citizens from learning about little things like, oh...The Tiananmen Square massacre. This devious little fella' will allow users in those countries to "piggyback" into the 'net on the connections of those living in more open-minded countries like the United States and Canada. It's a simple idea, the kind of idea that makes you say things like:"Damn! That's so crazy it just might work..."

According to Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab project it is very difficult -if not impossible- to detect, so nobody has to worry about the local thought police busting down their doors in the middle of the night.

Is anyone else really happy about this and proud to be a Canadian today? If you're not, then you damn well should be, skippy. This is a tiny step forward in what has otherwise been a whole lot of steps backward in the world lately. Information is indeed power and it's time to give a little bit of it back to the people.

Even if it doesn't work as advertised, it is -like many of the greatest Christmas gifts- the thought that counts.