Using proxies to get around censors Proxies provide an alternative path to the internet, free of government censorship, as Iranians found during the crackdown

One way that technically savvy people around the world can help internet users under the censor’s thumb is to act as proxies. A proxy provides an alternative path to the internet, free of government censorship and proved particularly useful during the Iranian crackdown.

Iran uses what the OpenNet Initiative calls “one of the most extensive technical filtering systems in the world”. Internet providers are required to go through state-controlled gateways. Reformist websites, Flickr, foreign blogs and social networks such as Facebook were all sporadically blocked before the elections, but censorship intensified once the unrest began. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk