Psiphon is here
A new web based proxy has been released by CitizenLab that makes it easier to bypass restrictive web filters in countries like China. The program is called Psiphon and here is how it works.
- Psiphon is installed on a host computer located in a country that does not censor the Internet.
- The psiphonode administrator forwards port 443* (HTTPS) on their router to the psiphonode IP.
- A user, psiphonite, in a country that censors the Internet connects to the psiphonode through a web browser using https://yourip or https://yoursitename if the psiphonode admin uses a service like DynDNS.
- The psiphonite must accept a security certificate in order to connect to the psiphonode.
- The psiphonite then sees a login page and logs in using the username/password provided by the psiphonode admin.
- After successful login, the psiphonite sees a web page with a toolbar at the top. The toolbar is where they will type in the address for the site they wish to visit.
- Web pages are served to the psiphonite from the psiphonode. As long as the psiphonode is not blocked, the psiphonite can view previously blocked sites (e.g. Wikipedia).
All traffic between the psiphonite and psiphonode is encrypted. This does not mean that information passed through the psiphonode is anonymous. Psiphonode admins can monitor the traffic passing through the node.
Psiphon is a decentralized system. That means that psiphonodes do not communicate with each other nor do psiphonites need to connect to the main Psiphon web site. That also means you can’t take the login for one psiphonode and connect to another psiphonode. You must be invited to use the psiphonode by the psiphonode admin.
Psiphon is free and open source. Currently, only a Windows installer is available. Mac and Linux ports are in the works.
To see how it works from a psiphonite point of view, click here.
*Psiphonode admins can change the port number. 443 is the default.
01.Dec.06 
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2 Responses to “Psiphon is here”
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I can already do this with SSH Port Forwarding. It’s end-to-end encrypted as well. Why would I switch to a new system of doing things, when I can just append the -D flag to the ssh command in the terminal?
Why use this when you already have an SSH server? You wouldn’t. This is something for people that either don’t want to or know how to setup SSH. In fact, there are other ways of doing the same thing Psiphon does. This is just a new way of setting up a web based proxy.