“Psiphon” is a new software tool released on Friday that allows users to access sites that may be blocked by firewalls. The idea is to bypass censorship, and the target audience seems to be users in countries where Internet access is censored, such as China. Psiphon works by allowing people to turn their computer into an encrypted server for others to use to access the Internet. However, the software is not anonymous. According to the Psiphon website’s FAQ, the person hosting a Psiphon server can examine the traffic that passes through their computer. Governments and ISPs will see that a user is connected to another computer, but not what sites are being visited. However, as with anything, vulnerabilities exist and users should be careful.

We decided to try Psiphon out and see what it is like.

The installation is simple, but not self-explanatory. After the installation is over, the program does not open up, nor are you instructed on what to do now that this has happened, and there is no readme file readily available to explain either. The Psiphon website does provide a forum with more information.

Other than needing to set up port forwarding (which you are warned you’ll need to be able to do when the download begins), the program sets itself up from the start. As long as you’ve got the default port, 443, open, you will be able to let people log in. It doesn’t have any explanation of how to set up port forwarding, but neither does any online service that needs it these days. Perhaps we will write an article on that in the near future.

Now, Psiphon is just host software. The international user who is using the server as a surfing tool does not need to install Psiphon. They will just need to log into your computer as a host. So they will type https://yourIP:443/login/ (“yourIP” being your physical IP address number in xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx format.) into their address bar and they will find a login screen.

The host manager window. (Ignore Chuck’s mac skinned winxp machine)

The setup options.

This is where things got confusing for us. We understand that this program is supposed to help those people in need, but this essentially requires that you know those people in need personally, because it requires you to set up your own usernames and passwords.

Perhaps you could visit a few Chinese national forums and drop a line, but we would think that would be helpful in getting your IP banned from the country as well if too many people find out about it.

Also, they’re using your bandwidth as a browser, and some of them may get trigger happy. So maybe it is a good thing the only people that can get on are people you have spoken to personally.
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Chris logged into my computer to see how the interface worked for the casual browser using a Psiphon server. We had an interesting occurence. We found our first site that doesn’t work this with this: Infoshop.org. As of yet, we have no idea why. We intend to find out.

In this set of screenshots, please click on the thumbnail to see a larger version of each graphic.

The Psiphon log in screen.

The main browser window for Psiphon.

Error with infoshop…

digg works…
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Overall, we’d say that Psiphon definitely aims high and scores high. It needs a little work to be a little more user friendly (Basically in just explaining what you’re doing. Like we said, it essentially sets itself up.), and probably a little code work to make sure you can access all of the web.

Nevertheless, for the future of an uncensored internet, this could be a solid first step.