Reporters sans frontieres has published handbook for cyber-dissidents and bloggers:
Reporters Without Borders' "Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents" is partly financed by the French Foreign Ministry and includes technical advice on how to remain anonymous online. It was launched at the Apple Expo computer show in Paris on Thursday and can be downloaded in Chinese, Arabic, Persian, English and French.
"Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure," Julien Pain, head of the watchdog's Internet Freedom desk, writes in the introduction.
In a bid to inspire budding Web diarists around the world, the 87-page booklet gives advice on setting up and running blogs, and on using pseudonyms and anonymous proxies, which can be used to replace easily traceable home computer addresses.
This is both heartening and infuriating. Heartening because I have a great respect for RSF and their work (and it's gratifying that they have turned some of their noble attention to bloggers) and infuriating because we have companies in this country (ahem, Yahoo!, Cisco) that enable oppressive governments to crack down on bloggers.
The handbook can be downloaded here.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's guide on how to "Blog Safely" is here.
A word about RSF: This is an international organization, not a French organization. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I only say this because too many right-wingers dismiss it out of hand because it's based in Paris. But I would like to point out that this project has the backing of the French government, which apparently is more concerned about free speech than our own (Campaign Finance Reform, anyone?). And frankly (heh heh) I wouldn't mind being based in Paris.
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