From: stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1996 21:02:37 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Building the Singapore Free Press
Message-ID: <199608311101.EAA01447@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Suppose you wanted to build a free press for a country like
Singapore that has a government that doesn't want one -
on the net, from the inside and outside.  What tools would you need?
Assume a Firewall Curtain proxy that can block sites and keywords but
can't really block encryption.  Also assume that the ISPs inside the
Firewall Curtain can't do much to help you, given government licensing
and other threats.  How can you help people communicate with each other
without interference?

The Web isn't a bad tool for it, but it's easy to block 
specific web sites and specific host machines, so you'd need
some combination of replication and DNS-manipulation to let
sites change names conveniently and frequently.
Has anybody developed a good DNS mechanism for reassigning
namespace conveniently (e.g. a meet-me system allowing any machine 
to connect up to a given name, so anybody who wants to can be
foobar23.remailer.net)?

There are web conferencing tools that would be a decent
user interface.

You'd need some mechanism for anonymous submissions;
remailers and web-based forms both work. 
Journalists have a long history under pseudonyms 
in British colonies and other non-free territory :-)

You'd need a mechanism for finding the news from inside SG;
search engines like AltaVista can pretty much handle that
except that you need a method for sending encrypted requests,
so the Firewall Curtain can't block them and the
government can't tell what you're searching for.
Perhaps an SSL-protected form with a CGI to submit to AltaVista?

Does anybody know the protocols of the Firewall Curtain
well enough to slide things into the cache?  (This is an 
httpd hacking question....)

What other tools would be useful?

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> 	Reassign Authority!