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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><a href="http://dev.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-shadow-web">http://dev.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-shadow-web</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>The
Shadow Web<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p id=articleDek><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Governments and corporations have more control over the Internet than ever.
Now digital activists want to build an alternative network that can never be
blocked, filtered or shut down<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=articleinfo><span class=byline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>By <a href="http://dev.sciam.com/author.cfm?id=3251">Julian
Dibbell</a> </span></font></span> | <span class=datestamp>February 14,
2012</span> <o:p></o:p></p>
<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>[The Internet was designed to be a decentralized
system: every node should connect to many others. This design helped to
make the system resistant to censorship or outside attack.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Yet in practice, most individual users exist at
the edges of the network, connected to others only through their Internet service
provider (ISP). Block this link, and Internet access disappears.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>An alternative option is beginning to emerge in
the form of wireless mesh networks, simple systems that connect end users
to one another and automatically route around blocks and censors.<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo3'><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>Yet any mesh network needs to hit a critical mass
of users before it functions well; developers must convince potential
users to trade off ease of use for added freedom and privacy.]<o:p></o:p></span></font></li>
</ul>
<p class=articleinfo><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Just after midnight on January 28, 2011, the government of <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Egypt</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
rocked by three straight days of massive antiregime protests organized in part
through Facebook and other online social networks, did something unprecedented
in the history of 21st-century telecommunications: it turned off the <a
href="http://dev.sciam.com/topic.cfm?id=internet">Internet</a>. Exactly how it
did this remains unclear, but the evidence suggests that five well-placed phone
calls—one to each of the country’s biggest Internet service
providers (ISPs)—may have been all it took.</span></font><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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