硅谷《圣荷塞信使报》26日刊登文章说，让独裁国家数百万的人可以绕过网络封锁，自由的浏览网页的内容，开发这一技术的关键人物之一、硅谷软件工程师黄云（Alan Huang）近日终于站出来了。对于中国的网监们来说，此人恶名昭彰，对于世界上其他人来说，此人籍籍无名。上星期四，当黄云在硅谷一家咖啡馆浏览网页时，人们想不到，在中国、伊朗和其他国家的50万人正在利用他的网络软件，突破独裁者的网络封锁和审查；更想不到中国约50000名政府软件工程师正试图阻止他和其他像他这样的人。上星期，一个国会的小组讨论了如何帮助谷歌对抗中国的审查，以及帮助像黄云这样的软件工程师。
黄云在国会作证时用的是匿名，当他接受全国性电视台采访时，拍摄的画面是他的背影，声音是经过修饰的。出于对中国当局的恐惧，这位轻声细语的硅谷软件咨询师一直隐瞒着他的身份。直到今天。
黄云在独家专访中说：“我意识到，如果你害怕，政府就会利用这一点。”
黄在当地的公司无界网，是加盟全球网络自由联盟中的公司之一。通过使用自由联盟的简单软件，人们可以突破所在国家的封锁和监控，自由地在网上浏览。
作为政府禁止的法轮功学员，黄于2002年帮助开发出这个软件，来帮助法轮功学员间的通讯。但他很快意识到，不依赖于任何的组织或国家，突破中国的审查获得未经过滤的信息，是一项基本需要。黄云曾活跃于1989年的民主运动，之后于1992年移居旧金山湾区。
虽然大部份使用无界网的用户在中国大陆，但自从去年伊朗政府限制民主人士使用YouTube、Facebook和其它通讯工具以来，伊朗使用无界网的人大幅增加。越南使用无界网的人数也在增加。其它使用无界网的人来自沙特阿拉伯、阿拉伯联合酋长国等其它国家，包括美国。
“如果你没有隐私和安全，你就没有自由，”黄说。
黄深受谷歌将搜索引擎服务转到香港事件的鼓舞。他已经决定，今后不再用匿名。他表示，无界网代表了“正确的技术，站在了历史正确的一边。”
加州大学伯克利分校中国网络项目主任、“中国数字时代”创始人萧强表示，在过去的5年中，自由网络联盟已成为人们绕过中国“GFW”的重要工具。萧强说：“我们还没有看到中共对谷歌的全面报复，如果谷歌被迫退出中国，自由网络联盟将在中国占据更大的市场。”
上个星期在国会举行的听证会上，前美国驻匈牙利大使帕尔莫，抨击美国国务院没有将3000万美元的拨款帮助网络自由联盟购买更多的计算机服务器和聘请付酬工作人员。今年1月，一些由布朗贝克为首的参议员写信给国务卿希拉里，要求释出这些款项。帕尔默说，他与国务院和白宫都进行了沟通，对方表示，推迟下发拨款主要事顾忌中国政府的可能反应。国务院对记者的多次查询未作评论。
帕尔默说，如果无界网反审查技术可以在“GFW”上打开足够的洞，那么谷歌就没有必要将搜索引擎转到香港，人们直接就可以使用Google的主要搜索引擎。
自由网络联盟提供免费的加密软件，使用者可以用分散在世界各地的代理服务器，一秒内切换多个IP地址，让中国的网络封锁和监控失效。与中共花费巨资的监测和封锁相比，自由网络联盟的开销很小。黄说，自由网络联盟是小本经营。他在白天作为一名软件咨询师，夜晚为自由网络联盟工作，并自己出钱购买硬件。人员的配备都是志愿者。自由网络联盟还包括北卡罗来纳州的动态网络技术公司。
黄云已经成为美国公民，但他认为，即使在旧金山也仍然存有来自中国政府的安全威胁，他要求不报道他的住址等私生活细节。黄云赞赏谷歌本周的做法，但他表示，他不能对谷歌四年来屈从中国的审查制度视而不见。
黄云说，“对我来说，我觉得谷歌做的太晚了。”他希望美国政府对中国政府采取强硬立场，其它公司应该以谷歌为榜样。他说：“微软应该做同样的事情，雅虎也应该做同样的事，思科也是如此。”
Silicon Valley man infamous to Chinese censors comes forward
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14766284
By Mike Swift
mswift@mercurynews.com
Posted: 03/26/2010 07:31:03 PM PDT
Updated: 03/27/2010 06:26:10 AM PDT
To Chinese Internet censors, he's infamous. To the rest of the world, he's unknown.
As he clicked through the Web in a Silicon Valley coffee shop Thursday, you'd never guess that a half-million people in China, Iran and other countries depend on his software to evade Internet blocking and government surveillance, that an estimated 50,000 government software engineers in China are trying to stop him and others; and that a congressional panel debated not only how to help mighty Google in its confrontation with Chinese censorship this week, but also the work of this software engineer.
He's testified before a congressional panel — anonymously — and when he was interviewed on national television, he was shot from behind and his voice disguised. For fear of the Chinese government, the soft-spoken Silicon Valley software consultant has kept his identity concealed. Until now.
"I realized that if you're scared," Alan Huang told the Mercury News in an exclusive interview, "the government can take advantage of that."
Huang's local company, UltraReach Internet, is among a group of companies that make up the Global Internet Freedom Consortium. Through the consortium's simple software, often downloaded through an e-mail, a person can step outside whatever blocking or surveillance their country imposes and freely access anyplace on the Web.
A follower of the government-banned spiritual group Falun Gong, Huang helped develop the technology in 2002 to help members of that movement communicate. But he soon realized that access to unfiltered information, free of government surveillance, was a fundamental need, not tied to any single group or country. Huang was active in the democracy movement in China in 1989 before moving to the Bay Area in 1992.
While the largest share of the consortium's traffic still comes from China, the service is seeing a surge from Iran — where the government cracked down last year on democracy activists using YouTube, Facebook and other social networking tools to communicate — and from Vietnam. The consortium also gets many users from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries — including the United States.
"If you don't have privacy and security, you don't have freedom," Huang said.
Huang is cheering Google's step this week of directing its Chinese search traffic to an unfiltered search service based in Hong Kong. He had, however, already decided that he no longer wanted to remain anonymous when a reporter tracked him down this week, saying the consortium's circumvention software represents "the right side of technology, the right side of history."
The consortium is one of many services that have become increasingly important tools for people within China to circumvent the "Great Firewall" over the past five years, said Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Project at the UC Berkeley and founder of the China Digital Times. He says the demand will only become greater.
"We haven't even seen the full retaliation from the Chinese government" to Google's move to stop censoring its Chinese search, Xiao said. "If Google is forced to withdraw from China, it will make this an even bigger market."
The global attention Google generated when it stopped censoring search in China could also help the consortium make its services available to more people in all 180 countries it serves. On Wednesday, at a hearing in Washington before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China about Google, a debate over additional federal resources for the consortium and others offering circumvention technology became a central issue.
Mark Palmer, a former U.S. ambassador to Hungary and now of Freedom House, a human rights group, blasted the U.S. State Department for not distributing $30 million in already appropriated money to help the consortium buy more computer servers and hire paid staff. In January, a group of senators, led by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking that the money be released.
"It's clear from talking to my friends, both in the State Department and the White House, that one of the concerns that has led to this (delay) is concern about the Chinese reaction," Palmer told the group of senators and House members on the commission. The State Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Palmer told the congressional panel that if anti-censorship technology like the consortium's could open up enough holes in the "Great Firewall" for enough people, the cyber-gymnastics Google did this week by moving its Chinese search to Hong Kong would be unnecessary, and people could go directly to Google's main search engine. "Google's in a fight and a martyred defeat will not help the cause," he said.
The consortium provides free encryption software that also allows Internet users to switch IP addresses multiple times a second on a group of dedicated proxy servers scattered around the world, frustrating government blocking or surveillance in any country.
While it is a powerful technology because it is cheap compared with the expensive surveillance and blocking that the Chinese government does, the consortium is a shoestring operation, Huang says. After his daytime job as a software consultant, he works late into the night many evenings for the consortium, and spends his own money on hardware and services. Staffing is all volunteer. The consortium, which also includes Dynamic Internet Technology in North Carolina, has received government funding through the International Broadcasting Bureau, which funds ventures such as Voice of America.
Huang has become a U.S. citizen. But he says there are still reasons to fear the reach of the Chinese government, even here in the Bay Area, and he asked that where he lives and other personal details be kept private. While he applauded the step Google took this week, Huang said that he could not ignore that the company had agreed to Chinese censorship rules for four years.
"To me, I feel it's kind of late," he said, but added that he hoped the U.S. government would be tougher with China and that other companies would follow Google's lead. "Microsoft should do the same thing; Yahoo should do the same thing; Cisco should do the same thing."via 1984bbs
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