Kickstarting Operator: a censorship-resistant, shape-shifting newsreader

Brandon Wiley — a P2P developer I've known and respected for more than a decade — writes, "The Operator news reader project was started in order to protect the most censored content on the Internet: news. Internet news has become a primary means of obtaining information in areas where broadcast media is censored. However, the increase prevalence of Internet filtering technology and its use for blocking access to news means that the people that are most dependent on Internet access for news are also the least likely to have it.

Operator News is an RSS news reader application which uses an adaptive cryptographic communication engine to circumvent Internet filtering which blocks access to news sources. Using covert communication channels, news content can be disguised as other sorts of traffic such as email, Skype, or chat. This is done automatically and requires no configuration from the user. The user simply sees their news appear in the application just as you'd expect.

The Operator project has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $35,000 for the programming, user interface design, translations, and documentation needed to provide critically important access to news to people around the world. Through crowdfunding, anyone that supports access to news will be able to support the development of this open source software and in return receive fun rewards such as the project soundtrack, t-shirts, and posters designed for the Kickstarter backers by artists that support Internet freedom.

Operator, a News Reader that Circumvents Internet Censorship

(Thanks, Brandon!)