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Unblockable, Anonymous, Encrypted Mobile Internet Access

Posted by Nova Spivack

Would you like to make a contribution of historical proportions? Here's your chance. This challenge is to create technology that can literally help to reshape our world, liberate hundreds of millions of people from repression, and bring down evil regimes in the process. There are few opportunities to create positive change on par with this one. Interested? Read on.

Recent brutal crackdowns in Tibet, Myanamar and Iran were successful because local governments were able to block, censor, and spy on Internet access by their citizens. This effectively cut off the free flow of information and made it impossible for people on the ground to report the atrocities they witnessed safely. There is no threat to Democracy like cutting off the free flow of information. The free flow of information is the lifeblood of Democracy. Currently the power to control information rests in the hands of the few. This must be changed or Democracy (worldwide, not just in developing countries or tyrranical regimes) will become a thing of the past within 50 years. The stakes are very high.

Armed governments, run by tyrants, are a great threat not only to Democracy, but to the survival of our species and to the well-being of hundreds of millions, and even billions, of people on this planet. While we cannot arm every citizen with a gun, we can arm them with anonymous, unblockable mobile Internet access. They already have camera phones.

This one technological contribution could shift the balance of power back to the people. The power of the camera phone connected by a safe and unblockable connection to the Internet trumps the power of the gun.

This challenge is to develop or port a technology that gives people unblockable, encrypted, anonymous Internet access for widely used mobile devices (devices that are prevalent in developing countries, or even countries such as China, where such crackdowns typically occur).

One promising direction is the TOR platform. If such a system could be ported to popular mobile devices it could make a real difference in the world. For more on this see:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel5%2F4543879%2F4550291%2F04550305.pdf&authDecision=-203

Prize will be awarded to the first fully working, consumer-ready (ready for consumers to download and use) app that meets the goals of this challenge.

Additional awards, judges and criteria may be added to this prize as time goes on.

SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS

Must work on mobile devices that are widely used in Asia (China in particular, but also Myanamar) and the Middle East (Iran for example). These are regions where State-sponsored Internet blocking is rampant.

Must be possible to download and install by a non-technical device owner using a simple one-click install, with an optional settings step and optional advanced settings.

A particular desired, but not required, feature of this solution is that it should be possible to hide and/or quickly delete all signs of this application in an emergency. If a person is arrested and their mobile device is confiscated, any evidence of such a connection should be hidden or deleted easily. The best solution for this would be a dead-man's switch such that if the application is not given permission regularly (using some kind of key code perhaps) then it removes itself from the device. This would have to happen without the process of confirmation and removal being visible to a third-party operating the device. The goal of this feature is to protect the device owner if they are in custody or their device is confiscated. In an ideal world the application could reset the device, deleting everything, if it does not receive confirmation repeatedly (after a few missed confirmation deadlines). The dead man's switch should be optional and set on or off with a configuration step.

Ideally the winning solution will work on an optimal mobile device platform for the desired region(s) (Asia and the Middle East). Ideally it will be open source and freely available as well, to maximize the spread and adoption of the technology. These are not required features of the winning solution, but are desired and will count towards a final decision.

Software-only solution is a requirement. Should not require new or special add-on hardware. Must work with standard Internet-enabled phones that consumers already have today.

Solution must work on at least one of the top 3 most widely used (by number of people in the installed base) mobile phones and networks in the target regions (Asia and the Middle East: particularly China, Iran, Myanamar).

PLEDGES

ChallengePost does not guarantee pledges will be collectable. Successful solvers who identify pre-existing solutions will not receive cash, but their profiles will reflect their success and how many people they helped.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Will remain with whoever successfully solves the challenge.

JUDGING

Will be performed by Nova Spivack.

Solutions (3)

  • An existing solution.
    Submitted by Elijah Guadarrama 4 months ago
    http://www.tempestcom.com/guide/guide.aspx?Id=99&view=3 Bgan is the World's most sophisticated satellite Internet service. Bgan uses a variety of small lightweight portable satellite terminals which allow travelers and remote users to connect to the internet in places like Iran without the need of infrastructure such as phone lines, cellular networks or Wi-Fi hotspots. With Bgan you just take out you small portable modem and point it to the sky to connect at speeds of up to 492 Kbps. This is the ideal way to get connected without getting blocked using Satellite internet. You can also use a mobile device that can work on wifi and hook Satellite internet to a router and that way to distribute to more devices. This way is the best possible and guarantee this can't be block from local authorities but only downside have to make sure you are in there coverage zone. Well this company claims to be able to offer service there in IRAN http://www.tempestcom.com/guide/guide.aspx?Id=99&view=3 So check it out...
  • An existing solution.
    Submitted by Michael Veytsel 4 months ago
    Billy Hoffman and Matt Wood are expected to demo a proof-of-concept browser-based 'darknet' called Veiled at Blackhat at the end of the month, which carries many of the features you describe. http://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-usa-09/bh-usa-09-speakers.html#Hoffman The second component, which would decentralize data routing, may require a hardware implementation on devices which can take advantage of mesh networking protocols like 802.11s (which is already being used by the One Laptop Per Child project), enabling users to bypass carriers and ISPs entirely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11s A third more optional, but potentially powerful component could be the addition of DIY, small, cheap, unmanned drones to these networks, as demoed by Chris Anderson of Wired at this years Maker Faire. Connected to a mesh darknet, these could be used to further the scope of intelligence gathering and citizen journalism: http://fora.tv/2009/05/30/DIY_Drones_with_Chris_Anderson
  • An existing solution.
    Submitted by valerio lupi 4 months ago
    hi, i've succesfully ported TOR (precisely, both TOR and PRIVOXY) to windows mobile (tested on 5.0,6.0,6.1,6.5) as a private project. i'm in the process of submitting the port to the tor and privoxy development teams (will do it in the next weeks) to be included in their codebase. The thing is production ready and includes a GUI (similar to VIDALIA on desktop PC) to control TOR (start/stop/show circuit infos/etc...) and a practical CAB installer. I think this will solve your solution. Please contact me by email for further information.

Questions and Suggestions (4)

  • Are there specific phones and networks in relation to the requirement:

    "Solution must work on at least one of the top 3 most widely used (by number of people in the installed base) mobile phones and networks in the target regions (Asia and the Middle East: particularly China, Iran, Myanamar)."

    Or is figuring out what those are and documenting that also part of the challenge?

    Question from David F 3 days, 3 hours ago

  • As many have suggested, a combination of tor (http://www.torproject.org) for anonymous routing, and trucrypt (http://www.trucrypt.org) for local storage data protection would seem to be the right place to start.

    However, a major challenge here will be the requirement for this to run on major phone platforms (non-smartphone). The ability to deploy on many of these platforms will be strictly controlled by the local telecommunications carriers, which in many of the jurisdictions mentioned will be controlled by the government. Therefore, in all likelihood, it may be prudent to assume the carrier will not allow code to be deployed to their phones.

    Perhaps a web-browser accessible solution that enables users to establish a dynamic short-range Wi-Fi mesh might be another approach?

    Suggestion from Brendon Wilson 2 months, 1 week ago

  • Please let us know how we can help this effort (see my message above). We have Software Developers, Satellite Applications experts, connections to World Bank..this idea has been initiated within the last few days by this group all visiting NASA Ames in San Francisco over the summer.

    Question from Heather Heine 4 months ago

  • I know this is primarily wanted for places like Iran, China, etc. Do they have anything in place such as the CALEA (http://www.fcc.gov/calea/)? What kind of political issues would you run into? For instance Apple is known for banning applications they don't see fit from their market, will this have an impact on distribution? Ejiah: Thanks for the heads up, but I think Nova is looking to retro fit the current infrastructure. It wouldn't be cost effective for someone to switch phone services, or have to buy a new phone for this purpose. Nova: I will, but suggest that you too, pass this information on to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org).

    Question from Anthony Oliver 4 months, 3 weeks ago

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