Caught in the Network

At 9:15 one Thursday morning, there came a polite knock on my mostly closed office door.

I recognized the speaker as a network-security technician in my university's office of information-technology services. The other men were not familiar, but a quick glance at their cards told me they were detectives on our campus police force. They closed my office door behind them, sat down, took out notepads and pens, and asked if I had a few minutes to speak with them about Tor.

My reason for downloading and installing the Tor plug-in was actually simple: I'd read about it for some time, was planning to discuss it in two courses I teach, and figured I should have some experience using it before I described it to my students. The courses in question both deal with controlling technology, diffusing it throughout society, and freedom and censorship online.

When I cover online censorship in countries with no free press, I focus on how those countries rely on hardware, software, and phalanxes of people to make sure citizens can reach only government-approved media. Crackdowns on independent journalists, bloggers, and related dissidents all too often result in their being beaten, incarcerated, or worse. Technologies like Tor represent a beacon of freedom to people in those countries, and I would be doing my students a disservice if I didn't mention it.

Nonetheless, my visitors made two requests: that I stop using Tor, and that I avoid covering it in class.