Reporters without Borders (RSF) leverages the idealism of a generation of young developers to fight on one of the most troubling battlefields of the internet age: online censorship. The French press freedom watchdog is looking to enlist programmers for one full afternoon of volunteer service. Their mission: improve the security of a special file transmission system to protect internet users who send RSF censored files. This will be an integral part of RSF’s new brainchild, wefightcensorship.org.
The website is set to host censored content, defined by the organization as “content that has resulted in its creators being physically attacked, jailed, convicted or murdered” starting October 2013.
This is a forceful follow-up to their 2010 “anti-censorship shelter,” a safe haven in Paris used by foreign journalists, bloggers and refugees to circumvent internet censorship. The shelter makes use of a high-speed VPN network and encryption software set up by XeroBank, a communication security firm specialized in online privacy.
The RSF We Fight Censorship hack event takes place at La Cantine tomorrow, July 21st starting 2 p.m. If this speaks to the civic hacker in you, lock, load and sign up here.
Reporters Without Borders launches We Fight Censorship Hackathon
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