Web Users in Iran Reach Overseas for Proxies
As voting protests in Iran devolved into violence, and communications remained sporadic, Internet users in the country are calling for proxies they can use to stay online unmonitored. Twitter, a hub of activity since the rallies began, saw its own protests as users begged the microblogging service to postpone a maintenance period that is scheduled tonight.
Proxy servers help Web surfers browse the Internet anonymously and have been used in places such as China, so that citizens there could reach Web sites that have been censored by the government. In Iran, where cellphone and text-messaging services have been on the blink, and some sites have been blocked (though at least one person in Tehran was posting videos to YouTube), requests for proxies came via Twitter, blogs and other channels.
