We don’t know how the revolt in Egypt will eventually play out.  We do know that many of the people on the streets were expressing a sincere desire to be free from the rule of a dictatorship and to be free to thrive economically.  One of the aspects of the revolt in Egypt was the use of social networking and the internet to share information and to get information to the outside world.

On Thursday, February 17, the Walpole Times (Walpole, Massachusetts) published a story about an organization called the Tor Project which offers anonymity online.  The free software designed by the Tor Project hides the physical location of the internet user and circumvents government surveillance and censorship.  The Executive Director of the Tor Project is Andrew Lewman.

According to the article:

“Tor software was downloaded 36 million times last year worldwide, Lewman said, with about 500.000 on and off users of the privacy portal each day.  Before protests began in Egypt, however, people in the country didn’t utilize the software as much as other activists around the world.

“At the start of January, only about 200 to 300 sessions were originating from Egypt per day, he said.  By the time the Egyptian government basically shut down the country’s Internet and blocked cell phones late last month, those numbers increased tenfold.”

The highest number of users of Tor are in China, Germany and the United States. 

Tor is used by people who want to protect their privacy and by law enforcement agencies to hide their identity while investigating Internet crime.

The potential of Tor to allow a more free flow of information in countries where accessing certain websites can be hazardous to your health is wonderful.  The internet can be an amazing weapon in the fight against tyrants.  There are no guarantees that pro-western democracies will emerge out of the turmoil in the Middle East, but the Tor Project software may make it more difficult for dictators to stay in power indefinitely.