The Library Privacy Project and TOR Project Begin Library Exit Node Pilot

From a Library Privacy Project Blog Post by Alison Macrina:

Today, we’re excited to announce a new initiative, a collaboration between the Library Freedom Project and Tor Project: Tor exit relays in libraries. Nima Fatemi, the Tor Project member who’s already helped Library Freedom Project in a number of ways, is our main partner on this project. This is an idea whose time has come; libraries are our most democratic public spaces, protecting our intellectual freedom, privacy, and unfettered access to information, and Tor Project creates software that allows all people to have these rights on the internet. We’re excited to combine our efforts to help libraries protect internet freedom, strengthen the Tor network, and educate the public about how Tor can help protect their right to digital free expression.
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In order to begin this new project, we needed a pilot, and we had just the library in mind – Kilton Library in Lebanon, New Hampshire, one of two Lebanon Libraries. Chuck McAndrew is the IT librarian there, and he’s done amazing things to the computers on his network, like running them all on GNU/Linux distributions. Why is this significant? Most library environments run Microsoft Windows, and we know that Microsoft participated in the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program. By choosing GNU/Linux and installing some privacy-protecting browser extensions too, Chuck’s helping his staff and patrons opt-out of pervasive government and corporate surveillance. Pretty awesome.

Much more about this project (incl. a few photos) and other Library Freedom Project work in the complete blog post.
See Also: Alison Macrina: 2015 Library Journal “Mover and Shaker”
Note from Gary Price, infoDOCKET Founder/Editor: I had the opportunity to speak and demo a few tools at the Library Freedom Project event that took place at the end of the ALA Annual Conference in SF. Thanks to Alison for the opportunity.

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