U.S.-China Surveillance

Paul Cesarini, an Assistant Professor at Bowling Green, has an interesting story posted in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education. Seems that his use of Tor, a powerful application that helps to mask one’s surfing and online publishing behavior, drew the attention of campus police and network security technicians, who warned him he was in breach of the school’s responsible use policy:

My visitors … produced page after page of logs detailing my apparent use of Tor. While I couldn’t dispute most of the details in the logs, they seemed inaccurate. For example, the technician said I had been using Tor earlier that morning. In fact, I had been at Wal-Mart that morning looking for a good deal on an HDTV; I had reached my office only about five minutes earlier.

More important, the logs did not prove any wrongdoing on my part. All they demonstrated was that I, like thousands of others around the world, had installed and infrequently used Tor. In my case, of course, there was no wrongdoing.