The Civisec Project

The Internet is now an unavoidable necessity for politics, society, and economics, bringing enormous benefits to individuals and organizations. At the same time, there is a crisis brewing, as governments, corporations, civil society, and militant actors filter, monitor, censor and censure the activities and discussions of citizens worldwide. Although these censorship and surveillance practices take place in the realm of cyberspace, they can have real physical consequences. Filtering, monitoring and interception make it possible for hostile actors to find confidential and geographic information that may be used to cause harm. This new insecure environment impacts organizations working in countries that utilize Internet surveillance and filtering, creating an environment where organizations feel obliged to limit the use of technologies or, due to a lack of knowledge, continue to operate in an insecure manner.

The goal of the CiviSec Project is to address issues of Internet censorship, surveillance and infowar on four levels:

1. To raise awareness through advocacy as to the prevalence and consequences of filtering practices and insecure communications around the world.

2. To develop specific software and networking tools to allow non-expert users to detect filtering and/or insecure communications and to circumvent or mitigate these practices in the safest possible manner.

3. To critically analyze and evaluate circumvention and privacy tools and to make those analyses public;

4. To provide online resources and guides accessible to non-technical experts covering both methods and means for securing communications, as well as providing relevant background material.

Civisec integrates software developers, researchers and civil society actors on each of these four levels, and aims to empower organizations and individuals to determine their own specific needs and take informed action when implementing privacy and security solutions.