San Jose Mercury News interviews Alan Huang who has created technology that hundreds of thousands of people use to get around the Great Firewall:
As he clicked through the Web in a Silicon Valley coffee shop Thursday, you’d never guess that a half-million people in China, Iran and other countries depend on his software to evade Internet blocking and government surveillance, that an estimated 50,000 government software engineers in China are trying to stop him and others; and that a congressional panel debated not only how to help mighty Google in its confrontation with Chinese censorship this week, but also the work of this software engineer.
He’s testified before a congressional panel — anonymously — and when he was interviewed on national television, he was shot from behind and his voice disguised. For fear of the Chinese government, the soft-spoken Silicon Valley software consultant has kept his identity concealed. Until now.
“I realized that if you’re scared,” Alan Huang told the Mercury News in an exclusive interview, “the government can take advantage of that.”
Huang’s local company, UltraReach Internet, is among a group of companies that make up the Global Internet Freedom Consortium. Through the consortium’s simple software, often downloaded through an e-mail, a person can step outside whatever blocking or surveillance their country imposes and freely access anyplace on the Web.
