Cloud computing to benefit 'secret internet'

Cloud computing to benefit 'secret internet'

A secret layer of the internet, designed to increase anonymous communication, is looking into using cloud computing.

The Tor Project has often been used by activists to avoid censorship in certain countries where freedom of speech is compromised, although it has also been put to use for some less honourable reasons.

However, now its organisers are looking into using Amazon's cloud service to make it even harder for governments to track its users. To this end, the developers are urging people to sign up to Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud), which provides virtual computer capacity, and creates a 'bridge.'

These bridges will then provide an additional security point to the uncensored internet that Tor promises. A blog post from the organisation explained: “Bridges are Tor relays that aren't listed in the main directory. This means that to use a bridge, you'll need to locate one first. And because there is no complete public list of all the bridges, they are also harder to block.

“A bridge will act as the first hop in a circuit, and will only forward traffic on to other relays in the Tor network.”

In effect, the organisation is asking its users to donate bandwidth to the Tor Project's network in order to improve the safety and speed of its secure internet access, something which cloud computing is ideally positioned to assist with.

The cloud can also help to provide businesses and other internet users with secure, fast access to their own data and applications. However, it is worth considering the network requirements of such a system first.

Ensuring that a decent network system is in place to start with is likely to help ensure that the cloud services are running at their optimal speed. hSo provides managed networks designed for business. To get an instant cost for a leased line at your location, visit our online leased line price checker.