Tunisian hackers decrypt dictator's old Internet censorship machines

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://observers.france24.com/content/20130624-tunisia-internet-censorship-hackers-servers

By Moez Chakchouk
France 24
24/06/2013

The Tunisian Internet Agency has just opened access to the basement of a villa 
in Tunis where government employees censored the Internet under former dictator 
Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali’s regime. The infamous servers used to monitor Internet 
usage are still there -- but now, in a role reversal, Tunisian hackers have 
taken them over and are trying to discover their secrets.

The agency opened up its doors to hackers on June 15. They will now be able to 
use the venue as a lab to organise workshops and develop projects on Internet 
governance for Tunisia. The venue has been renamed 404 Lab, a reference to 
Ammar 404, the expression used by Tunisians under the Ben Ali regime to refer 
to Internet censorship.

Since the lab opened, a team of young programmers has been meeting there every 
day in order to crack the machines, which have not been used since Ben Ali’s 
fall.

The 404 Lab was launched the day before the agency’s third conference on 
Internet freedom, which took place last week and largely focused on online 
transparency and protection of personal data.

[...]

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