Tearing down the Great Firewall of China

Looking at them you might not guess it. But deep in a basement room on the University of Toronto campus, three unassuming computer hackers with messy hair and wrinkled T-shirts are working to tear down China's "Great Firewall," the most sophisticated Internet censorship system in the world.

The computer smarts of Ron Deibert, Nart Villeneuve, and Michael Hull, combined with their passion for politics and free expression, have led them to develop a highly anticipated software program that allows Internet users inside China and other countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Burma, to get around repressive censorship and not get caught.

Their innovation is called Psiphon, and it's being launched at the end of this month

"If it works the way we hope it does and is distributed worldwide, it will have a huge impact on freedom of speech." - Ron Deibert, Director, Munk Centre for International Studies

[People are keenly awaiting the launch of Psiphon.] "It's a very important contribution." - Xiao Qiang, former Beijing resident, director, China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley