Newly released security project for human rights defenders to be presented in Tunis

9 November 2005

Front Line will present NGO-in-a-Box (Security edition) on Tuesday 15 November at the UN World Summit on Information Technology (WSIS) in Tunis.

Ngo-in-a-Box is a collation of security related tools and resources for use by civil society and human rights groups and independent media. It is a peer reviewed set of free and open source software with step-by-step installation and learning manuals, distributed as a box set of CD ROMs. NGO-in-a-box (security edition) is available in five languages – English, Spanish, Russian, French and Arabic. It is available free of charge for the non-profit sector. The focus of the complied software is on digital privacy and Internet security.

Security and privacy of information is a major concern to civil society groups especially human rights monitors, independent media and anti corruption organisations that can become targets of surveillance, data theft, equipment damage and confiscation. Ngo-in-a-Box provides the non IT-expert with the tools to protect him or herself in the digital world.

“The biggest advantages of this project are for people living under repressive regimes” says project manager Dmitri Vitaliev.

Under some governments, websites are routinely blocked and cyber police monitor their citizens Internet activity. In a 2002 study of China and the Internet, Harvard Professors Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman found that news sites such as BBC news, CNN and Time magazines were frequently unavailable as well a dozens of human rights and democracy sites

Ngo-in-a-Box (Security edition) shows the user in simple non-technical language how to encrypt data, browse the Internet anonymously, protect and destroy information stored on computers and bypass website blocks. Some of the programs and concepts, (e.g. encryption) included in the project are illegal in some countries, and some programs are so new there are no laws prohibiting their use yet.

This project is collaboration between Front Line – The International Foundation of Human Rights Defenders, an NGO based in Dublin and the Tactical Technology Collective, a Dutch registered NGO, which aims to advance the use of new technologies as a tactical tool for civil societies in developing countries.