_ChokePointProject_ is meant for people who are curious about transparency and control of the networking technologies, their use and abuse by nation states and corporations leading towards new toolsets being produced to distribute connectivity beyond traditional powers.

Telephony and the Internet have had a huge impact on society, both positive and negative. Following the uprisings in the Middle East in 2011, where the Internet was “turned off”, we aim to provide a close-to-real-time map of leverage points expressed through the power medium of data visualization.

We plan to develop tools and toolkits for exposing choke points. We will also be creating open-source tools which can be used by people to help this project to map networks to monitor and sidestep spying, although this is part of a longer-term initiative.

Components of the project include:

—an interactive data visualization of identified choke points, so that everyone can understand where the vulnerabilities are

—showing the related open projects which aim to remedy those vulnerabilities

—pointing to articles with analysis and strategy to educate and inform the general public and research communities

—releasing datasets and tools used to track down Internet choke points

We will also provide documentation including a tutorial and design patterns that present possible installation ideas for spaces such as museums and transit terminals.

This project should serve as an experimental space for citizens to investigate how governments are tracking them hour-by-hour. Participants should understand how such tools can allow for collaborative expression to reject current levels of scrutiny that are not made transparent by existing government and corporate entities.


Links: http://www.chokepointproject.net/

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