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the request to another “helper”—can see what websites it is actually “helping” to access, even though it won’t know who is trying to access them.) Egerstad, who was arrested as a result of his little scholarly experiment, found that 95 percent of the traffic that passed through his experimental Tor connections—including government documents, diplomatic memos, and intelligence estimates—was not encrypted. Think of intercepting an envelope that doesn’t have a return address. Would you be able to guess who wrote it? Sure, if you look inside: The letterhead may tell you everything you need to know. TOR is excellent at removing the sender’s address from the envelope, but it doesn’t destroy the letterhead, let alone the rest of the letter. There are, of course, plenty of other encryption technologies that can do this, but Tor is simply not one of them. That so many users exchanging sensitive information online—including activists and dissidents—do not have a firm understanding of the technologies they use is cause for serious concern. Eventually it puts them at completely unnecessary and easily avoidable risk.

Besides, even complete mastery of technology is often not enough. Your security is only as good as that of the computer you are working on; the more people have access to it, the more likely it is that someone could turn your computer into a spying machine. Given that a lot of Internet activism takes place on public computers, security compromises abound. For many antigovernment activists, cybercafés have become the new (and often the only) offices, as authorities keep a close eye on their home and office Internet connections. However, few Internet cafés allow their patrons to install new software or even use browsers other than Internet Explorer, which puts most innovative tools for secure communication out of easy reach.

Rainy Days of Cloud Computing

Some observers see many security-enhancing benefits to the Internet. For example, dissidents and NGOs can now use multifunctional online working environments to execute all their work remotely—“in the cloud”—without having to install any software or even store any data on poorly protected computers. All one needs is a secure browser and an Internet connection; there’s no need to download any files or carry a portable copy of your favorite word processor on a USB thumb drive.

“Cloud activism” may, indeed, seem like something of a godsend, an ideal solution to data security concerns faced by many NGOs and activists. Take the case of Memorial, a brave Russian NGO that has gained worldwide recognition for its unyielding commitment to the documenting of human rights abuses and crimes committed in the country, from Stalin’s rule to the more recent wars in Chechnya.

On November 4, 2008, only a day before an edgy conference on Stalin’s role in modern Russia co-organized by Memorial, the Russian police raided its offices in Saint Petersburg and confiscated twelve hard drives containing the entire digital archives of atrocities under Stalin, including hours of audio histories and video evidence of mass graves. It was an institutional disaster. Not only did Memorial lose possession of (even if temporarily) twenty years of important work, but Russian authorities were supplied with potentially damning evidence against the organization. Given that historical memory—especially of the Stalin period—is a sensitive issue in Russia, finding fault with Memorial, which happens to be a staunch critic of the Kremlin, wouldn’t be so hard. Russian police are notorious for finding fault with the most innocuous of documents or, worse, software and operating systems. (Quite a few Russian NGOs use illegal software in their offices, often without even realizing it until it is too late; on more than one occasion, the war on pirated software, which the West expects Moscow to fight with all its vigor, has been a good excuse to exert more pressure on dissenting NGOs.)

Fortunately, the courts concluded that the search had been conducted in violation of legal due process, and Memorial’s hard drives