Google unveils 'Project Shield' to counter cyber attacks
Google has announced its ‘Project Shield’ initiative, designed to protect news organisations and human rights groups from cyber attacks.
Project Shield was launched in New York
The project is amongst a suite of new services which it said are designed to support "free expression" on the web.
The measures were unveiled at a presentation in New York, and include ‘uProxy’, which allows citizens under some regimes to bypass government censorship or surveillance software to surf the web.
It also unveiled a new map that highlights cyber attacks taking place around the world in real time.
Reuters reported that the formation of a new ideas group, which the company advertises as a "think/do tank" headed by Jared Cohen, a former US State Department official, has raised the possibility of the company playing a more active role in furthering US policy.
“Under its Project Shield initiative, Google said it would host sites that frequently came under politically-motivated distributed denial-of-service attacks,” it said.
It added that the uProxy software will allow users in countries such as China to access the internet as it is seen by a friend in a different, uncensored country.