<p dir="ltr">Privacy serves as a crucial safeguard for personal autonomy and information, enabling control over personal data and space, fostering trust and security in society, and standing as a cornerstone of democracy by protecting against unwarranted interference. This work aims to enhance Tor, a volunteer-operated network providing privacy to over two million users, by improving its programmability, security, and user-friendliness to support wider adoption and underscore the importance of privacy in protecting individual rights in the digital age.</p><p dir="ltr">Addressing Tor's limitations in adapting to new services and threats, this thesis introduces programmable middleboxes, enabling users to execute complex functions on Tor routers to enhance anonymity, security, and performance. This architecture, called Bento, is designed to secure middleboxes from harmful functions and vice versa, making Tor more flexible and efficient.</p><p dir="ltr">Many of the attacks on Tor's anonymity occur when an adversary can intercept a user’s traffic; it is thus useful to limit how much of a user's traffic can enter potentially adversarial networks. We tackle the vulnerabilities of onion services to surveillance and censorship by proposing DeTor_OS, a Bento function enabling geographic avoidance for onion services- which is challenging since no one entity knows the full circuit between user and onion service, providing a method to circumvent adversarial regions and enhance user privacy.</p><p dir="ltr">The final part focuses on improving onion services' usability and security. Despite their importance, these services face high latency, Denial of Service (DoS) and deanonymization attacks due to their content. We introduce CenTor, a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for onion services using Bento, offering replication, load balancing, and content proximity benefits. Additionally, we enhance performance with multipath routing strategies through uTor, balancing performance and anonymity. We quantitatively analyze how geographical-awareness for an onion service CDN and its clients could impact a user’s anonymity- performance versus security tradeoff. Further, we evaluate CenTor on the live Tor network as well as large-scale Shadow simulations.</p><p dir="ltr">These contributions, requiring no changes to the Tor protocol, represent significant advancements in Tor's capabilities, performance, and defenses, demonstrating potential for immediate benefits to the Tor community.</p>

This dissertation seeks to explore how the exercise of political power and the music industry impacted each other in South Africa under apartheid during the 1980s. It does so by looking firstly at the ways in which the South African government used music to promote apartheid. Secondly, it looks at the role of South African popular musicians in the struggle against apartheid in the country, specifically their role in civil society and the methods they employed to fight apartheid while avoiding censorship. It looks at key musical developments of the decade and explores their political implications, focusing on three popular genres: bubblegum (or disco), crossover and reggae. Thirdly, it explores the role of South African music and musicians in the struggle against apartheid outside South Africa. Finally, it looks at the role of music in the international anti-apartheid movement and the contribution of the international music community to the struggle. / Political Sciences / M.A. (African Politics)

This dissertation seeks to explore how the exercise of political power and the music industry impacted each other in South Africa under apartheid during the 1980s. It does so by looking firstly at the ways in which the South African government used music to promote apartheid. Secondly, it looks at the role of South African popular musicians in the struggle against apartheid in the country, specifically their role in civil society and the methods they employed to fight apartheid while avoiding censorship. It looks at key musical developments of the decade and explores their political implications, focusing on three popular genres: bubblegum (or disco), crossover and reggae. Thirdly, it explores the role of South African music and musicians in the struggle against apartheid outside South Africa. Finally, it looks at the role of music in the international anti-apartheid movement and the contribution of the international music community to the struggle. / Political Sciences / M.A. (African Politics)

The thesis focuses on the translations of Czech literature in Finland, specifically on the person of eminent translator from Czech into Finnish, Kirsti Siraste. It describes the historical context of the second half of the 20th century when Siraste worked as an active translator, the ideology of the era which influenced the whole social climate, i. e. the translator's and publisher's work as well; and the position of Czech literature in Finland at that time. The thesis also maps the comprehensive situation of literary translation in Finland because Czech literature is a part of literary translation production as a whole. Another focus point of the thesis is the research of norms in literary translation and Finnish literary production as well. The last part of the thesis is a translatological analysis of one of Siraste's translations, specifically The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. The analysis consists of a comparison of the Czech and the Finnish text focusing on political references, which might become a subject of (self-)censorship, and other realities in the text; and other integral parts of translatological analysis - characteristics of Milan Kundera as a writer, and his work, the Czech version of the novel as a whole, the translation in the context, and the reception of the...

This thesis is an exploration of tabooed literary creations that it terms carnival literature. To achieve the objective of establishing the effectiveness of posting material on Facebook walls of the selected group and individual accounts to escape censorship, the thesis compared traditional graffiti, particularly latrinalia, to ‗cyber‘ graffiti (social media) with Facebook as a case study. Lev Vygotsky‘s Activity Theory helped the study link graffiti, vulgarities, humour and Facebook to the Ndebele society‘s response to tabooing of carnival literature. The thesis argued that participating in traditional graffiti production and coming up with posts on a Facebook wall is a deliberate effort with a target audience just as other genres of literature have. However, society tends to condemn carnival literature as a rebellious genre that deserves exclusion from ‗normal‘ interaction. Carnival literature is therefore censored through tabooing its themes and language. The term carnival literature is derived from medieval performances that were named the ‗carnivalesque‘ by Bakhtin and have equivalents in Africa as a continent and in Zimbabwe as a nation. The characteristics of carnivality are found in both traditional graffiti and ‗cyber‘ graffiti. These, among others, include sex and sexuality as themes, obscenities, vulgarities, and all language that is considered offensive. Interestingly, these elements of carnivality evoke laughter of one kind or another. Latrinalia from selected public toilets from the city of Bulawayo was photographed and subjected to Critical Discourse Analysis with attention being paid to carnivality, Bakhtinian dialogism and humour and its impact on the interaction process. Posts on walls of the selected Facebook group and individual accounts were subjected to the same treatment that was given traditional graffiti. The thesis argues that social media can perform a similar function to that of traditional graffiti with added advantages. Social media has created world communities that are brought together by common interests and platforms where they meet and share ideas. The study also established that messages have layers of meaning, making it unreasonable to ban certain messages since they serve a particular purpose. Social media, particularly Facebook, provides pockets of privacy for candid and unfettered interaction that service specific audiences among the Ndebele; hence can function as the escape route for carnival literature from cultural censorship in Zimbabwe. / African Languages / D. Phil. (African Languages)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This dissertation analyzes the critique of charity and philanthropy implicit in Melville’s short fiction written for periodicals between 1853 and 1856. Melville utilized narrative and tone to conceal his opposition to prevailing ideologies and manipulated narrative structures to make the reader complicit in the problematic assumptions of a market economy. Integrating close readings with critical theory, I establish that Melville was challenging the new rhetoric of philanthropy that created a moral identity for wealthy men in industrial capitalist society. Through his short fiction, Melville exposed self-serving conduct and rationalizations when they masqueraded as civic-minded responses to the needs of the community. Melville was joining a public conversation about philanthropy and civic leadership in an American society that, in its pursuit of private wealth, he believed was losing touch with the democratic and civic ideals on which the nation had been founded. Melville’s objection was not with charitable giving; rather, he objected to its use as a diversion from honest reflection on one’s responsibilities to others.

德國愛國詩人海涅 (Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856) 於1831年流亡至法國，在闊別祖國13年之後，第一次返鄉時目睹祖國封建專制，社會瀰漫於宗教迷思的狀態，於是在回程時寫下遊記詩《德國，一個冬天的童話》(Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen)，作品中利用當時的人、事、物，中世紀典故、古希臘羅馬時期典故以及宗教典故等反映當時的政治光景，是海涅不滿當時的政治情景而作的諷諭詩 (Zeitsatiren)。作者在文本中多處使用聖經典故嘲諷當時政治社會議題，例如文檢制度與復古運動等。由於在台灣一般人對西方基督教文化的理解有限，聖經中的宗教典故對大多數人是陌生的。所以本文的目的在於探究海涅的遊記詩《德國，一個冬天的童話》中宗教典故之運用，希望藉由本研究的分析與詮釋，有助於華語世界的讀者藉著對聖經中宗教典故的認識，進而對海涅所諷刺的議題能窺其堂奧，更深入了解這部作品的精華。 / German patriotic poet Heine (Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856) was exiled to France in 1831. Thirteen years after leaving his homeland, when first he returned to Germany, Heine observed that the state was still characterized by feudal autocracy, and that society was filled with religious superstition. Upon his return, he wrote the poem, "Germany, a Winter's Tale" (Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen), in which he reflected on the political situation in terms of the issues of his time, Greco-Roman and medieval allusions, and other religious allusions. The satire (Zeitsatiren) was written by a Heine dissatisfied with the status quo. In the text, many biblical allusions are applied to ridicule contemporary popular topics, such as Cultural Censorship and Restoration. For readers in Taiwan, the religious allusions constitute a barrier to understanding and most Taiwanese are unfamiliar with the Bible. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the usage of the religious allusions of Heine’s poem "Germany, a Winter's Tale" in hopes that the analysis and interpretation offered will help Chinese-speaking readers understand the religious allusions of the Bible and better appreciate the issues ironically highlighted in this work.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this study I analyse the first year of publication of Loslyf, the first and, at the time of its launch in June 1995, only Afrikaans pornographic magazine. The analysis comprises a historical account of its inception as relayed mainly by Ryk Hattingh, the first editor of Loslyf and primary creative force behind the publication. Such an investigation offers valuable insights into an aspect of South African media history as yet undocumented. As a powerful contributor to an Afrikaans imaginary, emerging at a time of political renewal, Loslyf provides a glimpse into the desires, tensions and tastes of and for an imagined community potentially still shaped by a censorial past. The magazine is worth studying, in part, as an example of an attempt at reinvesting the prescriptive and seemingly generic genre of pornography with cultural specificity and political content, with a view to making it more interesting and relevant. The study argues that whilst Loslyf succeeded in fracturing the “simulacrum” (Baudrillard 1990: 35) of pornographic representation, it also demonstrated that this kind of „alternativity‟ is difficult to sustain. An analysis of the written and visual content of the first 12 issues of the magazine, under Hattingh‟s editorship, investigates the basis of Loslyf‟s status as „alternative‟ publication. I conclude that the first year of Loslyf contributed towards the broader project of democratic expression in an expanding South African visual economy, as a simultaneously well considered and underrated (at the time of its publication at least) cultural product. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie studie analiseer ek die eerste jaar van publikasie van Loslyf as 'n baanbrekende en, in die tyd van sy ontstaan in Junie 1995, die enigste Afrikaanse pornografiese tydskrif. Hierdie analise behels ʼn historiese oorsig van die ontstaan van Loslyf soos hoofsaaklik verhaal deur Ryk Hattingh, die eerste redakteur van Loslyf en primêre kreatiewe mag agter die publikasie. So ʼn ondersoek bied waardevolle insig tot ʼn ongedokumenteerde aspek van Suid-Afrikaanse mediageskiedenis. As ʼn kultuurproduk wat ʼn kragtige bydrae gelewer het tot die Afrikaanse samelewing in ʼn tyd van politieke hernuwing, bied Loslyf ʼn weerkaatsing van die begeertes, spanninge en smake vir en van hierdie gemeenskap – begeertes en smake wat grootendeels gevorm is deur ʼn geskiedenis van sensuur. Dit is waardevol om die tydskrif te bestudeer as voorbeeld van 'n poging om die voorskriftelike en skynbaar generiese pornografiese genre met kulturele bepaaldheid en politiese inhoud te herbelê, ten einde hierdie genre meer interessant en relevant te maak. Hierdie studie beweer dat, terwyl Loslyf daarin slaag om die “simulakrum” (Baudrillard 1990: 35) van pornografiese voorstelling te breek, die publikasie ook demonstreer dat hierdie tipe „alternatiwiteit‟ moeilik volhoubaar is. ʼn Analise van die geskrewe en visuele inhoud van die eerste 12 uitgawes van die tydskrif, onder redakteurskap van Hattingh, ondersoek die basis van Loslyf se status as „alternatiewe‟ publikasie. Ek beslis dat Loslyf se eerste jaar bygedra het tot die breër inisiatief van demokratiese uitdrukking in ʼn ontwikkelende Suid- Afrikaanse visuele ekonomie, as gelyktydig goed deurdagte én ondergeskatte (veral ten tyde van sy ontstaan) publikasie.

This thesis examines the theme of commerce in four magazines of literature and the arts, all published in New York between 1915 and 1922. The magazines are The Seven Arts (1916-1917), 291 (1915-1916), The Soil (1916-1917), and The Pagan (1916-1922). The division between art and commerce is addressed in the text of all four, in a variety of different ways, and the results of that supposed division are explored for each magazine. In addition ‘commerce’ is also used in this thesis in the sense of conversation or communication, and is used as a way to describe them in the body of their immediate cultural environment. In the case of The Seven Arts, as discussed in Chapter 1, the theme of commerce with the past, present, and future is examined: the way that the magazine incorporates the European classical past and rejects the more recent intellectual past; the way it examines the industrial present, and the projected future of American arts and letters. In the case of The Soil and 291 (the subjects of Chapters 2 and 3) there is extensive commerce between them in the sense of intercommunication, a rival dialogic demonstrating both ideological and economic rivalry. These two chapters comprise an extensive examination of the relationship between the magazines, and shows how much of this involves commerce in the financial sense. The fourth magazine, The Pagan, is concerned with a different sense of commerce, in the form of its rejection of the American capitalist system, and is critically examined here for the first time. The introduction is a survey of examples from the whole field of American periodicals of the time, particularly those immediately relevant to the magazines described here, and acts to delineate the field of scholarship and also to justify the particular approach used. The conclusion provides a summary of the foregoing chapters, and also suggests ways in which each magazine approaches the dissemination, or ‘sale’ of the idea of the new.

本研究以上海市社會局為主體，探討其從1945年10月至1949年4月間各項業務執行的情況及其市民生活的關係。首先從社會局的職權與人事談起，社會局最早成立於1927年7月，負責農工商業相關行業的註冊、處理勞資糾紛與相關統計。一年後職權增加了對人民團體和社會福利機構的管理，也負責各種度量衡器具的檢定，戰後再增加糧食管理及書報影劇審查兩項工作。就人事方面而言，社會局局長以吳開先在任的時間最長，同時他也出任市黨部的執行委員會委員。另外針對1948年社會局全體公務員的學經歷進行分析，發現49歲以下的職員占絕大多數，以學歷而言，超過半數的男性職員受過不同程度的高等教育，女性職員是以中學學歷者占多數，附屬機構的公務員則更年輕，學歷也相對較低。與戰前的社會局相比最大的特點在小學以下的成員大幅減少和隨著局長異動而大量換人的情形也不復存在。 本研究的其他部分皆與社會局如何執行它的職權有關，分為四大主題：(1)報紙、雜誌、通訊社審查；(2)電影戲劇審查；(3)調整工資及調解勞資爭議；(4)對人民團體的管理。 在報紙、雜誌、通訊社審查部分，共舉行了三次大規模清查措施，只有1949年3-4月的「報刊總清查」才有比較主動的抽查措施。在獲准發行的報紙與雜誌中有一個特點，就是越晚獲得許可的刊物轉呈次數越多，可見社會局沒有最終決定權。在沒有獲得發行的報紙與雜誌中，社會局常以「申請手續不完整」的理由(包括各種文字)讓申請案無法通過，數量上甚至多過發行後才被查禁的。 社會局對電影影片的審查是某種形式上的複審，重點是核對內政部發給的准演執照是否相符。劇團、票房和俱樂部審查強調的重點是表演內容，包括所有劇本、科白與節目流程都要申請核准方能表演。總計3202部電影中未通過審查的只有28部，凡是有墮落的、不符現實的場景與情節都會被要求刪減或修改。劇本審查方面，可能出於受戰爭影響無暇創作或比較容易通過審查，大多以重演舊的劇目為主。 工人工資的調整以市政府每月發佈的生活費指數乘上1937年6月的底薪為計算方式，與糧食價格互相比較，貨幣購買力逐確實漸下降，使得多數工人不足以養家活口，所以勞資爭議越來越多。而就勞資爭議進行分析，以有沒有發生罷工停業分為兩類，有罷工停業的案件有589件，沒有罷工停業的則有5521件。就行業類別來看，與上海的產業結構相符，以紡織業最多。從具體的個案討論中，社會局確實努力促成和解，但卻沒有能力預防與阻止勞資爭議與暴力衝突。 人民團體分為資方的同業公會、勞方的工會、與一般民眾的社會團體，三者的數量在戰後四年間皆有顯著的成長。從電影院公會的例子可以看出，公會與社會局爭執的焦點在票價的調整，還有公會也必須負責各種臨時性或經常性的賑災捐款。相關資料也顯示，社會局對於勞工福利設施推行不力，也無法控制工會基層組織，在那些被共產黨吸收的工會中，社會局只能在警察局取締之後，解散工會再加以重組，無法有效防止共產黨的滲透。社會團體的問題在於社會局僅僅做到登記的工作而無法加以有效的管理，即使是國民黨成立的團體也是如此。 整體來說，社會局在這四年的時間裡，雖然進行很多種的社會統計，也透過機關刊物向民眾進行法令宣傳，但被動的登記成效比較好而主動執行力不足，其中又以無法有效防止勞資爭議與積極管理各種人民團體為主要缺點。 / This thesis draws on archival data from Shanghai’s Bureau of Social Affairs (Shehui ju 社會局) to examine how this organization undertook its duties between October 1945 and April 1949 (the period of the Chinese Civil War), as well as its impact on the lives of ordinary citizens. Founded in July 1927, the Bureau was initially responsible for the registration of agricultural and industrial sectors, resolution of wage disputes, and compilation of business statistics. It was subsequently burdened with additional duties, including the oversight of civic organizations and social welfare institutions, examination of measurement tools, regulation of foodstuffs, and censorship of publications. The thesis begins with a discussion on the Bureau’s administrative structure and personnel. Director Wu Kaixian had the longest incumbency of all the staff members, and also served as a commissioner in the Executive Committee of the KMT’s City Party Office. In terms of the backgrounds of public servants who worked at the Bureau, the data collected indicates that in the year 1948 most were less than 49 years of age. Over half of the male civil servants had received various higher education degrees, while the most of the women merely had secondary educations. The staff members of the Bureau’s affiliated institutions were generally younger and had lower educational levels. The period covered by this study differed from the prewar years in witnessing fewer people with only preliminary educational background, while personnel changes became less relevant following the appointment of new Directors. The rest of the thesis centers on how the Bureau executed its authority and carried out its duties, with the subject matter being divided into the following four categories: 1) Censorship of newspapers, magazines, and news agencies; 2) Censorship of motion pictures and dramas; 3) Reconciliation of wage and labor disputes; 4) Governance of civic organizations. Three large-scale censorship campaigns involving newspapers, magazines, and news agencies were undertaken, but only the “General Censorship” from March to April 1949 witnessed proactive measures. In considering censored newspapers and magazines, it seems especially noteworthy that the latter publications were released more often than being transferred, which suggests that the Bureau did not have the authority to make final decisions. The reason given by the Bureau for banning certain newspapers and magazines from publication was usually “incomplete application procedure.” The quantity of such publications was even greater than those banned after publication. The Bureau’s process of re-examining motion pictures focused on the validity of licenses issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The criteria of censorship adopted by theatres, box offices, and clubs placed greater emphasis on performance content, including scripts, voiceover, and program rundowns. Of 3,202 movies examined by the Bureau, only 28 failed to pass, with discouraging and unrealistic scenarios usually being deleted or modified. Most of the adopted scripts were somewhat dated, perhaps due to wartime lack of creativity and productivity. The adjustment of the labor wages was based on the product of the government-issued monthly cost of living index multiplied by salary levels of July 1937. Against the background of rising food prices, purchasing power parity proved relatively low, which rendered blue-collar workers less able to sustain their families and sparked increasing wage disputes. Such conflicts can be categorized by whether or not they resulted in strikes, with those triggering strikes numbering 589 and those that did not 5,521. Like Shanghai’s overall industrial structure, the textile industry led others in terms of such disputes. The Bureau did intervene by trying to promote reconciliation, yet it failed to prevent such disputes and resulting acts of violence. Civic organizations included employers’ associations, labor unions, and ordinary social groups formed by citizens. The number of all three kinds of organizations increased significantly during the four years of the Chinese Civil War. As can be seen in the case of the Cinema Association, the major point of conflict between Bureau and the Association centered on adjustments of ticket prices and the Association’s assuming responsibility for all kinds of charitable donations on a regular or temporary basis. The records reveal that the Bureau was not serious about the welfare infrastructure for laborers, and proved unable to control the grassroots organization of the labor unions. The Bureau could not prevent the Communist Party from exerting increasing influence over unions, but did dissolve them after police crackdowns and then attempted to reorganize them. The main issue with these civic organizations was that the Bureau was only in charge of registration yet proved unable to manage effective mobilization, a phenomenon that applied even to those organized by the KMT. In conclusion, the thesis argues that during the four years covered by this study, despite the fact that the Bureau was able to compile extensive sociological statistics and disseminate rules of law via its publications, its ability to execute policy decisions turned out to be far less effective. Moreover, the Bureau could not effectively suppress labor disputes and mobilize relevant civic organizations.