Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Swartzchropper. On today's show, what's it like to be a blogger in Ethiopia?

In a country where there's widespread surveillance and suppression of dissent, how do you blog without ending up in jail?

Well, my guest certainly has a lot to say about that.

Endoc Chala, doctoral student graduate teaching fellow at the University of Oregon School of

Journalism, and the founder of Zone 9, a blogging project in Ethiopia.

Endoc, thanks for joining the show. Thank you for having me.

And we also have Robert Chapman Smith, producer for Freethink Media, and Freethink's doing a series called Coded, which will be featuring Endoc as the season finale.

So gentlemen, it's great to have you on the show.

And before we get into Endoc's fascinating story in Ethiopia, Robert, can you just tell us a little

bit about, you know, Freethink Media, the Coded series, and what you're trying to accomplish

here?

Sure, totally.

Thanks for having me on the show.

So Coded is a series that Freethink is releasing.

Currently right now, we have three episodes out.

What it is about, it's about the sort of the frontiers of the

tech freedom landscape a lot of the cryptography tools the tech the programmers and the

hackers who are out there sort of trying to make the case for secure communications in the United States, but also around the world.

And the series follows several really interesting people, including Endoc Chala, but including

people like Ladar Levinson, who, the creator of Lava Bit, who recently relaunched the service.

He is the first episode of the series.

He, of course, famously, Lava bit was the

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