Under the cover of a crowdsourced hagiography of the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, his successors and acolytes are taking his most damaging lesson to heart: They are continuing to imprison people for speaking out online.

Chávez’s government continues to crack down on free speech after his death. In January, Venezuela raided the home of Federico Medina Ravell, who was “repeatedly denounced on state television as the supposed author of tweets questioning information the government has provided on Chávez’s health.”

The internet can be a hairy place. How do you protect yourself?

There are a number of things you can do to stay safe and anonymous. One of the strongest solutions is to use a VPN, or virtual private network.

By logging in to the network via a VPN client, all of your internet activity and communication is routed through a "middleman" computer (or maybe even several). Your IP address (and therefore your physical location) is concealed, and it becomes harder to follow you around online.

VPN means Virtual Private Network. This type of application creates a secure tunnel between your computer and the VPN server. When the connection is established, you then get a new anonymous IP address. Whereas online security and anonymity are the main concerns of most VPN users, expatriates often use a VPN for other reasons when they live abroad.

Across the world initiatives are appearing with an aim to increase Internet monitoring. In the U.S. file-sharers is now being monitored and reported on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA with the launch of the six strikes anti-piracy scheme, and in the UK there are plans to monitor and store all Internet communications. Countering this increased surveillance people are turning en masse to VPN services to ensure their privacy. This begs the question; how long before VPNs become illegal?

Just a few days ago, Iran started blocking VPNs used to evade internet filters. Secretary of Iran's Supreme Cyberspace Council Mehdi Akhavan Behabadi announced, via Iranian news agency Mehr, that the government would begin selling access to registered, legal VPNs and start prosecuting anyone using an illegal one. The option wouldn't be available to everyone, but companies that require VPNs for legally acceptable reasons would have to purchase access via the state, meaning the company would become an access-all-areas space for prying government eyes.

According to a report by Google, India has been ranked number two with a total of 4,750 requests to share web user’s details and is currently next to the US which made 16, 407 requests in 2012.

Besides a great hue and cry over Internet censorship, the Indian government has been asking Google to share web user’s details.

India has been making 13 requests per day while the US has made 45 requests per day in the past year, followed by France with 3,239 requests, Germany with 3,083, UK with 2,883 and Brazil with 2,777 requests.