February 2012
41 posts
Chinese relish crack in Great Firewall, log on to...
(Reuters)
Some Chinese Internet users have this week been able to access blocked websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, relishing the newfound freedom although the reason for the breach in China’s Great Firewall of censorship was a mystery.
[…]
Internet users including students on university campuses reported that they were able to access YouTube, Facebook and Twitter on...
Pakistan, Usurpation of Internet Freedom
(The Express Tribune)
[…]
A division of the Ministry of Information Technology recently placed an advertisement in newspapers seeking proposals for a URL filtering system that has the capacity to deny Pakistanis access to 50 million websites. At present, the government is dependent on sending notices to internet service providers, forcing them to do its dirty work for them. If this...
Indian Government to set up agency to scan tweets,...
(Times of India)
The government is setting up an internet scanning agency which will seek to monitor all web traffic passing through internet service providers in the country. The scanning agency to be called National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC), will issue ‘actionable alerts’ to government departments in cases of perceived security threats.
The move comes as the government...
Twitter partners with Datasift to unlock tweet...
(BBC)
Companies are now able to search and analyse up to two years of Twitter updates for market research purposes.
Firms can search tweets back to January 2010 in order to plan marketing campaigns, target influential users or even try to predict certain events.
Until today, only the previous 30 days of tweets were available for companies to search. Regular users can access posts from the...
Upcoming Supreme Court Case May Be Key To Holding...
(EFF)
Public pressure on companies to “Know Your Customer” and take other actions to avoid having their tools used as part of human rights violations is intensifying. The European Parliament has begun the first steps in banning sales of this technology to authoritarian governments, and the U.S. Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) introduced a bill, the Global Online Freedom Act, which is in part...
Pakistan: Internet filtering, blocking system to...
(Daily Times)
The Internet blocking and filtering system will cost $10 million in order to complete the establishment of a sophisticated censorship mechanism across-the-board on networks of all operating companies in the country, sources told Daily Times on Saturday.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) received various solutions from various international firms to implement Internet...
A New Policy Against Self-Harm Blogs
(Tumblr Staff Blog)
We are deeply committed to supporting and defending our users’ freedom of speech, but we do draw some limits. As a company, we’ve decided that some specific kinds of content aren’t welcome on Tumblr. For example, we prohibit spam and identity theft.
Our Content Policy has not, until now, prohibited blogs that actively promote self-harm. These typically take the form of blogs...
Locking up the Cyberspace in Pakistan
(Bytes for all)
In a recent development, on 23 February 2012, the National ICT R&D Fund has placed an advertisement in the press, calling relevant national and international service providers, companies to submit proposals “for the development, deployment and operation of a national level URL Filtering and Blocking System”.
Little words are required to describe the magnitude of this...
Blogger in hospital after being stabbed
(The Jordan Times)
A 21-year-old Jordanian blogger, who was stabbed on Sunday by a hooded man in Jabal Luweibdeh, was recovering in hospital Tuesday, her family and friends said.
Enas Musallam was near Darat Al Funun in the upscale Amman neighbourhood at around 7:00pm when a man wearing a hood and gloves reportedly grabbed her from the back and stabbed her in the stomach, according to her...
Activist Warned Over Website
(Radio Free Asia)
A veteran pro-democracy campaigner and political dissident based in the central city of Wuhan has been warned by China’s state security police not to proceed with plans for a website aimed at promoting “peaceful” change.
Qin Yongmin, who was released from prison on Nov. 29, 2010 after serving a 12-year term for subversion, said he was surrounded by police...
Bangladesh: Government Observation of Facebook...
(Global Voices)
For a while now, the Bangladeshi authorities have been keeping an eye on the social media space and the country’s Facebook users are increasingly finding themselves in the eye of the storm.
When a supposed coup to overthrow the government was scuttled in January this year, it was known that the plotters were using Facebook as one of the tools to mobilize and instigate...
SOPA author strikes back with Internet...
(Venture Beat)
SOPA author Lamar Smith is sponsoring a bill named the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″ (H.R. 1981). The bill is not brand new, mind you, but with so many other oppressive attempts by the government to invade privacy and control the Internet lately, it has managed to slip by relatively unnoticed until now.
The bill (which can be read here) would...
Kazakhstan upgrades censorship to deep packet...
(Tor Project Blog)
In December 2011 we were aware of Kazakhstan increasing Internet censorship in response to some unrest and protests in Zhanaozen in the west. The censorship was then deployed around the country, in many cases with the full support of the populace. The initial invesitgation showed simple IP address blocking coupled with basic dns censorship. Tor continued to work without...
Kuwaiti detained for 21 days for his tweets
(The Next Web)
Facing a prison sentence as a result of statements made on Twitter seems to have become the norm in Kuwait.
Kuwaiti Twitter user Mohammad al-Mulaifi could be joining the ranks of Nasser Abul and Mubarak al-Bathali who both served prison sentences because of their tweets.
Today, reports have emerged that Mohammad al-Mulaifi was detained by the Kuwaiti secret police over a week...
Computer spyware is newest weapon in Syrian...
(CNN)
In Syria’s cyberwar, the regime’s supporters have deployed a new weapon against opposition activists — computer viruses that spy on them, according to an IT specialist from a Syrian opposition group and a former international aid worker whose computer was infected.
A U.S.-based antivirus software maker, which analyzed one of the viruses at CNN’s request, said that...
Canada's Online Surveillance Bill: Section 34...
(Slashdot)
“Canada’s proposed online surveillance bill looked bad enough when it was introduced, but it gets worse: Section 34 allows access to any telco place or equipment, and to any information contained there — with no restrictions, no warrants, and no review. From the article: ‘Note that such all-encompassing searches require no warrant, and don’t even have to be in...
Phone and email records to be stored in new spy...
(The Telegraph)
Landline and mobile phone companies and broadband providers will be ordered to store the data for a year and make it available to the security services under the scheme.
The databases would not record the contents of calls, texts or emails but the numbers or email addresses of who they are sent and received by.
For the first time, the security services will have widespread...
High-Tech Surveillance Comes to Small Towns
(The Wall Street Journal)
High-tech surveillance tools aren’t just for spies anymore.
A new “off the shelf” surveillance industry is drawing interest from small-town law enforcement and less-developed countries, as well as from large Western agencies,documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal show.
The documents – attendance sheets from industry conferences – offer a window into these...
Iran’s Deadly Cyber Police: Indefinite Detention...
(ZDNet)
[…]
So when you hear me going off in this space about the necessity of pseudonyms in social networks, and real-world consequences for totalitarian censorship, and pornography being used as a foil for silencing speech and creating oppression…
Please do connect the dots.
Access to Google Sites Returns in Iran, as...
(The New York Times)
After a disruption of access in Iran to Google’s e-mail services and other international Web sites starting last Thursday, access appeared to be restored on Monday, raising questions about whether it was a censorship test by the government for coming elections or an effort to quell possible street protests.
It was a year ago on Feb. 14 that the Green movement leaders Mir...
Syria Blocks Texts With Dublin-Made Gear
(Bloomberg)
[…]
The Syrian government has ordered blocks on text messages when they contain politically sensitive terms such as “revolution” or “demonstration,” according to two people familiar with the filtering systems. A unit of the Syrian intelligence apparatus, known as “Branch 225,” often issues the instructions on which messages to block, they say.
Syriatel Mobile Telecom SA, the...
Kapil Sibal says no censorship on social media
(The Economic Times)
“I want to say once and for all, without any obfuscation, no government in India will ever censor social media,” Sibal said at an industry event.
Supporters of jailed Saudi Twitter user may be...
(The Next Web)
After being deported from Malaysia back to Saudi Arabia for a series of poetic tweets, 23-year-old Hamza Kashgari has been detained in Saudi Arabia. And according to the Arabic daily, Al Hayat, he is not the only tweeter who could face the same fate.
Charges of blasphemy are being brought against Kashgari, which could be accompanied by the death sentence, and Jeddah’s public...
Google Confirms Gmail and YouTube Blocked in Iran...
(Bloomberg)
Google Inc.’s (GOOG) encrypted search, Gmail, Google Videos and YouTube have been blocked in Iran since Feb. 10, the company said in an e-mailed response to a query.
More than 30 million Iranian Internet users have been unable to access e-mail accounts, including Gmail and Microsoft Corp.’s Hotmail, the state-run Mehr news agency said on Feb. 11.
Iran’s Information Technology...
Malaysia deports Saudi journalist Hamza Kashgari
(BBC)
Malaysian authorities have deported a Saudi journalist accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a tweet.
Police confirmed to the BBC that Hamza Kashgari was sent back to Saudi Arabia on Sunday despite protests from human rights groups.
[…]
The two countries do not have a formal extradition treaty but Malaysia has good relations with Saudi Arabia as a fellow Muslim country,...
Iran Shuts Down Major Websites and Https Protocol
(Ycombinator)
I’m writing this to report the serious troubles we have regarding accessing Internet in Iran at the moment. Since Thursday Iranian government has shutted down the https protocol which has caused almost all google services (gmail, and google.com itself) to become inaccessible. Almost all websites that reply on Google APIs (like wolfram alpha) won’t work. Accessing to any...
Saudi Tweeter Is Detained in Malaysia
(The Wall Street Journal)
Malaysian police detained a Saudi columnist who fled Saudi Arabia after his tweets about the Prophet Muhammad touched off public calls for his execution, Malaysia’s state news agency reported on Thursday.
[…]
Mr. Kashgari, a 23-year-old newspaper columnist from the coastal city of Jeddah, tweeted a series of musings on Saturday about an imagined meeting...
Russia: DDoS Attack Puts Down Several Political...
(Global Voices)
On February 9, 2012, following the widely-discussed leaks of pro-Kremlin mailboxes, LiveJournal, where the leaks were published, became temporarily unavailable, Lenta.ru reported [ru]. Russian representative of Anonymous group @OP_Russia, suggested [ru] that it was a DDoS attack to hide the evidence of massive wrongdoings (including corruption, thievery, political provocations,...
Iran: Innovations in Cyber Dictatorship
(Global Voices Advocacy)
[…]
Skype interrogation
In order to increase the pressure on one foreign-based Iranian journalist for the BBC, a relative in Iran was arbitrarily detained for nearly two weeks, and the journalist was interrogated over the internet on Skype video.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Iranian government has been intimidating and detaining relatives and friends of...
India censors Google, Facebook — but other...
(Washington Post)
The world’s largest democracy has begun censoring the web.
Google India and Facebook removed content Monday on the orders of the Indian government, which had issued a court order asking for censorship of pages offensive to Indian’s political and religious leaders, the Associated Press reports. The government also sought to censor content from YouTube and Blogspot, saying...
Iranian blogger Mehdi Khazali sentenced to 14...
(RWB)
The Tehran revolutionary court yesterday sentenced Mehdi Khazali, editor of the Baran blog, to 14 years’ imprisonment, 10 years’ internal exile in the south-western city of Borazjan and 70 lashes. He was arrested on 9 January for the third time in less than two years.
Khazali is the son of Ayatollah Abolghasem Khazali, an influential member of the Council of Guardians of the Iranian...
Internet giants remove content after India court...
(Reuters)
Internet giants Google Inc and Facebook removed content from some Indian domain websites on Monday following a court directive warning them of a crackdown “like China” if they did not take steps to protect religious sensibilities.
Read also:
Alex Howard - Why don’t Google and Facebook use ChillingEffects to Mitigate Censorship like Twitter?
Iranian Authorities Arrest Four Over Facebook...
(The New York Times)
To the question “Am I hot or not?” the Iranian authorities gave a resounding answer to thousands of young people who posted glamorous shots of themselves to Facebook in recent weeks: Don’t even ask.
Iran’s state Cyber Police on Monday said that it had arrested two men and two women, for “promoting vulgarity and corruption.” The four had maintained aFacebook page that acted...
Anonymous defaces Greek Ministry of Justice...
(The Next Web)
Anonymous has hacked the Greek Ministry of Justice website (cached version) in an apparent protest against the signing of the controversial ACTA treaty by the Greek government, warning authorities that it will take down over 300 media and ministry sites if it doesn’t reverse its course.
The site is currently “Under Construction” following the attack but was amended to display a...
Twitter's censorship cheerleaders
(Foreign Policy)
When Twitter unveiled a new system last week to censor specific tweets in specific countries if the content violates local laws, many people reacted in anger.
[…]
Since Twitter’s announcement, voices in countries where free speech is tightly restricted have rushed to the company’s defense
[…]
In Thailand, which has strict lèse majesté laws to punish...
South Korea: release activist charged over Kim...
(Amnesty Uk)
[…]
Park Jeonggeun, a 24-year-old Socialist Party activist, was yesterday charged by South Korean law enforcement authorities with violating the country’s national security law for re-tweeting the message “long live Kim Jong-il” from North Korea’s official Twitter account.
Park, who says his re-tweets were meant to ridicule North Korea’s leaders rather than...
Google to Censor Blogger Blogs on a ‘Per Country...
(Wired.com)
Google has quietly announced changes to its Blogger free-blogging platform that will enable the blocking of content only in countries where censorship is required.
[…]
Google wrote Jan. 9 it would begin redirecting Blogger traffic to country-specific URLs, meaning whatever country you’re in, you’ll get that country’s domain for Blogger-hosted blogs.
TechDows reports that...
January 2012
71 posts
From Twitter Revolution to Twitter Democracy
(EuObserver)
[…]
Since a few months, however, Egyptians are writing a new chapter of the Twitter-history. Twitter is now not only used to organise a revolution, but also to control the result of that revolution: democracy. During the elections for the People’s Assembly Twitter was used all over the country to report violations and fraud. As real electoral observation was refused by the...
Internet removes the cover of anonymity for...
(Net Prophet)
Users of BY-net (a short name for the Belarusian segment of the Internet) have identified a KGB functionary who had been recruiting activists who participated in the silent demonstrations. A man in the photo leaked to Belarusian social networks has been identified rather quickly as Raman Savuchin. Charter97.org reports that this officer was working along with Dzmitry Kalamijec, an...
Thai Gov't Welcomes Twitter's Censorship Plans
(Slashdot)
The Thai government has called Twitter’s tweet censorship move a ‘welcome development.’ Tweets may now be blocked at the request of the Thai government; the system will be used to discourage and punish lese majeste (criticism of the Thai King). The government previously declared that Facebook users worldwide ‘liking’ a lese majeste Facebook link would...
Must read articles on Twitter censorship
Tweets Still Must Flow - Twitter Blog
On Twitter, Censorship and Internet Freedom - Alex Howard Why Nobody’s Mad at Twitter’s International Censorship Move - TechPresident Why Twitter’s new Policy is Helpful for Free-speech Advocates - Zeynep Tufekci Letter to Twitter Executive Chairman Jack Dorsey Urging him no to Cooperate with Censors - Reporters Without Borders Twitter...
The ethics of digital direct action
(Gabriella Coleman - Al Jazeera)
[…]
Whether or not one agrees with all of Anonymous’ many tactics - some of them being illegal and disruptive, others falling in the province of peaceful and legal human rights assistance, and still others in a gray moral and legal zone -under certain circumstances, the DDoS can be considered as non-violent protest in line with well-recognised protocols...
Tweets still must flow
(Twitter blog)
[…]
As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.
Until now,...
FBI releases plans to monitor social networks
(New Scientist)
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has quietly released details of plans to continuously monitor the global output of Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, offering a rare glimpse into an activity that the FBI and other government agencies are reluctant to discuss publicly. The plans show that the bureau believes it can use information pulled from social media sites to...
North Korea threatens to punish mobile-phone users...
(The Telegraph)
North Korea has warned that any of its citizens caught trying to defect to China or using mobile phones during the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong-il will be branded as “war criminals” and punished accordingly.
Phones and internet cut in Tibetan area of China
(Herald Sun)
The west of Sichuan province, which has big populations of ethnic Tibetans, was earlier this week hit by some of the worst unrest since huge protests against Chinese rule in 2008.
Security forces fired into two separate crowds of protesters on Monday and Tuesday in the remote prefecture of Ganzi, which borders Tibet, killing at least two people and wounding several others.
By...