[liberationtech] WSJ Op-Ed: No Quick Fixes for Internet Freedom
Rafal Rohozinski
r.rohozinski at secdev.ca
Mon Nov 22 07:34:51 PST 2010
Walid,
I'm not sure where you get the impression that research on Internet censorship outside of China is very limited. I'd say it's quite the opposite, there's been a lot more done outside of China, and for far longer.
The OpenNet initiative and Information Warfare Monitor have been carrying out research on censorship for the past nine years. We published two books, with two more on the way, and have done country studies for morning 95 countries examining both the technology, policy, and practice of Internet censorship. We've done several special reports, that of look at censorship during elections in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, the Russia Georgia war - and have supported researchers across 30 countries that has looked at everything from faith based filtering, to sexuality and politics. I'd encourage you to take a look at the following website (s):
http://opennet.net/
http://www.access-controlled.net/
http://www.infowar-monitor.net/
You can order our books from here, if you don't wish to download the PDFs for free:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=12187&ttype=2
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11329
Cheers,
Rafal
On Nov 22, 2010, at 10:20 AM, Walid Al-Saqaf wrote:
> I totally agree with Jilian on this point. I also find that research done on Internet censorship outside China is very limited.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Walid
>
> -----------------
>
> Walid Al-Saqaf
> Founder & Administrator
> alkasir for mapping and circumventing cyber censorship
> https://alkasir.com
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Jillian York <jyork at cyber.law.harvard.edu> wrote:
> "I am not in favor of bringing such political considerations into the funding process for two reasons"
>
> If political considerations weren't a part of the funding process, then we'd see more funding targeting the other countries with pervasive filtering regimes (Syria, Tunisia, etc) and not just to China/Iran. And yet, the entire discourse remains primarily about China and Iran, even--to a degree--on this list.
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 22, 2010 at 9:32 AM, Hal Roberts <hroberts at cyber.law.harvard.edu> wrote:
> Hi Mehdi,
>
>
> On 11/22/10 8:43 AM, Mehdi Yahyanejad wrote:
> China at least seems to block each tool in proportion to the
> degree to which the tool embarrasses the regime (*not* in proportion
> to the technical efficiency of the tool). The gifc tools hugely
> embarrass the Chinese government because they are both falun gong
> run and explicitly political.
>
>
> This is not a proven fact. More likely, Chinese government will put
> resources in blocking any successful tool regardless of the
> embarrassment factor. Also so far, GIFC has been successful in defeating
> the Chinese government's censorship and there is no reason to believe
> that they won't be able to do so in future.
>
> It is not proven (and can't be without access to the inner rooms of the Chinese government where these decision are made). But the evidence I see strongly suggests that this is the case. Last time I checked, the Chinese government blocks tor nodes every few months (and not at all until about a year ago). They block every gifc front end proxy within seconds (and have blocked them aggressively for years). I know of at least two other China focused tools that I won't disclose for obvious reasons that have similar or greater usage as the gifc tools that have been completely unblocked for at least the past couple of years.
>
> These differences have been one of the great mysteries of the GFW: Why is it that with all of the technical resources China has poured into the gfw, any of a half dozen people on this list could greatly improve the proxy blocking of the gfw with a couple days of writing perl scripts? The best possible answers are either that the folks running the filter are incompetent or that the proxy blocking decisions are made by political rather than technical folks. I think the latter is much, much more likely.
>
> The gifc tools, as a testament to the incredible smarts and dedication of their volunteers, have remained mostly functional in the face of very agressive blocking. But they have reported to me that their usage has dropped dramatically at times as they respond to the blocking attempts. Just this week I was told by someone in China that everyone he knows has stopped using the gifc tools altogether because they are useless now (I don't think that this is the case generally -- it's common to hear conflicting reports of this sort because usage of the tools tends to be very clumpy within local communities -- but it's evidence that the gifc tools are not immune to the effects of blocking as your portray them).
>
> Of course, a tool with sufficient usage will eventually embarrass the government, but current evidence suggests that the level of usage necessary to encourage blocking by itself is higher than the usage of any of the current tools.
>
>
>
> I am not in favor of bringing such political considerations into the
> funding process for two reasons:
>
> 1) It is hard to agree on political considerations. For example, some
> people see the political background of GIFC as a negative factor, I
> don't. The success of GIFC's products is partly due to their
> understanding of the context which must have come from their political
> background. Considering that they have created the tools for a political
> goal, they are not getting distracted by having a design which would be
> admired in academic circles/. /They know that their primary job is
> getting as many people as possible to the blocked content.
>
> Well, insofar as you are talking about funding by the USG, it is non-sensical to say that funding should not be guided by political considerations. Politics is the whole point.
>
> I'll point out, though, that I have stayed entirely away from the diplomatic or cultural politics involved with falun gong (which is to say that some folks at state don't want to fund gifc because the funding will upset diplomatic relations and other folks disagree with funding gifc because they disagree with the culture of falun gong general). The only point I'm making is that the evidence I see says that the gifc tools are and will continue to be much more aggressively blocked in China than any other tool and that bigger, more public chunks of USG money seems likely to increase the aggression of that blocking.
>
>
>
> 2) Such political considerations brings in lobbyists to the funding
> process. Groups that have not received funding due to such political
> considerations will use outside pressure to defeat the political
> considerations used against them. If it is true that gifc has used
> lobbyists, it is the direct result of such political considerations that
> prevented them from getting funding before.
>
> The answer then is that the USG should not be the major funder of these tools. If the USG is funding these highly political tools, lobbying will be involved. Even moreso at the higher levels of funding that the GIFC's lobbyists are pushing.
>
> -hal
>
>
> -mehdi
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 7:13 PM, Hal Roberts
> <hroberts at cyber.law.harvard.edu <mailto:hroberts at cyber.law.harvard.edu>>
>
> wrote:
>
> I wrote a similar (though vastly less well written!) oped to
> Rebecca's this week for Radio Free Europe:
>
> http://www.rferl.org/content/Breaking_Internet_Censorship_Will_Take_More_Than_Circumvention_Tools/2222401.html
>
> The careful argument I've been trying to make about circumvention
> funding is that there's plenty of reason to fund these tools for the
> absolute amount of good they do -- allowing hundreds of thousands or
> millions more people more freedom of expression on the Internet.
> There's real good in giving ultrasurf / tor / ultrasurf / psiphon /
> hotspotshield enough money to be able to provide more freedom of
> expression to a million more people.
>
> But the gifc tools at least are not being sold that way -- they are
> being sold as the way to make the internet (and even authoritarian
> societies!) free, which they clearly will not do by themselves.
> It's fine to spend money battling the low hanging fruit of network
> filtering simply because that's where the easy (if slight) leverage
> is, but we need to be clear that that's what we're doing.
>
> The other issue that I don't discuss in my oped (for space reasons)
> is that the gifc tools are easily the best in the world at evading
> blocking because they are easily the most aggressively blocked tool
> in the world. China at least seems to block each tool in proportion
> to the degree to which the tool embarrasses the regime (*not* in
> proportion to the technical efficiency of the tool). The gifc tools
> hugely embarrass the Chinese government because they are both falun
> gong run and explicitly political. One likely effect of the USG
> publicly granting a much bigger chunk of money to gifc will be to
> embarrass the Chinese government even more and encourage them to
> ramp up their blocking efforts. Again, this is not sufficient
> reason to not to fund these tools, but it is reason to carefully
> consider whether it's the best idea to publicly give them a much
> bigger chunk of money.
>
> -hal
>
>
> On 11/19/10 6:44 PM, Mehdi Yahyanejad wrote:
>
> Most of the public justification for the Internet Freedom
> funding has
> been the specific cases of Iran and China (read congressional
> hearings
> on these issues). It makes sense to ask about the effectiveness
> of the
> funding in Iran and China. GIFC tools have been pretty successful in
> Iran so far. Since they were made for China, they must be doing
> better
> there. There has been much more funding for other projects with less
> impressive result. Why don't we hear about the funding spent on
> other
> projects? Criticizing the funding for one of the most successful
> circumvention tools to make an argument on why there should be
> different
> priorities for Internet Freedom is not helping the argument.
>
> Having a broader strategy for "Internet freedom" and listing
> priorities
> is needed but those other priorities are not as well-defined as the
> technical problems. A good thing about technical problems is
> that with a
> good mix of money and engineers, you can generate some results.
> That is
> not the case with the legal and regulatory issues. Until we do
> have that
> list of priorities, we better keep our eyes on the technical
> challenges
> and not get distracted.
>
> -mehdi
>
> On Nov 19, 2010, at 7:57 AM, Evgeny Morozov wrote:
>
> I'd like to chime in here and defend Rebecca's conclusions,
> which are
> very similar to my own. My impression is that none of this
> money is
> meant specifically for either a) circumvention or b) Iran.
> As such, I
> don't see how the facts that Mehdi cites - i.e. that GIFC
> tools are
> actively used in Iran or that other projects got more money - is
> relevant for our discussion here. That the US government may
> have
> overspent on other tools is no good reason to continue doing
> so in the
> future, even if the portfolio is diversified with GIFC.
>
> The government may not have a real strategy on how to
> address some of
> the other challenges/threats to "Internet freedom"
> highlighted in
> Rebecca's piece (and for the record, I don't think that
> "Internet
> freedom" is a useful way to describe the problems facing
> them), but
> this is certainly NOT a good excuse to continue funding projects
> without drawing up a list of both regional and topical
> priorities
> first. As I once already said on this list, while I
> appreciate Mehdi's
> concern about the accessibility of his web-site to users in
> Iran, this
> surely can't be the guiding principle of US foreign policy on
> "Internet freedom".
>
> Evgeny
>
> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 3:50 AM, Mehdi Yahyanejad
> <yahyanejad at gmail.com <mailto:yahyanejad at gmail.com>
> <mailto:yahyanejad at gmail.com <mailto:yahyanejad at gmail.com>>>
>
> wrote:
>
>
> Since 2007, Congress has inserted a total of $50
> million of
> earmarks into the State Department's budget to fund
> organizations
> dedicated to fighting Internet censorship. One group
> that has
> been lobbying hard for the money is the Global
> Internet Freedom
> Consortium, run mainly by practitioners of the Falun
> Gong, a
> religious sect banned in China. The GIFC has
> produced a suite of
> circumvention tools that work well, as long as the
> user doesn't
> mind that GIFC engineers can see their unencrypted
> communications, or that the security of the tool has
> not been
> vetted by independent experts.
>
> The GIFC has found powerful allies in Mark Palmer,
> who was U.S.
> ambassador to Hungary when the Iron Curtain fell,
> and Michael
> Horowitz, a former Reagan administration official
> and longtime
> advocate for human rights and religious freedom.
> They argue that
> if the GIFC can get sufficient funding to scale up
> their tools,
> authoritarian regimes will be brought to their knees.
>
> The State Department has come under fire in the
> Journal, the
> Washington Post and the New York Times for failing
> to support
> GIFC. And it's true that of the $20 million already
> allocated,
> most went to other groups that are less radioactive
> as far as
> U.S.-China relations are concerned. Some of these
> groups work to
> help activists with training and security against
> surveillance,
> cyber-attacks and other threats, in addition to
> circumventing
> censorship.
>
> In August, $1.5 million out of $5 million available
> for 2009 was
> finally awarded by the State Department to the GIFC
> via the
> Broadcasting Board of Governors. The bidding process
> for a
> remaining $30 million is expected to start soon.
> With the
> mid-term elections now finished, we can look forward
> to a new
> surge in the war over who gets to be hero of the
> fairy tale
> "Toppling the Iron Curtain 2.0"
>
>
>
> The GIFC tools are the most adopted circumvention tools
> among the
> users in Iran. I am stating this fact based on what I
> see in the
> log files of Balatarin and what I was told by other
> people who run
> major Iranian websites. Also, I know that other
> circumvention tool
> projects have received much more funding than the $1.5
> million
> which GIFC is going to get. For that matter, it
> completely makes
> sense for the GIFC to ask for political support in the
> congress to
> pressure the State Department in spending the money on
> the project
> which has been delivering the numbers.
>
> -mehdi
>
>
> On Nov 18, 2010, at 8:14 PM, Rebecca MacKinnon wrote:
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704104104575622080860055498.html
>
> NOVEMBER 18, 2010, 10:21 A.M. ET
>
> No Quick Fixes for Internet Freedom
> The hard work to promote free speech online has
> barely begun.
>
> By REBECCA MACKINNON
>
> Just before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
> arrived in
> Hanoi late last month, Vietnamese authorities
> redoubled their
> assault on Internet dissent. Two more bloggers were
> arrested and
> another due to be released had his sentence
> extended. Dissident
> websites came under cyber attack, taking them
> offline at a time
> when they most needed to be visible.
>
> Meanwhile in Washington, a battle is raging over
> funding for
> organizations and projects supporting "Internet
> freedom." Like
> many Washington fights, this one makes it harder for
> the U.S.
> government to help real people with real problems.
>
> I study how governments seek to stifle and control
> online
> dissent. Activists from the Middle East to Asia to
> the former
> Soviet states have all been telling me that they
> suffer from
> increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks. Such
> attacks disable
> activists' websites at politically crucial times.
> Email accounts
> are hacked and computer systems are breached,
> enabling intruders
> to install spyware and monitor every electronic
> move. They are
> desperate for training and technical help to fight
> increasingly
> sophisticated, well-funded adversaries.
>
> The cyber-attacks are one of several new and
> intractable problems
> faced by online activists, alongside the older and
> more clear-cut
> problem of Internet censorship. A number of repressive
> governments, including Vietnam, Iran and China,
> block local
> Internet users from accessing politically sensitive
> overseas
> websites, as well as commercial social networking
> services like
> Facebook and Twitter. Anybody can get around this
> blockage if
> they know how to use what is called "circumvention
> technology."
> Several U.S-based organizations have developed a
> range of
> circumvention tools.
>
> Tools for circumventing censorship are indeed
> important for
> activists. But they do nothing to protect against
> cyber-attacks,
> or to address a growing number of other ways that
> governments
> work to prevent activists from using the Internet to
> access
> information, get their message out, and organize.
> Still, many in
> Congress and the media have bought into the fantasy
> that all the
> U.S. needs to do is put enough money into these
> circumvention
> tools, and one in particular—and freedom will flood
> through the
> crumbling firewalls.
>
> Since 2007, Congress has inserted a total of $50
> million of
> earmarks into the State Department's budget to fund
> organizations
> dedicated to fighting Internet censorship. One group
> that has
> been lobbying hard for the money is the Global
> Internet Freedom
> Consortium, run mainly by practitioners of the Falun
> Gong, a
> religious sect banned in China. The GIFC has
> produced a suite of
> circumvention tools that work well, as long as the
> user doesn't
> mind that GIFC engineers can see their unencrypted
> communications, or that the security of the tool has
> not been
> vetted by independent experts.
>
> The GIFC has found powerful allies in Mark Palmer,
> who was U.S.
> ambassador to Hungary when the Iron Curtain fell,
> and Michael
> Horowitz, a former Reagan administration official
> and longtime
> advocate for human rights and religious freedom.
> They argue that
> if the GIFC can get sufficient funding to scale up
> their tools,
> authoritarian regimes will be brought to their knees.
>
> The State Department has come under fire in the
> Journal, the
> Washington Post and the New York Times for failing
> to support
> GIFC. And it's true that of the $20 million already
> allocated,
> most went to other groups that are less radioactive
> as far as
> U.S.-China relations are concerned. Some of these
> groups work to
> help activists with training and security against
> surveillance,
> cyber-attacks and other threats, in addition to
> circumventing
> censorship.
>
> In August, $1.5 million out of $5 million available
> for 2009 was
> finally awarded by the State Department to the GIFC
> via the
> Broadcasting Board of Governors. The bidding process
> for a
> remaining $30 million is expected to start soon.
> With the
> mid-term elections now finished, we can look forward
> to a new
> surge in the war over who gets to be hero of the
> fairy tale
> "Toppling the Iron Curtain 2.0"
>
> Meanwhile in real life, the human rights watchdog
> organization
> Freedom House warns of a "global freedom recession."
> They point
> to a decrease in online freedom even in many
> countries that
> engage in little or no website blocking.
>
> Take Russia, for example. In a new book published by
> the Open Net
> Initiative, "Access Controlled," University of
> Toronto scholars
> Rafal Rohozinski and Ronald Deibert point out that
> while the
> Russian government doesn't block many websites, it
> stifles online
> dissent in a range of other ways. Government critics
> in Russia
> face cyber-attacks, surveillance, and good old-fashioned
> intimidation.
>
> In a growing number of countries including China,
> domestic
> Internet companies are enlisted in this effort
> through regulatory
> pressures. Laws and mechanisms originally meant to
> enforce
> copyright, protect children and fight online crime
> are abused to
> silence or intimidate political critics.
>
> In real life, conceiving and implementing an
> effective set of
> policies, programs, and tools for promoting a free
> and open
> global Internet requires hard work by both the
> public and private
> sectors. This work has barely begun.
>
> A range of fast-evolving technical problems requires
> an array of
> solutions. Activists around the world need technical
> assistance
> and training in order to fight cyber-attacks more
> effectively. We
> need more coordination between human rights
> activists, technology
> companies and policy makers just to understand the
> problems, and
> how they can be expected to evolve in the next few
> years.
>
> What's more, existing research indicates that many
> of the
> problems aren't technical, but rather political, legal,
> regulatory and even social. Other obstacles to free
> expression
> are probably best addressed by the private sector:
> Social
> networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter
> should be urged to
> adhere to business practices that maximize the safety of
> activists using their platforms.
>
> Circumvention technology is one tactic to support
> access to
> information and online dissent. It makes sense to
> keep funding
> these tools, so long as activists are given choice.
> On their own,
> however, they are not the silver bullet that many
> claim. The
> State Department and Congress need to approach
> freedom of speech
> issues strategically, based on a clear understanding
> of purpose
> and effect.
>
> Ms. MacKinnon is a Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow
> at the New
> America Foundation.
>
> --
> Rebecca MacKinnon
> Schwartz Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
> Co-founder, GlobalVoicesOnline.org
> <http://GlobalVoicesOnline.org/>
>
> Cell: +1-617-939-3493
> E-mail: rebecca.mackinnon at gmail.com
> <mailto:rebecca.mackinnon at gmail.com>
> <mailto:rebecca.mackinnon at gmail.com
> <mailto:rebecca.mackinnon at gmail.com>>
>
> Blog: http://RConversation.blogs.com
> <http://RConversation.blogs.com/>
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/rmack
>
>
>
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