Tag: Censorship

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Google to deploy 180 low-orbit satellites that provide Internet access

Google to deploy 180 low-orbit satellites that provide Internet access:

Billion-dollar project will complement Google’s balloons and drones.

It would be particularly interesting to see if Google tried to marry its satellites with its Loom project, to the effect of not having to integrate Loom balloon networks with known censorious ISPs in various countries around the world. If Google could  overcome technical and regulatory hurdles it could, by routing through space, try to proxy data access via ‘open’ Internet nations. Of course, this would mean that Google would become the ‘real’ pipe to the Internet itself…

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Quotations

2013.12.17

Some have suggested that the [Nova Scotia cyberbullying] law has to be so broad to capture all the harmful conduct and we should leave it to the courts and the cybercops to use their judgement in how it is applied. I’m sorry, but as soon as an employee of the government of Nova Scotia picks up the phone and tells a citizen to remove Charter protected speech from the internet, that crosses the line. That goes waaaaay over the line. Canadians have an absolute right to speak truth to power. Canadians have an obligation to call out politicians on hypocrisy and idiocy. An elected official like Lenore Zann, before publicly admonishing a minor, should educate herself about “copyrwite (sic) law”, fair dealing and the criminal code. (A bit of free advice: Bill C-12 isn’t the law yet and an image taken on a sound stage surrounded by a filming crew for the purpose of international broadcast on cable television likely does not qualify as an intimate image “in respect of which, at the time of the recording, there were circumstances that gave rise to a reasonable expectation of privacy”.)

David Fraser, “Nova Scotia politician alleges cyberbullying, calls the authorities on tweeting teen”
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TarenSK: DOJ admits Aaron’s prosecution was political

tarensk:

Even if Aaron’s intention was in fact to distribute the journal articles (to poor people! for zero profit!), that in no way condones his treatment.

But the terrifying fact I’m trying to highlight in this particular blog post is this: According to the DOJ’s testimony, if you express political views that the government doesn’t like, at any point in your life, that political speech act can and will be used to justify making “an example” out of you once the government thinks it can pin you with a crime.

Talk about a chilling effect on freedom of speech.

Chilling of speech is very, very real. And the things we’re learning in the aftermath of Aaron’s death only amplify concerns.

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Quotations

2013.2.11

Reality turned out to be much more complicated. What we forgot is that technology magnifies power in both directions. When the powerless found the Internet, suddenly they had power. But while the unorganized and nimble were the first to make use of the new technologies, eventually the powerful behemoths woke up to the potential – and they have more power to magnify. And not only does the Internet change power balances, but the powerful can also change the Internet. Does anyone else remember how incompetent the FBI was at investigating Internet crimes in the early 1990s? Or how Internet users ran rings around China’s censors and Middle Eastern secret police? Or how digital cash was going to make government currencies obsolete, and Internet organizing was going to make political parties obsolete? Now all that feels like ancient history.

Bruce Schneier, “Power and the Internet”
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South Korea to Ban Profanity and Porn from Teens’ Smartphones?

The supposed ban is meant to, in part, crack-down on cyberbullying. To be clear, such bullying is serious, but introducing security deficits into smartphones – for the children! – really isn’t the way to solve this social problem. You don’t solve social ills by turning to technological filters and blocks. Especially not when trying to get between a teenager and porn.

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Quotations

2013.1.8

The war on terrorism should not be a war on ethics, integrity, technology and the rule of law. Stopping terrorism should not include terrorizing whistleblowers and truth tellers who raise concern when the government cuts corners to electronically surveill, torture and assassinate its own people. And it is not okay for a president to grant himself the power to play prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner of anyone on the entire fucking planet.

Jesselyn Radack, quoted in “US Whistleblowers on Being Targeted by the Secret Security State”
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Aside Links

A Comment on “You Can’t Say that On the Internet”

In his most recent op-ed, Morozov offers a good, if common, argument. Specifically, he argues that:

Quaint prudishness, excessive enforcement of copyright, unneeded damage to our reputations: algorithmic gatekeeping is exacting a high toll on our public life. Instead of treating algorithms as a natural, objective reflection of reality, we must take them apart and closely examine each line of code.

While I tend to agree with him, it’s important to recognize the actual value of what he’s written: he’s made rapidly accessible (though, with less subtly) what ethicists and scholars of contemporary digital technology have been writing about for over a decade. Read what he’s written – it’s good – but rather than stopping there go on to read Winner’s The Whale and the Reactor, sections from DeNardis’ excellent Opening Standards, and Lessig’s Code. In essence, it’s not that Morozov’s written anything badly, but what he’s written just touches the tip of the iceberg.

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Quotations

2012.11.14

But first and foremost, Canada must get its own house in order. Thailand wasn’t the only country requesting that Google remove content; Ottawa did as well. What is most notable, and troubling, about Canada’s takedown requests is that an increasing number were not accompanied by a court order, but rather fell into Google’s category of “other” requests from the “executive, police, etc”.

This demonstrates that the government increasingly is bypassing formal and lawful processes in their attempts to get the compliance of private sector companies in their Internet censorship activities. Meanwhile, the government continues to resurrect Bill C30, despite widespread condemnation. The proposed electronic surveillance law would give the government unprecedented access to Canadians’ private online information without the requirement of a warrant.

If the Canadian government fails to respect freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and the rule of law in our own country, how can it expect other countries to do so in theirs?

Kieran Bergmann, “Throttling free speech, at home and abroad”
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Quotations

2012.11.9

People in Azerbaijan live in fear. We fear for our lives, we fear for our jobs, we fear for the lives and jobs of our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, we fear for our friends. We fear every time when someone close to us dares to disagree with you. We also pay a high price when we dare not to fear.

Before 2009 I had criticized you mostly online. Then I was attacked in the centre of Baku. I was arrested and later sentenced in a show trial on fake charges of hooliganism. My father died while I was in jail, his health was deteriorating since the day of my arrest. I could not be there when he was placed in hospital and I was not there the day I lost him. Some of my relatives and friends lost their jobs. They were told that they are too close to “the enemy of the state”. Now, many people I knew are afraid to communicate with me online and offline and I can understand them.

In our interconnected world, civil society, states and businesses from across the world must work together to thrive in our global information society. This is the meaning and the spirit of this Internet Governance Forum. Internet governance can’t properly serve sustainable human, economic and social development without freedom of expression, the rule of law and efficient democratic governance.

Emin Milli, writing as Azerbaijan hosts the Internet Governance Forum
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Videos

Lawful access legislation and its associated powers

Lawful access legislation and its associated powers are not new. In the wrong hands, however, these powers ‘legitimize’ the gross abuse of citizens. I highly recommend you watch this investigative news piece on Sweden’s Teliasonera and how lawful access is used by dictators reliant on Teliasonera’s equipment.

If you can’t watch it all then at least watch the interview with the company’s representative, starting at around minute 52. It’s a chilling interview that exposes how ‘good’ Western companies enables human rights abuses around the world in the name of profit and ‘enabling’ communication.