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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 12 Aug 2010
India has given the maker of BlackBerry phones a deadline of 31 August to provide the government access to all of its services or face being shut down.
The country fears the device could be used by militants and insurgents in a repeat of the 2008 attack on Mumbai that left 166 people dead.
The row is the latest in a long running dispute between Research in Motion (RIM) and international governments.
RIM declined to comment on the deadline.
The central issue is how governments monitor the encrypted traffic from BlackBerry devices.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 11 Aug 2010
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The militants who carried out the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India, used mobile phones and other handheld gadgets to coordinate an assault that left 166 dead.
Cell phones with video cameras helped bring the world the iconic footage of a young Iranian woman dying of a gunshot wound in the midst of the country's 2009 "Green Revolution" — images spread rapidly on websites the government tried feverishly to block.
Now the use of new, sophisticated technologies is raising alarm in the Arab world's two biggest economies. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have threatened to cut off popular BlackBerry services unless they wring out concessions that would almost certainly give them greater access to user information.
Both countries cite security threats. The U.S. says those concerns are legitimate. But critics say the governments' fears also provide a convenient justification to further tighten controls on the flow of information they believe could stir opposition or morally corrupt their societies.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 11 Aug 2010
The Internet is the latest battleground in Thailand's stormy political climate as the government attempts to shut down Web sites critical of it and the monarchy. The government is using tough laws to silence online criticism, but net users are finding ways to be heard.
During months of political protests earlier this year, the Thai government shut down thousands of Web sites it said fanned the protests or criticized the royal family.
May protests
The protests, which left 90 people dead and more than 1,400 injured, ended on May 19 when the army dispersed the crowds.
But the battle over the Internet continues.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 11 Aug 2010
Reporters Without Borders calls on communication and information minister Tifatul Sembiring to rescind his announced plans for Internet filtering. According to the minister, Indonesia’s more than 200 Internet service providers have agreed to begin blocking access to porn sites today, the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
“This measure is absolutely pointless, it is complicated to implement and it could set a dangerous precedent for freedom of expression,” Reporters Without Borders said.
There are many reasons for opposing this policy. No list of sites to be banned has been given to ISPs, which will have to decide for themselves which sites should be blocked. Filtering websites inevitably causes collateral damage by blocking other websites with no direct link to pornography. It will also slow down connection speeds throughout the country.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 10 Aug 2010
The BlackBerry is still open for business in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi communications regulator said Tuesday that it has decided to call off the ban on BlackBerry messenger services following efforts by Research In Motion to satisify some of the country's regulatory requirements.
The decision came because of "positive developments in the completion of part of the regulatory requirements on the part of service providers," the country's Communication and Information Technology Commission, or CITC, said in a statement e-mailed to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) and other news sources.
The agreement between the two parties came after the Saudi government announced that it would ban key BlackBerry services starting last Friday but then postponed a final decision until Monday. In line with the United Arab Emirates, India, and other nations, Saudi Arabia has complained that the tight, encrypted security used by RIM in the BlackBerry network prevents it from monitoring communications channels that could be used by those who might threaten national security.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 10 Aug 2010
Reporters Without Borders condemns the latest escalation in the Chinese government’s Internet censorship and control system in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
In order to monitor and restrict the volume of information available to Tibetans, the authorities are insisting that all Internet cafés and companies that make computers available to the public in Tibet install the sophisticated filtering and surveillance software that was recently imposed in Beijing and other parts of China.
The Chinese government is cutting off Tibet from the rest of the world. China’s highly developed surveillance software is being used to stifle free expression. Censorship in Tibet is reaching alarming levels. As in Xinjiang, the authorities are trying to obtain total control over news and information in order to be able to nip any unrest in the bud.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 09 Aug 2010
Rhetorically, everyone supports Internet freedom. “Freedom,” though, means quite different things, and carries diverse weights when measured against other interests in various countries and cultures. This normative divergence plays out in debates over access, threats to freedom, online content controls, and governance. In short, the concept of “Internet freedom” holds within it a set of conflicts about how the ‘Net should function. Acknowledging openly these tensions is better than clinging to wording that masks inevitable, hard choices.
First, access to the network is a prerequisite for enjoying Internet freedom, however defined. States differ, though, on whether individuals are entitled to that access. Some see Internet access — particularly high-speed broadband access — as a right, while others conceive it as a privilege. Finland, for example, has stated that having a 1MB connection is a basic human right of Finnish citizens. Similarly, France’s Constitutional Council declared that Internet access is a legal right. The United States, by contrast, views the ability to go on-line as a market good like any other, rather than seeing it as an entitlement. If you can’t afford to connect to the ‘net, you remain offline, or dependent on publicly available access sites at libraries and schools.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 09 Aug 2010
Global Voices in Spanish would like to provide an incentive to blogging and to promote blogger networks through “Blog Festivals.” In this manner, GV in Spanish is helping to create original content with a certain level of reflection and analysis. The participating bloggers will benefit through greater visibility of their work by being featured on Global Voices. Here are the details for the second Festival:
Featured Country: Venezuela
The chosen site and geographic area of the second Blog Festival is Venezuela, which is known for the considerable amount of people who participate in online activism, and where we have a number of collaborators that can help publicize this virtual event. The majority of well-known bloggers can be found in the capital city of Caracas, and we hope that bloggers from the cities of Maracaibo, Valencia, Maracay, Barquisimeto, and others can also participate. Participation is not restricted to bloggers that exclusively write about the topic (see the next paragraph), as any blogger may participate.
Topic: Venezuela: Freedom of Expression on the Internet.
The emergence of new media and online social networks brings more possibilities for citizen expression. However, are these being fully taken advantage of in Venezuela? All of us like to express ourselves, but this is only the first step. Is there online dialogue? Do we listen or read one another or are there only group monologues that prevents a real gathering of ideas? What happens when the opinions encounter intolerance and/or exclusion? On the other hand, is freedom of expression a war horse for hidden interests? What about the groups that are not represented on the Internet? Is freedom of expression guaranteed on the Internet in Venezuela? What are users doing to protect their rights?
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 06 Aug 2010
The Coalition has announced it will scrap controversial plans for an internet filter if it wins the August 21 election.
Federal Labor's controversial plan to filter the internet could be dead in the water after the Coalition announced it opposed the policy.
Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said on Thursday a Coalition government would abandon Labor's "flawed" filter policy.
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Instead, a Tony Abbott-led government would encourage parents to take more responsibility for monitoring their children's use of the web.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's office says Labor will be pushing ahead with its plan despite the latest setback.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 06 Aug 2010
According to news published in English and Persian on July 25, the Wikipedia free encyclopedia website was blocked in Iran and could not be accessed. Users tryng to acess the website are having this blockpage stating “By refering to the law concerning computer related misdeeds (crimes) access to this site is not available.”
Sreeenshot of the block page.
An investigation I conducted shows that on the morning of July 29th, the website Wikipedia was available within Iran, but the reported Persian website (balatarin.com) is blocked in Iran. This blockage of Balatarin is due to its position against the government and its “crucial role in the pro-democracy movement in Iran“, as it explains in its About page. As well as “many of the human rights abuses were publicized on Balatarin for the first time”. For this reason “Iranian government has in numerous occasions blamed Balatarin along with Facebook and Twitter as the “plotters” of the after election turmoil in Iran.”
