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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 05 Oct 2009
Malaysia ranked No. 132 out of 173 countries on last year's edition of Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index, which means it's already a hostile place for reporters. Thanks to recent initiatives aimed at controlling the flow of online information, the country appears ready to tighten its grip on the Internet, too. But bloggers and web journalists continue to fight bravely against new and existing constraints.
Online free expression is a complex issue in Malaysia because the authorities tend to regard the Internet as an opposition medium. As a result, independent online news sources such as Malaysiakini are forced to deal with fines and jail time.
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Malaysiakini was started in November 1999 and remains one of the only truly independent sources of news in Malaysia. As a result, it continues to face government pressure. On September 3, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission told Malaysiakini in a letter that it considered two of its film clips "offensive" and "intended to upset people, and particularly the Indians." (The letter cited the "Communications and Multimedia Act" of 1988).
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 05 Oct 2009
On 22 September 2009 I estimated that access to at least 6000 websites are blocked from Turkey. That was followed by the infamous blocking decisions involving both myspace.com and Last.fm from Turkey. During this weekend we had further cases of access blocking from Turkey.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 05 Oct 2009
Turkey is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of Southeastern Europe. The country is enclosed by three sees: Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. Turkey, being a full member of EU since 2005, still maintains close cultural, political, economic and industrial relations with the Eastern world, particularly with the states of the Middle East and Central Asia, through membership in organizations such as the OIC (Organization of Islamic Conference) and ECO (Economic Cooperation Organization). Turkey is a founding member of the OECD and the G-20 major economies. Meanwhile, Turkey is classified as a developed country by the CIA and as a regional power by political scientists and economists worldwide. So, let’s consider the situation with ICT progress, and subsequently, e-commerce sector development.
Internet access has been available in Turkey since 1993, although experimentation at Ege University commenced in 1987. Originally, Internet was available trough dial-up connection. Cable internet appeared in 1998. ADSL was launched in 5 years in 2003.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 01 Oct 2009
RESULTS of a federal government trial show that live ISP-level content filtering does not have a negative impact on network performance and can work in a real-time environment.
However, a highly anticipated report based on the pilot is still weeks away and the federal Opposition says the government can not be trusted to deliver on the $43 billion national broadband network when the goalpost keeps shifting for a mere $300,000 filtering trial.
"The trial shows that filtering does work and that the gear stops identified IP addresses without major degradation to network speed," sources close to the trial said.
"We can stop individual URLs, IP addresses, but we can't stop peer-to-peer nor virtual private network-type traffic."
Unwired, Optus, Primus, Highway 1, Nelson Bay Online, Netforce, OMNIconnect, TECH 2U and Webshield participated in the trial, conducted by Enex TestLab.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 01 Oct 2009
The Chinese government has used its unrivalled net censorship apparatus to attack parts of the Tor network ahead of the 60th anniversary of communist rule, according to activists.
The Tor Project Inc, the non-profit that oversees development of the network, said China's Great Firewall began blocking IP addresses on Friday. The news follows an update last week to blocking technology used by ISPs, known as "Blue Shield".
"We knew this day would come," the Tor Project said.
Tor - originally developed for the US Navy - is used by many Chinese dissidents to conceal their identity and protect their privacy. It allows them to access banned material such as websites about Tibet, the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the recent Uigur uprising.
The Tor network was also recently widely used in Iran to disseminate information about violent clashes following the presidential election.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 01 Oct 2009
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government said Wednesday it had ended its 11-year contract with the nonprofit body that oversees key aspects of the Internet's architecture, after demands from other countries for more say in how the Web works.
The move addresses mounting criticism in recent years that no one country should have sole control over important underpinnings of the Internet, such as determining domain name suffixes like ".com."
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 01 Oct 2009
A security researcher at the University of Michigan has released a tool that help Chinese computers users disable the censorship functionality of the controversial Green Dam Youth Software.
The Dam Burst utility, created by researcher Jon Oberheide, works by by injecting code into a running application and removing the Green Dam hooks that enable it to monitor and block user activity. This effectively restores the running application to its original uncensored state, Oberheide explained.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 01 Oct 2009
As China gears up to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic on Oct. 1, the country's security watchdogs are on alert for threats to the big celebration. The government is calling for "greater efforts to maintain public order and social stability," the official Xinhua news agency reported on Sept. 28. In Beijing alone, 800,000 people have offered themselves as "safety volunteers," Xinhua reports.
Part of the campaign to ensure a smooth anniversary includes an intensified effort to limit access to China's Internet, say anti-censorship activists outside the country. "They have tried everything they can" to block software that helps people evade censorship, says Bill Xia, president of U.S.-based Dynamic Internet Technology, a company that has developed Freegate, software that enables users to circumvent censors by rerouting traffic through proxy servers. While there's always a high level of censorship in China, says Xia, the campaign ahead of National Day this year is more comprehensive than usual. "This time they have really put a lot of resources to this," he says.
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 01 Oct 2009
The UK government already has a "considerable" number of attackers and defenders that make it a "major world power" in cyberwarfare, according to a leading US expert.
Scott Borg of the Washington DC-based US Cyber Consequences Unit, a well-connected research group, told The Register that the British military and security services were on the lookout for talented amateur hackers, but this was just "good recruiting practice".
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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 29 Sep 2009
The US government is expected to relax control over how the internet is run when it signs an accord with net regulator Icann on Wednesday.
The "affirmation of commitments" will reportedly give Icann autonomy to run its own affairs for the first time.
Previous agreements gave the US close oversight of Icann - drawing criticism from other countries.
Earlier this year, the EU called on the US to relinquish its control and Icann to become "universally accountable".
"The US government is the only body to have had formal oversight of Icann's policies and activities since its inception in 1998," it said.
"The Commission believes that Icann should become universally accountable, not just to one government but to the global internet community.
"This is particularly relevant given that the next billion of internet users will mainly come from the developing world."
