Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on October 2, 2008 – 12:24 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
A group of Canadian activists have discovered a massive surveillance system on the Chinese Skype platform. In just two months, the researchers from Citizen Lab - an internet research division from the University of Toronto - noticed that the Ebay-owned servers archived more than 166,000 censored messages from 44,000 users. The Canadians were able to download copies of the censored data because they found a security hole in the Chinese computers.
I received an email from Ronald Deibert, the director of the Citizen Lab, containing the major findings of the study:
-
The full text chat messages of TOM-Skype users, along with Skype users who have
communicated with TOM-Skype users, are regularly scanned for sensitive keywords, and
if present, the resulting data are uploaded and stored on servers in China.
- These text messages, along with millions of records containing personal information, are
stored on insecure publicly-accessible web servers together with the encryption key required to
decrypt the data.
- The captured messages contain specific keywords relating to sensitive political topics such
as Taiwan independence, the Falun Gong, and political opposition to the Communist Party
of China.
- Our analysis suggests that the surveillance is not solely keyword-driven. Many of the
captured messages contain words that are too common for extensive logging, suggesting
that there may be criteria, such as specific usernames, that determine whether messages are captured by the system.
After Yahoo! and Google, also Ebay can be added to the list of large web companies who participate in Chinese censorship practices. Deibert and his colleague Rafal Rohozinski wrote in the foreword of the report: “This is a wake up call to everyone who has ever put their (blind) faith in the assurances offered up by network intermediaries like Skype. Declarations and privacy policies are no substitute for the type of due diligence that the research put forth here represents.”
Download the report here.
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Written on August 17, 2008 – 10:36 pm
Şekip Can Gökalp, Next Web Turkey WebTipr
Wednesday, I was checking Friendfeed to see if anything interesting happened and I saw that elmaaltshift was banned. Fırat Yıldız, the founder of this well known Turkish blog was telling that he was not warned or what so ever. I immediately clicked on the link and saw the famous big red warning “This site is banned due to court decision” For a second, I was also mad but then I thought of a small detail –that I was in Germany and the bans could only effect Turkish Internet users- that made me realize the true nature of this incidence. Fırat was protesting the Turkish government, which has banned a couple of hundred websites last year.
On Wednesday (13.08.2008) the protest got supported by Fırat’s friends, which are more or less the most active crowd in the Turkish blogosphere. Selim Yörük of anafikir.com prepared a simple code for all bloggers and websites to use, which would put the same message on their main pages. In four days, 167 blogs and websites including major blogs and portals such as sinema.com, futuristika.org, burak.com and cisday.org. You can view the full list of the protestors in anafikir.com/sansur. Selim says “Poeple just get used to lose their freedom. This experiment is trying to shock the people by trying to show them how it would be if sites get banned so fast. I think, it increased the awareness of people very well.”
Youtube, Netlog, Slide, Tagged and Alibaba are some of the major sites that were banned over the course of two years. Youtube for example is still banned and cannot be reached from Turkey. There are a zillion ways to get over the ban, but of course this is no excuse. There are also some gags, that are actually quite funny; IMDB.com was also going to be banned because some movie producers thought that IMDB is a source to download DIVX movies. Later on, it came out that they were trying to ban IMBD.com because of a typo. And as far as I know, IMDB was never banned…
Alibaba.com? Why ban an e-commerce platform? Does it damage the Turkish market? Or what about Slide.com? Why would one ever want to ban a presentation-sharing portal? There are many speculations about the reason of these bans. More than often, a court in a quite small town in Turkey will decide if the accused sites should be banned or not.
Is there a solution?
Başak Purut, a Turkish lawyer who specialized in these kind of processes says that “this kind of protests will lead us nowhere, because Turkish politicians absolutely don’t care which sites are banned and why.” He also thinks that the law will get stricter in the future and the only way to solve this issue is to get the attention of the EU, which would maybe talk Turkish politicians into changing the law that regulates the bans.
This is an option, that would solve the problem, but there is another solution for the companies that want to keep their products online in Turkey: Open an office in Turkey. Every company that wishes to get the huge amount of traffic from countries like Turkey, has to deal with the fact that it IS a different country with its own rules. Whether these rules are correct or not, is another discussion topic and it should be clear by now what I think of them, but it is also clear that these rules are not going to change for a while. Youtube was banned 3 or 4 times, and the last one lasted longer then three months (still on by the way). There is something wrong with that… It is a question of importance. How important is it to Youtube, a company of Google that it is down in Turkey for three months? Now there are rumous of a youtube.com.tr, a local version of youtube which will exclude illegal content. Global players have to consider these kind of ‘details’ or they lose markets to smaller local players faster than they can anticipate.
UPDATE: More blogs are starting to talk about this. Check this article on Techcrunch.
Written on August 7, 2008 – 4:44 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
The controversial Dutch blog GeenStijl (translation: no style, wiki here) received an anonymous tip today saying Google censors certain parts of their Maps. We’re not talking about the regular “Google Blur” that hides military bases and government buildings, but a different - more evil so you want - kind of censorship. The thing is, the Mountain View-based company plants forests in Holland. Some Google employee has replicated a small part of forest to hide a certain object on the terrain of Castle Engelenburg near Eerbeek, Gelderland.
And there also is a second bush, left from the water, that also doesn’t exist. Livemaps, the mapping service by Microsoft, also shows a forest, but this one looks “better”.
According to GeenStijl, neighbors say there was “something weird” going on with European subsidies and nature areas. Anyhow, Google Maps secretly censors its satellite photos, that’s for sure.
Written on August 5, 2008 – 6:47 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Eight members of the European Parliament are pretty fed up with Internet censors like the Chinese government and some obscure dictators. In a proposal for a new European guideline - EU Global Online Freedom Act, representatives from Sweden, Holland, the UK, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Austria, and Germany ask for a black list of countries that can’t stop themselves from censoring web content.
They believe every citizen has the right to publish information and opinions. Whenever their government violates this human right, the EU should punish these countries with export sanctions. Moreover, European tech companies won’t be allowed to supply software and hardware to support censorship practices.
The eight politicians also believe in a pro-active approach. Therefor, they asked for a yearly budget of €20 million to develop software that visualizes and promotes digital human rights.
I’m glad these European representatives make an effort to battle Internet censors. Especially since China, world’s next super power, keeps pumping money in their censorship efforts. China is even paying commenters to say the ‘right’ thing. Many diplomats expect China to start exporting their advanced firewall.
On the other hand, will the EU be brave enough to punish China for censoring online content? In the end, I’m afraid, the economic benefits will rule out the ethical ones. No country can’t afford to ignore, let alone punish, China.
Written on July 30, 2008 – 10:48 am
Joop Dorresteijn, Contributing editor
Contrary to earlier promises to foreign journalists, China will offer limited access to the Internet during the Beijing Olympic Games.
Chinese authorities block information on the Internet that the Communist party views as improper, unhealthy or as a threat to its rule — essentially, all Internet information goes through
gateways in Beijing. The blocking is sometimes referred to as the “Great Firewall of China“.
Last year China introduced new regulations relaxing general media curbs for foreign journalists in the run-up to the Games. “For the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China, There will be no censorship on the Internet” said a spokesman to AFP.
A spokesman for the Olympics replied that there will be sufficient access to the Internet for reporters. However, “sufficient” is not what was promised by China’s communist authorities in the run up to the Olympics. Blocked websites include Amnesty International, Religious websites, Tibet government-in-exile, dissidents and websites that give information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. These sites would remain blocked for thousands of foreign reporters covering the Olympics. Amnesty describes China as one of the world’s “enemies of the Internet”.
Written on July 17, 2008 – 12:31 pm
Joop Dorresteijn, Contributing editor
The Chinese government has a long tradition of keeping an eye to the media in order to prevent critical messages towards the communist party, a task that has become difficult since the rise of the open and worldwide Internet. The government started attempts to control the content on their domestic network, the rise of the ‘great firewall of China’. All network traffic entering or leaving China must pass through government controlled gateways, with dramatic results: bloggers avoid questioning the government to avoid being pulled of the web, and Skype was summoned to filter out certain words in their text messages. Pacific Morning Post pointed me to an interesting article this morning, it seems that approaches are changing, with a new attempt for the Chinese communist government to safeguard their interests on the web.
50 cents army of web commenters
The Chinese government realized in 2005 that they were falling behind, their efforts to block the ‘wrong’ message did not communicate the ‘right’ message towards the people. Nanjing university was forced to hire ‘web commenters’ to safeguard their campus forum, after a government obliged closure of their BBS. Later, party leaders from the same province started recruiting their own teams. These pro communist commenters got their name because they earn about 5 Yuan (€ 0.40) for every pro-party view that they push through chat rooms and web forums. By the middle of 2007, schools and government parties were all reporting success stories from their web commenters. The Culture Ministry started to hold training sessions for web commenters, who are required to pass an exam for job certification. Topics include “Guidance of Public Opinion Problems On the Internet” and “Crisis Management for Web Communications.”
An army to fight against the openness of the internet
Isaac Mao reports to feer.com that the 50 cents army is an attempt to overrule the bloggers and journalists that have the ‘wrong’ message. “This can be seen as another kind of censorship system, in which the fifty Cents Party can be used both to monitor public speech and to upset the influence of other voices in the online space.”
The Chinese internet opening up?
The ideology to pay people to communicate your message on the web is debatable, but analysts say that the 50 cent army might be the first sign of the Chinese internet opening up. As the party is looking for new ways to meet the challenges of the new information age, they seem to relinquish their strongholds on the web. The recruiting of people to send out the right message is a sign of weakening control. Could this approach exist with a possible 1.3 million Chinese on the web in the future?
Written on July 8, 2008 – 9:37 am
Steven Carrol, Next Web WebTipr France
Young activists are organizing rallies, strikes, and protests using Facebook in Egypt. Others are using YouTube to distribute videos showing torture and oppression.
For over 27 years, President Mubarak has ruled Egypt with an iron fist. Now amidst threats of imprisonment, activists are risking their liberty to fight the regime using high tech applications which the despot politicians haven’t quite worked out how to control (like they do the national media).
A growing swell of dissent is rising in the country, with more and more people willing to risk their liberty in order to get their voices heard. Many, however, are too scared to speak freely as protests are illegal and many fear being ‘disappeared’. The following short documentary outlines the struggles that those fighting for democracy in Egypt are facing and the new tools they are using to organize themselves. Click on the image to watch the documentary provided by Journeyman.tv.
Written on July 1, 2008 – 1:26 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
On days like today it seems no industry is more exciting than the Chinese online video market. It’s like a soap opera with all the right ingredients: a government that isn’t afraid to pull the censorship card every once in a while, tough competition, as much rumors as videos, and millions, millions of funding. So here’s your latest episode with, I must say, quite a cliff hanger.
The millions of funding
Firstly, there’s Youku. Nobody’s exactly sure, but they seem to be the no. 2 video site (100 million daily video views). They’ve already gathered $40 million of funding in three rounds and announced yesterday that this number has doubled. The video site received $30 million from existing investors Brookside Capital Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Farallon Capital and Chengwei Ventures and added another $10 million with a loan by Western Technology Investment (former loans: Facebook and Google).
But that’s not all, as one of the other video players in world’s largest internet market also managed to get a few millions here and there. The Pacific Epoch reports that the smaller video site Ku6.com has received $30 million in series C funding. An employee secretly told them, as Ku6 isn’t very transparent when it comes to funding. They allegedly closed series B at the end of last year and received $10 million of series A funding in May 2007.
The destination of this money is almost certain, as Tudou (no.1) founder Marc van der Chijs told me that almost all the investments flow directly to bandwidth. He said that he could turn Tudou into a profitable business by limiting the bandwidth usage, yet then his competition would probably catch-up.
The censorship
In that very same conversation, Van der Chijs also mentioned that almost every censorship rumor isn’t true and just matches the way we, people from the west, like to see China. But here’s one thing that’s undeniable: 56.com (no. 3) has been off line for almost a month now. VentureBeat’s Eric Eldon wrote an excellent piece about this matter, and refers to several Chinese sources who claim 56.com has been taken off line by the government, particularly because they didn’t like 56.com footage of the earthquake in May. “We may never know the real reason why 56.com has been shut down”, Eldon wrote, “But if the cause is censorship, this is a tragedy for anyone who believes in the democratic system.”
There’s your cliff hanger people. Stay tuned to your blog to hear the latest on this soap opera where two forces clash on almost a daily basis: the money versus the government.
Written on February 19, 2008 – 12:26 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
The Californian court ruling to cut off Wikileaks.org from the Internet has shocked the blogosphere. We’re used to censorship news from China, yet when decisions like these appear in the US, alarm bells start ringing.
Wikileaks is a rather controversial websites that gives whistle-blowers an anonymous stage for their revealed secrets. So far they’ve posted millions of government and corporate documents. Turns out they’ve posted a few too many, namely several hundred documents about the offshore activities of a Swiss bank. The bank has send in an army of lawyers who managed to convince the court to order that Dynadot, the company that hosts the domain name, should remove all traces of Wikileaks.org from its servers.
According to the BCC, the people from Wikileaks claimed that the order was “unconstitutional” and said that the site had been “forcibly censored”.
Unfortunately for Bank Julius Baer, the legal action will probably result in more people reading the documents in question
Good news for the dissidents and journalists: the site is still accessible via 88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks. It’s hosted in Sweden, a country that sort of becomes a beacon of hope for controversial Internet companies as Pirate Bay is also hosted there. Duncan Riley from TechCrunch correctly stated that “unfortunately for Bank Julius Baer, the legal action will probably result in more people reading the documents in question”.
Wikileaks is now linked on all the major news sites and blogs, thus millions of people will visit the page. Some of them might find documents there that are of interest for them. So I think we can come to an optimistic conclusion here, censorship in the form of cutting of domain names isn’t rewarding. It just leads to more attention.
However, you might have noticed the ‘yet’ in the headline. With China rapidly improving and expanding its electronic wall, we can’t be all too happy here. We still live in a world where billions of people don’t have uncensored access to the web. When will China’s advanced techniques be used in European countries and the US?
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