Transcript 29 - Acadia University

COMP 2903
A35- The List: Look Who’s
Censoring the Internet Now
Danny Silver
JSOCS, Acadia University
Joshua Keating
Foreign Policy, March, 2009
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A native of Brooklyn, New York
Studied comparative politics at Oberlin College.
Associate editor at Foreign Policy, Editor of the Passport blog
Researcher, editorial assistant, and deputy Web editor since
joining the FP staff in 2007
• Published by the Washington Post, Newsweek International,
Radio Prague, the Center for Defense Information, and
Romania's Adevarul newspaper
• Has appeared on CNN International, C-Span, ABC News, Al
Jazeera, NPR, BBC radio
Australia
• Official Target: child porn, terrorism
• Behind the wall:
– Filtration by ISPs to all users
– Black list – Australian Comm. and Media Authority
– 2,935 URLs including:
• Online poker, Satanism, euthanasia
• Queensland dentist office ??
– Did the law go ahead ???
Australia
• Law has been delay
• Commission created to determine criteria for
blocking
– Concerned with transparency and accountability
– A new Classification Review Board will set blocked
sites
• Due ~July, 2011
• Source: Sydney Morning Herald
• So what happened ??
France
• Official Target: File-sharing
• Behind the wall:
– Posed to pass the world’s toughest antipiracy law
to date
– Require ISPs to deny access to those Ips repeatly
caught downloading illegal material
– Strongly supported by music and film industries
and President N. Sarkozy
– Did the law go ahead ???
France
• Law did pass
• 1st time caught – email notice
• 2nd time - misuse of the internet (ie. accessing a bad
site) you get a written letter
• 3rd time – here comes the judge
• Started charging people Sept 2010
• Today about 1M charged with at least 1st offence
• Where does this stand now??
India
• Official Target: Political radicals, terrorist tools
• Behind the wall:
– Given rise to India’s CERT – Computer Emergency
Response Team
– Black lists sites
– Shut down Hindu nationalists
– Yahoo! blocked in 2003
– Google Earth block attempted as well in 2008
– Does CERT still exist – what is the latest on them?
India
• 2010 - CERT still existed and active
• Seem more about computer viruses than elicit
content
• Acting more as security violations clearing
house – they accept violation reports
• Release annual reports since 2006
• 263,000 bot infect computers tracked
• Website “defacement” – 659 as of Aug, 2010
Argentina
• Official Target: Celebrity dirt
• Behind the wall:
– 2007 - Diego Maradona and 70 other celebs filed
class action law suit against Google and Yahoo!
– Claim the SEs associated them with porn and
libelous sites against their will
– Judge ruled in favour
– Like “suing the newstand for what appears in the
newspapers it sells”
– Where does Argentina stand on this today?
Argentina
• Aug 13, 2010
• Appellet court overturn 2008 ruling that found
Google and Yahoo! liable for deformation of
character
• Court could find no liability for injuries that
may have occurred from information existing
on other websites of the internet
South Korea
• Official Target: North Korean propaganda
• Behind the wall:
– 90% of SK has the internet
– ISP must block as many as 120,000 sites from an
official gov’t black list
• Porn, gambling, North Korea, Unification
– Related to 1948 anti-communist law
– Has SK released its grip lately???
South Korea
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2010 - Bit of a shift away from 1948
NSL is still in effect
Seems like things have gotten worse
Legislation on telecomm security
Korean Internet Safety Commission
– Established blocked sites
– Have strayed into blocking political commentary
– Persons have been arrested
• Youtube use curtailed
Your thoughts
• Are you surprised to learn of government
censorship of internet traffic in France and
Australia?
• What do you know of such censorship in
Canada or the USA?
• Is there anything that you would censor?
• Why?
• How would you do it?