Anne Laurie sent me this link to a story in Slate discussing the Reporters Without Borders declaration of two sets of enemies of the Internet. The first are countries that use surveillance gear, Syria, China, Iran, Bahrain and Vietnam. The second axis of Internet evil is a set of companies that produce surveillance gear:
The other is a list of five “Corporate Enemies of the Internet,” five private-sector companies that are “digital era mercenaries.” The five companies chosen are Gamma, Trovicor, Hacking Team, Amesys and Blue Coat, but the list is not exhaustive and will be expanded in the coming months. They all sell products that are liable to be used by governments to violate human rights and freedom of information.
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for the entity that controls access to the Internet, whether a corporation, government or university, to monitor, block or otherwise manipulate traffic between the network they control and the Internet. The five companies named there make special purpose filtering devices, but so do the big enterprise players like Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent and Juniper, whose general-purpose equipment can also do some filtering and monitoring. If we’re going to name and shame, they all do it. The question is whether those five have made a special effort to attract despotic regimes, and it’s not answered in the piece. I suppose if you think that monitoring cubicle dwellers to see if they’re surfing porn during work hours is inherently immoral, then what those companies do is wrong. Otherwise, it’s how the despotic countries use the technology that’s the real issue, and the technology is a sideshow.
That said, the piece also links to some tools to work around state censorship, and that’s good to know and probably a more fruitful place to spend anti-censorship energy, since I don’t see big changes coming in the way Iran, for instance, approaches the Internet.
some guy
Maybe the same folks who made Stuxxnet could come up with a virus that would make IP hardware explode.
DecidedFenceSitter
This just fuels my (admittedly mostly idle) concerns for when more effective non-lethal countermeasures get implemented on a wider scale. No more bloody shirts to wave.
sun tzu
I wish that you would decide whether you’re a cardinal or a bishop or whatever. It seems to change on a daily basis.
BGinCHI
I assume that in Soviet Syria, internet surf you.
Joey Maloney
There’s someone missing from that list. It’s on the tip of my tongue. Now, who could it be?
maya
OK, that’s it, I quit. Computer, iPhone, iPad, in the garbage. Back to snail mail with invisible ink. They’re coming after USPS too, you say? Well, then.
Xecky Gilchrist
The real enemies are the people who manufacture computers. Without those, none of this could happen.
Schlemizel
There are legitimate reasons for those products that are now deemed ‘evil’. The problem is that any entity can easily use those tools in ways that limit information. I know of a semi-big company whos CISO has deemed all liberal web sites as banned but only a tiny fraction of the worst wingnut web sites get the same treatment.
The tools are a big help in controlling access to sites that are known to be security issues. There is no way to separate the abusive use of the tool from a legitimate use other than the inherent decency of the manager . . . so yeah, we’re screwed.
The Moar You Know
Isn’t that convenient? Name five bit players to take a public pounding while Cisco walks with not a word said.
What a bunch of shit.
tybee
any company large enough to have its own IT staff usually filters and monitors IP traffic. legal ramifications dictate that one do so. asshole ramifications can dicktate what and who gets monitored and filtered.
Villago Delenda Est
@Xecky Gilchrist:
From a sysadmin perspective, the system would run perfectly if it wasn’t for those damn meddling lusers.
/shakes fist
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemizel:
DING DING DING!
Most of these issues are not technical, they’re social. Assholes will be assholes, they just have new tools to spread their attitude around and inflict their assholery on others.
burnspbesq
“Enemies of the Internet?”
That phrase is every bit as Orwellian as “war on terror.”
This is going to end badly for all concerned.
Anoniminous
Digital telephone switch control software can interdict or redirect URL addressing and have been able to do that from day one. It’s inherent.