Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
EFF: This Week in Internet Censorship: India, Iran, Brazil, Russia, and More
0 views
Skip to first unread message
Epsilon Tau Alpha
May 22, 2012, 10:08:02 PM5/22/12
to
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/week-internet-censorship-iran-
censors-internet-censorship-decree-indian-government
May 15, 2012 | By [17]Eva Galperin
This Week in Internet Censorship: India, Iran, Brazil, Russia, and More
Iran Continues March Towards “Halal Internet”
This past weekend, Iran’s minister of telecommunications announced that
domestic institutions including banks, telecom companies, insurance
firms, and universities are now prohibited from dealing with emails
that do not come from an “.ir” domain name. This means that customers
who use foreign email clients such as Gmail, Yahoo!, and Hotmail will
have to switch to domestic Iranian accounts, which are subject to
Iranian legal jurisdiction.
While the announcement suggests that the use of foreign email clients
leaves Iranian data vulnerable security breaches, the forced move to
domestic email services makes it easier for the government to monitor
its own citizens. The Telecommunications Ministry [18]insists “that the
crackdown is an attempt to ensure confidential information is safe”
from foreign email providers who allegedly collect user data, making
them insecure for Iranian institutional use.
The foreign email ban is the latest development in what is [19]widely
thought to be a transition towards a “Halal” Iranian Internet. The
Iranian Telecommunications Ministry has denied “shutting off the
Internet” for its residents, but what differentiates this email
limitation from previous ones such as the restriction on secure (HTTPS)
traffic is its overt nature.
Ustream Adds Russian-Language Option In Response to Crippling DDoS Attack
Livestreaming website Ustream.tv received a massive distributed denial
of service (DDoS) attack on the morning of May 9 that reportedly
targeted the prominent user “reggamortis1,” a Russian citizen
journalist who covers opposition protests and rallies, and is
associated with Occupy Moscow. The attack rendered Ustream unavailable
for about 10 hours—and the reggamortis1 channel continued to be
inaccessible for several hours afterwards.
This most recent attack is consistent with other DDoS attacks launched
at Russian opposition websites and social networks, but it is difficult
to prove a direct link between these attacks and the Kremlin. In
[20]interviews following the episode, UStream’s CEO Brad Hunstable
revealed that two similar attacks have previously taken the site
offline for around 9 hours each time.
UStream has become an international household name among activists, as
citizen journalists use it to cover protests in places as far flung as
Oakland and Tunisia. Immediately after the attack, Ustream underscored
its commitment to freedom of expression in Russia by adding a
[21]Russian-language option to the website.
Brazilian Paper Uses Trademark Law to Silence Parody Website
Falha de São Paulo, a parody website of the major Brazilian newspaper
Folha de São Paulo, has been engaged in an ongoing legal struggle with
its object of its satire. In September 2010, Folha filed a lawsuit
against the Falha website for “moral damages” to its reputation as a
news organization. Folha also sought financial compensation for Falha’s
mimicry of their layout and copy-editing. This case resulted in a “tie”
for both parties: Falha’s domain remained frozen for unauthorized use
of Folha’s intellectual property, but the rest of the suit was dropped
in accordance with existing Brazilian legal precedent.
Falha is now [22]suing Folha in return, in order to unfreeze its
domain: falhadespaulo.com.br. A new injunction from Folha against the
domain name registrar Regirstro.br led to the current website freeze.
Folha describes its position as an intellectual property issue, rather
than one of freedom of expression, by claiming that critical bloggers
cannot use domain names or logos resembling its own. On the other hand,
Falha’s appeal responds that other Brazilian websites continue to use
logos and copy similar to those of Folha.
Intellectual property claims have often been invoked to curtail free
expression, not just in the Brazil, but in the United States. In 2008,
the EFF represented the activist duo The Yes Men when the South African
diamond conglomerate De Beers, the target of a critical fake ad on an
online spoof of the New York Times, [23]sued the website’s domain name
registrar for trademark infringement. Meanwhile, The Brazilian
blogosphere has been strongly supportive of Falha’s cause as they
continue to take on the country’s largest newspaper.
Indian Government Demands VoIP Interception Capability In the Next Month
Indian government has [24]ordered Internet service providers to provide
a way to intercept and identify the end user on unregistered VoIP calls
within the next month. Currently, ISPs do not have to keep track of
real-time user data, which, according to the government, exacerbates
security risks in a world of proliferating VoIP service providers who
use varying connection frequencies.
India’s decree is steeped in national security rhetoric: The government
is targeting its request towards ISPs in the states of Jammu and
Kashmir, a move based on allegations that members of Lashker-e-Taiba, a
Pakistani Islamist organization that supports the integration of these
states with Pakistan, frequently communicate through VoIP. This move is
part of the ongoing erosion of civil liberties in India, a trend that
includes [25]Internet censorship of religious and political content and
the collection of [26]biometric data for India’s national ID program,
which raises considerable privacy and security concerns.
Ayatollah Ali Khameni Victim of Iran’s Internet Censorship
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khameni has become the [27]latest victim of Iran's
Internet censorship regime. Indeed, the keywords that Khameni chose for
the fatwa announcement last week against anti-filtering tools led to
his own decree being blocked along with the Iranian websites where it
was published.
In response to this Kafkaesque turn of events, the conservative
opposition website Tabnak wrote:
“The filtering of a [religious] order is so ugly for the executive
[branch] that it can bring into question the whole philosophy of
filtering.”
Currently, the Iranian Ministry of Telecommunications is choosing
ignore these questions while looking for ways to [28]improve its
filtering and censorship systems. Khameni’s announcement has serious
press freedom implications for journalists in the country who often
need access to blocked websites.
References:
17. https://www.eff.org/about/staff/eva-galperin
18. http://technorati.com/technology/article/iran-forbids-institutions-
from-dealing-with/
19. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/iran-ratchets-its-internet-
censorship
20. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/09/did-russian-
authorities-shut-down-ustream.html
21. https://twitter.com/#!/Ustream/status/200312381048487937/photo/1%E2%
80%9C
22. https://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/05/07/brazil-blog-falha-
countersues-folha-sao-paulo-web-domain/%E2%80%9D
23. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/de-beers-internet-
intermediaries
24. https://www.medianama.com/2012/05/223-indian-govt-gives-isps-a-
month-for-enabling-voip-interception-report/%E2%80%9C
25. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/india%E2%80%99s-downward-
spiral
26. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/growing-mistrust-india-
biometric-id-scheme
27. http://www.rferl.org/content/
iran_filters_khamenei_fatwa_on_antifiltering_internet/24575143.html
28. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/week-censorship-iran-india-
vietnam-and-china
censors-internet-censorship-decree-indian-government
May 15, 2012 | By [17]Eva Galperin
This Week in Internet Censorship: India, Iran, Brazil, Russia, and More
Iran Continues March Towards “Halal Internet”
This past weekend, Iran’s minister of telecommunications announced that
domestic institutions including banks, telecom companies, insurance
firms, and universities are now prohibited from dealing with emails
that do not come from an “.ir” domain name. This means that customers
who use foreign email clients such as Gmail, Yahoo!, and Hotmail will
have to switch to domestic Iranian accounts, which are subject to
Iranian legal jurisdiction.
While the announcement suggests that the use of foreign email clients
leaves Iranian data vulnerable security breaches, the forced move to
domestic email services makes it easier for the government to monitor
its own citizens. The Telecommunications Ministry [18]insists “that the
crackdown is an attempt to ensure confidential information is safe”
from foreign email providers who allegedly collect user data, making
them insecure for Iranian institutional use.
The foreign email ban is the latest development in what is [19]widely
thought to be a transition towards a “Halal” Iranian Internet. The
Iranian Telecommunications Ministry has denied “shutting off the
Internet” for its residents, but what differentiates this email
limitation from previous ones such as the restriction on secure (HTTPS)
traffic is its overt nature.
Ustream Adds Russian-Language Option In Response to Crippling DDoS Attack
Livestreaming website Ustream.tv received a massive distributed denial
of service (DDoS) attack on the morning of May 9 that reportedly
targeted the prominent user “reggamortis1,” a Russian citizen
journalist who covers opposition protests and rallies, and is
associated with Occupy Moscow. The attack rendered Ustream unavailable
for about 10 hours—and the reggamortis1 channel continued to be
inaccessible for several hours afterwards.
This most recent attack is consistent with other DDoS attacks launched
at Russian opposition websites and social networks, but it is difficult
to prove a direct link between these attacks and the Kremlin. In
[20]interviews following the episode, UStream’s CEO Brad Hunstable
revealed that two similar attacks have previously taken the site
offline for around 9 hours each time.
UStream has become an international household name among activists, as
citizen journalists use it to cover protests in places as far flung as
Oakland and Tunisia. Immediately after the attack, Ustream underscored
its commitment to freedom of expression in Russia by adding a
[21]Russian-language option to the website.
Brazilian Paper Uses Trademark Law to Silence Parody Website
Falha de São Paulo, a parody website of the major Brazilian newspaper
Folha de São Paulo, has been engaged in an ongoing legal struggle with
its object of its satire. In September 2010, Folha filed a lawsuit
against the Falha website for “moral damages” to its reputation as a
news organization. Folha also sought financial compensation for Falha’s
mimicry of their layout and copy-editing. This case resulted in a “tie”
for both parties: Falha’s domain remained frozen for unauthorized use
of Folha’s intellectual property, but the rest of the suit was dropped
in accordance with existing Brazilian legal precedent.
Falha is now [22]suing Folha in return, in order to unfreeze its
domain: falhadespaulo.com.br. A new injunction from Folha against the
domain name registrar Regirstro.br led to the current website freeze.
Folha describes its position as an intellectual property issue, rather
than one of freedom of expression, by claiming that critical bloggers
cannot use domain names or logos resembling its own. On the other hand,
Falha’s appeal responds that other Brazilian websites continue to use
logos and copy similar to those of Folha.
Intellectual property claims have often been invoked to curtail free
expression, not just in the Brazil, but in the United States. In 2008,
the EFF represented the activist duo The Yes Men when the South African
diamond conglomerate De Beers, the target of a critical fake ad on an
online spoof of the New York Times, [23]sued the website’s domain name
registrar for trademark infringement. Meanwhile, The Brazilian
blogosphere has been strongly supportive of Falha’s cause as they
continue to take on the country’s largest newspaper.
Indian Government Demands VoIP Interception Capability In the Next Month
Indian government has [24]ordered Internet service providers to provide
a way to intercept and identify the end user on unregistered VoIP calls
within the next month. Currently, ISPs do not have to keep track of
real-time user data, which, according to the government, exacerbates
security risks in a world of proliferating VoIP service providers who
use varying connection frequencies.
India’s decree is steeped in national security rhetoric: The government
is targeting its request towards ISPs in the states of Jammu and
Kashmir, a move based on allegations that members of Lashker-e-Taiba, a
Pakistani Islamist organization that supports the integration of these
states with Pakistan, frequently communicate through VoIP. This move is
part of the ongoing erosion of civil liberties in India, a trend that
includes [25]Internet censorship of religious and political content and
the collection of [26]biometric data for India’s national ID program,
which raises considerable privacy and security concerns.
Ayatollah Ali Khameni Victim of Iran’s Internet Censorship
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khameni has become the [27]latest victim of Iran's
Internet censorship regime. Indeed, the keywords that Khameni chose for
the fatwa announcement last week against anti-filtering tools led to
his own decree being blocked along with the Iranian websites where it
was published.
In response to this Kafkaesque turn of events, the conservative
opposition website Tabnak wrote:
“The filtering of a [religious] order is so ugly for the executive
[branch] that it can bring into question the whole philosophy of
filtering.”
Currently, the Iranian Ministry of Telecommunications is choosing
ignore these questions while looking for ways to [28]improve its
filtering and censorship systems. Khameni’s announcement has serious
press freedom implications for journalists in the country who often
need access to blocked websites.
References:
17. https://www.eff.org/about/staff/eva-galperin
18. http://technorati.com/technology/article/iran-forbids-institutions-
from-dealing-with/
19. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/iran-ratchets-its-internet-
censorship
20. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/09/did-russian-
authorities-shut-down-ustream.html
21. https://twitter.com/#!/Ustream/status/200312381048487937/photo/1%E2%
80%9C
22. https://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/05/07/brazil-blog-falha-
countersues-folha-sao-paulo-web-domain/%E2%80%9D
23. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/de-beers-internet-
intermediaries
24. https://www.medianama.com/2012/05/223-indian-govt-gives-isps-a-
month-for-enabling-voip-interception-report/%E2%80%9C
25. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/india%E2%80%99s-downward-
spiral
26. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/growing-mistrust-india-
biometric-id-scheme
27. http://www.rferl.org/content/
iran_filters_khamenei_fatwa_on_antifiltering_internet/24575143.html
28. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/week-censorship-iran-india-
vietnam-and-china
0 new messages