New battlelines drawn in cyber-space

[xchrom]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA21Ak02.html

What is the relationship between the self-imposed blackout of Wikipedia and the September 2007 Israeli air raid against an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor? The sophisticated worm Stuxnet, dubbed the first cyber-weapon in history? Or the "cyber-war" between Saudi and Israeli hackers? And while we are on it, might we add WikiLeaks and the debates on media freedom?

On Wednesday, a number of leading Internet media, including Wikipedia and Wired, launched a protest against two bills, ostensibly intended to combat Internet piracy, which are making rounds in the United States Congress - the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PIPA whose full name has undergone several transformations but which was originally called the Protect Intellectual Property Act.

In a recent editorial, Wired magazine calls the two "legislation
that threatens to usher in a chilling Internet censorship regime here in the US comparable in some ways to China's 'Great Firewall'." The article expands, "They would create a terrible precedent that other regimes could use to justify their own censorship efforts, potentially fragmenting the Internet into so many islands." [1]

Rumors of plans to firewall off parts of cyber-space and to impose tighter controls over what happens there have been circulating for some time now. Such a measure may seem grotesque and improbable (if not downright impossible), but even more bizarre things have happened. Let us recall, for example, how the regime of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak instantaneously "found an off switch for the Internet" last February. [2]

[bemildred]

1. The Internet which can be censored is not the true Internet.

But I expect people will keep trying anyway.

[riverwalker]

2. related article and example

(About groups helping the Syrian people break through net crackdown)

Cyberwar explodes in Syria

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/22/world/meast/syria-cyberwar/index.html

"Psiphon is a surveillance-busting networking system designed by a Canadian company with funding from the U.S. State Department. The company's CEO told CNN the software had been "aggressively" introduced to Syria just three weeks ago. Since then, thousands of people had begun using it.

"What we're doing is not much different to what the airwaves provided during the Cold War to provide those citizens living behind the Iron Curtain with an ability to get information which otherwise they were not getting from their state," said Rafal Rohozinski, CEO of two companies involved in developing Psiphon.

"Whereas shortwave radio during the Cold War was very unidirectional ... with the Internet these technologies are by definition bidirectional, meaning that it gives an opportunity for citizens within these states to also communicate amongst themselves and with the outside world."

[xchrom]

3. +1