JR: "Cuba: the enclosed network?" (More on Microsoft and US Blockade)

[magbana]

(Here is some additional information, from a Cuban perspective,
on the recent decision by Microsoft to further extend the US
blockade of Cuba in the electronic realm.

(While the latest supposed spy stories are filling space in
coverage of Cuba, it should be kept in mind that Cuba is and
has been subjected to a ferocious, multi-faceted series of
attacks for half a century. These are designed to prevent
Cuba from developing both its economic and technological
capabilities.)
=============================================================

JUVENTUD REBELDE
Cuba: the enclosed network?

By: Amaury E. del Valle
E-mail: [email protected]
May 29, 2009 - 00:05:39 GMT

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2462.html
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Microsoft’s decision to block its Instant Messenger service to Cubans is just the latest turn of the screw in the United States’ technological blockade against the island.

The recent move by the almighty technology consortium Microsoft to disable the program’s availability in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria or Sudan has become the subject of worldwide controversy.

According to a communiqué issued by the software giant, the decision to pull the plug on IM access in Cuba and other «unfriendly» countries is due to its obligation to comply with U.S. legislation, stating that, like other companies likely to be taking similar actions, Microsoft «is constrained by law as to the products and services it may provide to individuals from embargoed countries...», and that it was a step aimed at «meeting its obligations to do business with markets on the U.S. sanctions list».

IM users who tried for several days to get connected and all they got was an alleged «error 810003c1» of unknown origin received a message saying that Microsoft «has stopped offering its Windows Live Messenger Service to users in embargoed countries and will not provide it to your country anymore».

What proves to be a paradox is that when Microsoft launched its IM service ten years ago it announced to all and sundry that it would be used to foster «free» interchange among people regardless of their race, creed, political belief or any other discriminatory element. Its latest decision, however, is just another chapter in the thick volume of the technological blockade against Cuba opened a mere few months after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.

Old strategy

It might not look like it, but the mystery behind the recently-blockaded messaging service started 50 years ago, when the tangled web of laws and regulations devised to blockade Cuba began to take shape.

An important consideration is that in order to enjoy the advantages of most of these technological applications the user must download and install a given program or software, which in the language spoken by the U.S. blockade involves a transfer of technology to an «enemy» of the United States. The same regulation even covers those who try to download the relevant utility and «transfer it» to a Cuban later on, thus turning everything into an extraterritorial issue and therefore an aberration from international law.

In this case, using the Messenger requires installing the application in the user’s PC in violation of blockade regulations, unlike the free e-mail service provided by Hotmail that can be fully used on line without the need to «download» anything.

But why does Microsoft make its move at this juncture?

Not even the company’s spokespersons have given a straight answer, never mind that the IM service has been operational since 1999 and, accordingly, «violating» the blockade from the very outset.

This is either a 10th birthday present they treated themselves to or the latest turn of the screw to tighten the net around Cuba at the behest of the United State’s most reactionary political and economic sectors.

Forbidden technology

Whatever Microsoft’s reasons are for strengthening the «Conditions of Use» for its IM service so suddenly after being unconcerned for such a long time, the fact remains that the Redmond, Virginia-based company is not alone in efforts to deny Cuba use of the state of the art.

Since the 1960s, successive U.S. governments have prevented major world computer manufacturers, such as Intel, Hewlett Packard, IBM or Macintosh, from directly selling their products to the island, a truly harsh violation of its rights. So, to get any of the above computers anywhere but from the main market –the United States– Cuba must pay up to 30% more than their real value.

Cubans are unable to make free use of the Windows operating systems employed on most PCs around the world. Only a few individuals manage now and then to get a legal copy –from sources other than Microsoft– which not only brings with it unnecessary, if unavoidable, contraventions of copyright laws, but also means that Cuba is most exposed than anyone else to cyber-attacks on the system’s vulnerabilities, given that the «safety patches» supplied by Microsoft cannot be downloaded.

Programs as big as Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, ACDSee, Write Express, Internet Explorer and Borland have been added to the banned list, as well as safety packages like Norton Antivirus, Panda Antivirus, Macafee or AVP, among others.

Perhaps the most outstanding example is Google, the Internet’s No. 1 search engine with over 20 million queries per day. A number of its secondary services, like Google Earth, Google Desktop Search, Google Code or Google Toolbar are also unavailable to Cubans, whom the blockade deprives of the chance to see a satellite map of the world, count on advanced tools to retrieve data stored in the computer, design three-dimensional structures, advertise on line or through Google Code Search, or find open-source programs in the Internet.

Neither humanity nor common sense

All of the above also means additional damages in terms of technology, since the use of any of these applications without a proper license leaves Cuba’s own IT park exposed to a lawsuit by the companies involved or at the mercy of a fierce hounding by the Office for Foreign Assets Control, whose mission it is to sniff out any gap on the wall surrounding our country.

Consequently, we must take very good care not to use in our programs, multimedia products or even in Cuban-made equipment any shareware or component manufactured in the United States or in one of its subsidiary companies, another limitation on our technological development and a further complement to the blockade against enterprises willing to engage in electronic commerce with Cuba, which has fallout even on the very International Telecommunications Unit (ITU) of the United Nations.

In 2004 the ITU had already put off until further notice its plans to develop e-commerce projects that producers in eastern Cuba would have used to sell their goods and services on line, especially to other Caribbean nations. However, it was impossible to find the digital certificate technology we needed to undertake such transactions.

Studies have it that, had it not been for the blockade, with just a 0.1% share of the U.S. e-commerce market the island could get over 500 million dollars a year, which is barely a tiny part of the more than 93 billion Cuba has lost to the 40 plus years of blockade.

Not even an elementary humanitarian argument like people’s right to medical care has been enough to drill a hole in the blockade, as evidenced by the Department of Commerce’s refusal in 2003 to grant a license to USA/Cuba-Infomed to send 423 computers to hospitals and polyclinics with the excuse that «it would be detrimental to the interests of U.S. foreign policy».

http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/cuba/2009-05-29/cuba-la-red-cercada/

=========================================
WALTER LIPPMANN
Los Angeles, California
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
"Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================
__._,_.___