Ukraine Outlaws Pornography, but ‘Medicinal’ Use Is OK: “Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signed a law into effect yesterday making possession of pornography a criminal offense.”
(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)
“GoogleSites” Hit by Turkey’s Censorship: “A court in Denizli has banned access to GoogleSites, which contains thousands of sites. The reason for the ban is not known.”
Istanbul - BİA News Center
30 June 2009, Tuesday
GoogleSites allows users to create their own websites, and there are thus thousands of sites available.
Now the 2nd Criminal Court of Peace in Denizli, western Turkey, has banned access to GoogleSites.
The decree of 24 June 2009 does not give any justification for the decision.
Call for protests
The Alternative Informatics Association (Alternatif Bilişim) has criticised the closure, calling for Internet users to protest to the Telecommunications Department by fax, email and telephone and for those who have sites on GoogleSites to protest, too.
The association has offered legal advice for anyone wanting to write a letter of objection or wanting to proceed legally.
The association says that between 23 November 2007 and 11 May 2009, access to 2,601 web sites was banned. Youtube, for instance, has been closed to users in Turkey since 5 May 2008. Other sites used by millions of people, such as wordpress.com, geocities.com, myspace.com, dailymotion.com and alibaba.com have also been banned.
Freedom of expression constantly violated
Alternative Informatics has criticised Turkey’s authorities for their censorship and for their expectation that web sites with users from around the world abide by Turkish legislation.
“The Internet is a space where thoughts can be expressed freely, but sites which contain dissident opinions are being banned one after the other.”
For the association, access to Internet and effective use is “one of our most basic rights”. It has called on people to defend this right. (EK/AG)
(Via Bianet: English.)
China thinks twice – and its 300m internet users scent a rare victory | World news | The Guardian
* Jonathan Watts in Beijing, Bobbie Johnson in San Francisco and Ian Black
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 June 2009 20.59 BST
For the netizens of the world’s biggest online community, it was a rare victory. At the 11th hour, and with no proper explanation, the Chinese government, the most assiduous internet censor on the planet, engineered a sudden climbdown.
Instead of proceeding with plans to transform its notorious Great Firewall internet censor with new tools known as Green Dam, the authorities desisted. A terse statement ran on the Xinhua news agency. ‘China will delay the mandatory installation of the ‘Green Dam-Youth Escort’ filtering software on new computers.’
The plan to bundle the software into every new computer in China had provoked an unprecedented wave of online opposition, protests by foreign governments and calls by prominent bloggers for Chinese netizens to climb, attack and demonstrate against the ‘Great Firewall’. China insists the software is necessary to clear the Chinese web of ‘harmful content’. But critics say it is a misguided attempt to put the internet genie back in the bottle by a Communist party with about 300 million netizens to answer to.
But this was just a small victory in a larger war. The tools have been shelved temporarily, not scrapped. Wen Yuchao, a journalist and blogger who goes by the online name North Wind, cautioned against overoptimism. ‘I am happy at this news, but this is just an interim victory – we still have a long way to go in the struggle. It remains to be seen whether the authorities will press ahead.’
Delusion
The mini-victory for advocates of internet freedom has a wider resonance in a world where internet censorship is becoming something of a fad. Dozens of countries deploy tactics to filter, block or choke off internet access for their citizens.
When the web was in its infancy, a nascent hope was kindled that the technology would help roll back authoritarianism. Two decades later, it often appears the reverse is true: that the authoritarians are rolling back the internet.
‘The internet is sort of becoming the most regulated communications medium in the world,’ said Dr Yaman Akdeniz, director of Cyber-rights.org.
‘It’s not just new laws that governments are developing to increase control, but they are relying heavily on technological solutions to filter and block access to a variety of content and tools such as web 2.0 applications like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
‘In the mid-1990s there was the impression the internet would help create more democracy and openness and transparency. That was a delusion. The more the internet penetrated our lives, the more governments got concerned.’
Examples stand out almost every week. Last week, Kazakhstan introduced a new law to regulate forums, chats, blogs, and even online shops.
Last month, the German parliament voted through internet censorship architecture which, though aimed at child pornography, has aroused concern that it could be used to tackle other content.
Elsewhere, Turkey has blocked access to YouTube for more than a year. Several Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries maintain tight control over what websites are available.
In Guatemala, bloggers have reported websites being blocked, according to the Open Net Initiative, a collaborative partnership of leading experts advocating a free internet.
Iran has, moreover, offered a sobering study in how the authorities can turn censorship on and off like a tap. Filtering has become much heavier in the last fortnight. Some users have reported speeds of less than a tenth of normal operations.
‘The authorities are aware that almost every internet user knows how to get around the filtering and they don’t care much about it,’ said Mehrdad, a student. ‘But once there is a danger the internet may undermine the political system, they intensify censorship so it gets very difficult to get access to blocked websites even with anti-filter software.’
Monitoring
Crucially, all internet traffic in and out of Iran travels through one portal – the Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI) – though a few service providers operate below it. This makes it easier to monitor traffic. Sophisticated software allows officials to look at a website or tweet and see the IP address it came from. Decisions on blocking are made by a committee of government officials, members of the judiciary and intelligence services. Filtering is done by the telecommunications ministry.
‘The authorities can filter a new website within 24 hours,’ said Mahmood Enayat, an Iranian expert at the Oxford Internet Institute. ‘They monitor very intensively.’
Another method used by the state is deliberately to reduce bandwidth to prevent the transmission of mobile phone-recorded video. Still, that did not stop the world seeing the now iconic 40-second film of Neda Soltan bleeding to death on a street in Tehran.
‘If you put 65 million people in a locked room, they’re going to find all the exits pretty quickly, and maybe make a few of their own,’ commented James Cowie on the Renesys internet intelligence blog.
The Chinese climbdown offers a first glimpse of the netizens hitting back. As late as yesterday afternoon, information ministry officials denied the software would be delayed, but the authorities have been struggling to meet their deadline to roll out the image and keyword filter, which blocks pornographic, violent and politically sensitive content and monitors behaviour.
The Guardian struggled to find retailers who were selling computers with Green Dam software. In Zhongguangcun, Beijing’s electronic retail heartland, shop staff said they had not received instructions. In the vast Buy Now computer market in the city centre, assistants said the software was not available or would not be included until next year.
Embarrassed
It was unclear whether the reversal was an administrative failure or a change of heart in the government, which has been embarrassed by the backlash.
The US government called on China to abandon the plan. The European Chamber of Commerce co-signed a letter last week to prime minister Wen Jiabao that expressed concerns about the implications for internet security, trade and freedom of expression. But the fiercest opposition was online.
Isaac Mao, co-founder of the online Social Brain Foundation, believes the government made a mistake. ‘I think this is the tipping point between the people rising up and those in power trying to suppress them.
‘The Great Firewall is overloaded and that is why the authorities are trying to move the focus of control to the desktop. But it has annoyed a lot of people. Not just liberals who want free speech, but the young who see it as an intrusion into their personal lives.’
Numerous protests had been planned, including an internet boycott called by the prominent artist and freedom of expression champion Ai Weiwei.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the government will go ahead with Green Dam or a watered-down version of it.
But bloggers were positive about the long-term influence of the information technology evolution.
Michael Anti, an influential blogger, believes that netizens can still realise that original dream of the internet as a champion of free speech.
‘More and more people have accepted ‘internet-era values’ such as freedom of speech,’ he said. ‘In 10 years, more people will be netizenised, or liberalised, which will increase the chance of China having genuine democracy.’
Government sets up two new cyber security bodies: “The Government will create two new public bodies to help protect Government and citizens from digital security threats. It will set up one strategy body and one operations centre to increase the UK’s cyber security, it said.”
(Via OUT-LAW News.)
CN - China delays internet filter plan(BBC)
China is delaying a controversial plan requiring all new computers sold in the country to be equipped with an internet filtering software, state media says. The filter, called Green Dam Youth Escort, was to have been required from Wednesday, but the ministry of industry said computer makers needed more time. Its planned rollout sparked widespread disapproval inside China, legal challenges and overseas criticism. Officials say it is designed to shield children from pornography and violence. The BBC’s Quentin Somerville, in Beijing, says the reversal is an embarrassing climb down for the Chinese government.
(Via QuickLinks Update.)
Prosecutors drop ‘freedom threatening’ Girls Aloud obscenity blog case: “A blogger has been acquitted of obscenity offences in a court case that could have redefined UK citizens’ right to free speech on the internet. Prosecutors offered no evidence against the 35 year-old.”
(Via OUT-LAW News.)
Italian secret internet censorship list, 287 site subset, 21 Jun 2009 - Wikileaks
From Wikileaks
June 20, 2009
Summary
This list presents 287 internet sites currently censored by Italy. This quasi-voluntary system, which was introduced under the banner of fighting “child pornography” relies on a secret, unaccountable list of site names. Because of this lack of transparency, and the power of the censorship system, the blacklist is of intense interest.
Secret “child pornography” censorship blacklists in other countries, such as China, Thailand, Australia, Finland and Denmark have all been shown by WikiLeaks to have been corrupted into censoring non-child pornographic content, including political content (all but Denmark). It seems to be a law of human affairs that when such powerful, unaccountable, systems are introduced, they soon stray from their stated purpose.
The majority of sites on the Italian list seem to be unrelated to child pornography. While some do appear to relate to the images of teenagers, the vast majority of sites are related to what appears to be legal young-adult pornography. Some sites are unrelated to any type of pornography.
These include businesses or institutes outside of Italy, and discussion forums, used by tens of thousands for all purposes. While it is possible these sites had an unauthorized user briefly upload an underage image or link to such an image, the continued presence of the sites on this list likely reflects the lack of any censorship notification or appeal mechanism.
The Australian government admitted during a Senate estimates hearing that fewer than one third of its May 2009 blacklist was related to images of those under the age of 18.
During 2008, the government of Thailand added over 1100 pages to its censorship blacklist for “lese majeste” (criticizing the royal family).
Both the Australian and Thai blacklists have been going for a longer than the Italian system and are possibly substantially more corrupt as a result.
We checked the Italian censorship system against the top 1,000,000 most popular Internet domains (as measured by Alexa.com in November, 2008), together with selected blacklists from other countries to discover a portion of those sites censored by Italy. Botique sites and sites only recently popular do not appear in our list due to limitations in our methodology. That said, our list represents an accurate, current subset of the full list.
In Italy, blocking of content is done through DNS servers - when request for blocked site is made, user is redirected to IP 212.48.170.80 instead of original address. Two nameservers involved in the blocking are 212.48.160.5 and 212.48.160.6.
The list can be reproduced by using the Unix “dig” utility, using a command such as “dig @212.48.160.6 -f list +noall +answer” where “list” is a file containing list of domains to be checked (one per line). We then search for results which lead to IP 212.48.170.80, the site which displays the “censorship page”. This is a universal method, which can be applied to all DNS based blocking systems.
A hyperlinked version of the list follows for easy assessment.
Landmark case? No, not really. This was a prosecution which should have never taken place in the first place. Text based publications should not be the focus of any obscenity prosecution. [Yaman Akdeniz]
Girls Aloud net obscenity case falls at first hurdle: “
A landmark case, which could have led to draconian new restrictions on what UK authors may publish on the internet – and elsewhere – has been dismissed.…
“
Prosecution counsel were due today to open their case against Civil Servant Darryn Walker, aged 35, of South Shields, who was accused of publishing an allegedly obscene story online. Instead, they stood up in Newcastle Crown Court this morning and informed the judge that they would be offering no evidence. A statement may follow.
The story in question was published around two years ago on Alt Sex Stories Text Repository, a US-based archive of erotica which currently hosts around 400,000 stories of every shape, size and interest. Entitled Girls (Scream) Aloud, it focussed on the rape, mutilation and murder of the popular group Girls Aloud for – presumably – purposes of sexual arousal.
The Daily Star reported it to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) on the grounds that it could be criminally obscene, and the IWF referred the case to the police. Walker was arrested and charged. His trial was originally set for March of this year, but was delayed as both he and the prosecuting authorities decided to escalate the stakes by briefing top-notch barristers – Queen’s Counsel – to put their arguments.
The significance of this result cannot be underestimated. In the UK, the last major prosecution of a purely written work was for Inside Linda Lovelace in 1976. Following the failure of the jury to condemn that work as obscene, the Met Police backed off from prosecutions of wholly written material, expressing the belief that when it came to literature, if that work was not obscene, “nothing was”.
Clearly, a successful prosecution would have overturned a 30-year presumption against prosecuting authors for purely written material, and potentially opened the floodgates to a spate of prosecutions against online authors.
That genie now appears well and truly back in the bottle – although the fallout from this case is likely to be much wider, and to have a number of quite important consequences for the law and how written material is policed in the UK.
In a statement to The Register this morning, a spokesman for the Met said: “It was felt that the content of the material and the fact that it made reference to a band popular with young people who may search on the internet for information about them made this case worthy of consideration for prosecution and officers worked closely with the CPS throughout every stage of the investigations.”
Bootnote
Had the case gone to trial, your correspondent was due to give evidence on precisely the point made by the Met: at the time that the case first broke, one issue that became immediately very clear was just how difficult it was to find the site by chance. “Girls Aloud” by itself returns over two million Google hits – and the term needs refining using a range of very non-innocent words before you stand any chance of finding this story.
In effect, the more famous the target of a story, the more people who may be looking for them - but also, the harder it is to find any given story about them. ®
(Via The Register - Public Sector.)
European Commission calls for an open, independent and accountable governance of the internet: “(RAPID)
The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, has called for more transparency and multilateral accountability in the governance of the internet. At present, a private US-based body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ( ICANN ), is responsible for coordinating key elements of the internet. The Commission agrees that private companies should continue to take the lead in the day-to-day management of the operation of the internet, as long as they are accountable and independent. The Commission also believes that decisions about the internet, especially those about openness and security, should be taken in a transparent and accountable manner because they affect everyone around the globe. ICANN currently operates under a Joint Project Agreement with the US Department of Commerce which expires on 30 September 2009. In the view of the European Commission, future internet governance arrangements should reflect the key role that the global network has come to play for all countries. Commission Communication ‘Internet governance: the next steps’ COM(2009) 2007.
“
(Via QuickLinks Update.)
BBC News: Swiss bust child pornography ring
Published: 2009/06/28 21:29:11 GMT
Swiss police say they have uncovered an internet child pornography network spanning 78 countries and involving at least 2,000 IP internet addresses.
An inquiry was launched after a tip-off from Interpol about a website based in Switzerland being used as a forum for illegal child pornography films.
The site was officially devoted to hip hop music but was used to access videos of child pornography via secret codes.
The site designer was unaware of how it was being used, Swiss media report.
“ It is the biggest concern of its kind dismantled in Switzerland ”
Jean-Christophe Sauterel Police spokesman in Vaud
Swiss federal police spokeswoman Eva Zwahlen said the authorities had been monitoring the website in the south-western canton of Vaud, the Associated Press reports.
She confirmed a Swiss newspaper report that the investigation involved people from the US, Poland, Greece and other countries.
Jean-Christophe Sauterel, a police spokesman in Vaud, told Swiss newspaper Le Matin Dimanche that it was “the biggest concern of its kind dismantled in Switzerland”.
According to the newspaper, dozens of arrests and several convictions have been made as a result of the investigation, which began in May 2008.
Speaking about suspected users of the illegal material in Switzerland, Mr Sauterel said none of them were based in Vaud itself.
The website’s owner told the newspaper of their shock at being told by police about how it had been used illegally.
The site’s designer was not aware what it was being used for and was cleared of any involvement in the ring, police were quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
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