Slashdot Mirror
Sell Out: Blocking an Open Net
Governments in Muslim nations, as well as China, have repeatedly made overtures to and done business with Net-filtering companies. But no nation has used blocking software as vigorously as Saudi Arabia, according to the New York Times. By royal decree, virtually all public Internet traffic to and from the kingdom has been funneled through a single control center outside Riyadh since the Net was first introduced there three years ago. If the Riyadh center blocks a site, a warning appears in both English and Arabic: "Access to the requested URL is not allowed!" Saudi Arabia blocks sex and pornography sites, as well as those relating to religion and human rights.
Now nearly a dozen software companies, most American, are competing for a hefty new contract to help block access to even more sites the Saudi government deems inappropriate for its country's half-million Net users. In fact, the Saudi government is helping to pioneer something once thought impossible -- a sanitized Net for an entire nation and culture.
American software companies are only too happy to help them do it. Software executives say they are only providing politically neutral tools. "Once we sell them the product, we can't enforce how they use it," Matthew Holt, a sales executive for San Jose's Secure Computing, told the Times earlier this week. Secure provides filtering software to the Saudi government under a contract that expires in 2003. The Saudi government is also reportedly talking with Websense, SurfControl and N2H2 of Seattle.
The Saudi government has already spent a fortune to design its centralized control system before permitting Net use a few years ago, selecting Secure Computing's Smart Filter software from four competing U.S. products. SmartFilter came with ready-made blocking categories like pornography and gambling and was also customized to exclude sites the Saudis perceived as bad for Islam, the royal family, or the country's political positions.
This is a radical assault on the spirit of the Net, of its open, point-to-point design, its great promise to democratize information. By allies, no less. And don't for a minute think there aren't plenty of fanatics and zealots in the United States who won't love the idea as well. Remember that the Harry Potter series is now the most banned book series in American libraries.
The Saudi government, along with other non-democratic countries, are notoriously technophobic. They are eager to participate in the emerging global economy, but desperate to stanch the free flow of information that might provide diverse information to their citizens. And they have no problem finding software companies, including American ones, that are happy to help extend censorship. The corporatist rule is simple -- maximize profits at all costs under virtually all circumstances.
Countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia and China have been surprisingly successful at wiring up certain segments of their societies while controlling information deemed insensitive for political or religious reasons. The Net can, in fact, be used to make money and suppress freedom. These governments have undercut the great promise of globalism, prosperity, technology and democracy, allowing corrupt and anti-democratic governments to prosper, in part by censoring information -- something many of us thought the Net would make impossible.
This highlights the menacing way corporatism exploits technology, undermining the most basic American values.
"We have a really serious problem in terms of the American free speech idea," says Jack Balkin, a Yale Law School professor who specializes in the politics of Internet filtering. "But it is very American to make money. Between anti-censorship and the desire to make money, the desire to make money will win out." This is a profound blow to the whole idea of using technology -- especially the Net -- to force a more open society.
That's a bitter indictment of a nation that purports to be advancing democracy throughout the world, that's supposedly fighting a war to protect freedom. The reason money will always win out is corporatism, which subverts almost every other value in the name of profit, and which has made globalism a dirty word.
The question is: is there a limit/border and if so, where is it? If it's wrong to sell to Saudi Arabia, is it right to sell to city librarys? To parochial schools that block contents? To parents that block content from their children? It seems pretty obvious to me that the parents one is OK (before you flame, wait! let me put my flame retardant on. OK, proceed). Selling to the Saudis is morally dubious at best, so where is the line?
By the way, morality in many other aspects has never stopped old time American companies in the past. Need examples? How about Phillip Morris: is it moral to sell something to people that will harm them for sure and shorten their life span almost surely? Still, people have no problem investing in this company.
News flash for ya, Katz...
corporatism != humanitarianism.
Of course American companies are going to jump on the opportunity to make a few million from the Saudi government. That's why they exist - to make money. They don't care if they're limiting the content that a bunch of people half a world away can access. Why is this such a big deal? Because a single country won't have access to the internet in its full, uncensored form? They should be happy - no porn popup ads, no Microsoft Approved content, no CRAP!! If anything, it sounds like this will limit the "Saudinet" to being *gasp* and INFORMATIONAL RESOURCE!!!!
Dear god, the humanity!!!
The FCC routinely blocks all sorts of content from American TV with little resistance. I don't see how Americans can be shocked when other governments do the same thing in other mediums.
Jon Katz is right!
Corporate Corpratists are jerks! I think we should attack all countries that do not share our views on free speech and expression. We can replace the gov't of Saudi Arabia and China with truly democratic regimes.
Before we take on nations, we need to take the fight to the Elitist Global Corporate Entities like Websense. It's about time!
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Not so what so much for the oppressed citizens of Saudi Arabia, but this is just the logical conclusion of the US's policy towards the country. This is just the corporate world getting their cut of the profits out of the situation.
After all the US has been happy to prop up a corrupt, undemocratic and brutal regime there just to ensure the free flow of oil to fuel SUVs and cheap fuel. Every time a USian moans about the price of fuel they're helping to keep the citizens of Saudi Arabia under oppression. And since our country is all about money, money, money at the expense of little things like decency and human rights, why shouldn't our corporations get involved in helping? It's not like they don't have enough practice at oppression themselves.
Sorry, but if you're getting upset about this I suggest you first take a long look at what our government has done in Saudi Arabia first. Whining about censoring the net when these people lack even a pretense at human rights just shows you're hopelessly naive.
Read it here China's Dot-Communism
and read about the restriction of innovation on the internet here: The Internet Under Seige by Lawrence Lessig
tcd004
"Take, for example, the corporatist American and European companies happily selling blocking software to countries like China and Saudi Arabia so their governments can pervert the Net to deny their citizens basic freedoms."
Or, look at them as providing the necessary obstacles to encourage entire legions of new hackers. There is no better way to motivate a person, especially a young person, into doing something than by telling him/her that s/he can't do so.
The Americans/Europeans get to profit from these oppressive governments while simultaneously and surreptitiously undermining those very regimes.
Perfectly brilliant plan, in my opinion.
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
I don't think that there is any selling out going on here. There is a difference between globalization and communism.
The fact that people are selling the software to China and elsewhere is proof that globalization is occuring, we are all seeing each other as neighbors, and business partners now. That means if I don't sell them my software someone else will.
It is not up to us to judge our neighbors, we may or may not like how they do things, we may even use other methods to try to "encourage" them to change but Im not going to let my competitor sell them my legitimate product because I disagree with how they use it; thats up to their government.
Business is business, and business in a global economy as in any "free enterprise" economy means you supply the consumer what they want, because if you don't someone else will. This does not mean that business is relieved of any moral obligations; however in this case the businesses are not supplying weapons to terrorists; the business is merely respecting the governments attempts to "protect" (and yes I agree its not the best way to protect) their citizens from outside influences. But what China is doing is not really that much worse than what Australia has been doing in recent years.
they can fight for it, just like the US did, after all, a people that gives up freedoms for security deserve neither. The Saudis have the power to change, *IF* they want to change, thats *their* option...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
"This is a radical assault on the spirit of the Net, of its open, point-to-point design, its great promise to democratize information."
I'll agree with some of what you write, but, I can't agree with all of it. We look at other governments and their policies through our own set of lenses, which paint things in terms of democracy, liberty, and all sorts of other American ideals. Now while I'm not saying the censorship certain nations apply should be aplogized for or encouraged, those nations have their own set of ideals and therefore, may not see things the way we do when it comes to certain civil rights. Take Saudi Arabia for example. You have a monarchy which has a strong fundamentalist religious belief system. So Saudi Arabia prevents its citizens from seeing porn and subversive material. We take offense. Did it occur to you that the majority of the Saudi Arabian citizenry may actually WANT those things blocked so their children or family cannot see the things which may offend them? Just as there are southern baptists who rant and rave over the local Rock and Roll concert and demand that it is banned, I suspect there are those in Saudi Arabia who do the same thing. The big difference is that for the most part, those rabid baptists get ignored. In Saudi Arabia, they are the majority and cannot be ignored. Certainly, there may be citizens in Saudi Arabia who don't like the censorship, but there is probably an equal or larger number who are glad that it is there. If the majority of the citizens don't want that information available, then they have the right to ask their government to block it.
Since different cultures have different belief systems, and put emphasis on different values, their version of the Net will be different than ours, and therefore, blocking certain information makes sense to them. So this isn't a radical assualt on the whole Net, just the American Centralized view of it. If the Internet is supposed to be the great democratizer, then no wonder it is viewed as a threat to a government or nation's culture. We already do a wonderful job destroying world cultures with our consumer-based culture, and now we have a method to send it out as fast as possible. Since a majority of the world's internet sites are US based, and designed by those with US values, the Net therefore looks like an American value-based highway of information. Perhaps the censorship, while not always good, may allow for the creation of local culture-based website, un-inspired (untainted perhaps?) by American-based web/net culture. Then they can send this information back out to the Net and we can learn about their unique point of view.
Let me say again that I don't support censorship, but I also don't agree that our value system should be shoved down other people's throats. For that matter, I don't think anyone's value system should be forced upon anyone else. Make the information available, but don't shove it. If they don't want to hear it, fine. Go pass it along to someone else then.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
then why do Brits get to see tits on the telly & we don't?
Should this comparison include the thousands of Chinese citizens that were tried for petty crimes and immediatly executed as part of the governments crack down on crime?
-Rob
While I agree that Americans have it pretty good, I have to say I don't think it's a case of misguided priorities to consider the freedom to smoke weed an important barometer of freedom in general (and therefore indicative that Americans are less free than they ideally could be).
In fact, smoking weed is a religious and perhaps a medical freedom that we should all have-- there are religions in which smoking weed is as important as wine and bread are to most forms of Christianity (and quite frankly, as an atheist, I'm hardly interested in trying to decide which religious sacraments are valid based on the underlying religion and which aren't-- I consider them equals no matter what the derivation, as long as the adherents are sincere). And there is a growing body of evidence that, while marijuana may not be curative, restorative, or preventative, it is a source of relief-- and winning the mental battle is an important part of recovering from any illness or medical event.
But more importantly to the topic at hand, Jon Katz has asserted that Harry Potter is the most banned book in America! Prove it Jon!
I do not have a signature
When it comes to the DMCA, Katz correctly argues that a tool must be separated from its use when it comes to the law. The fact that some people use the tool Sklyarov's company wrote to infringe copyrights should not mean that the tool should be outlawed and its authors jailed.
Why, then, is it different now? A company writes software that can be used either for "good" or "bad" purposes, and all of a sudden it's wrong? What is Katz trying to say?
In my opinion, it's clear that Katz does not really believe the tool/use argument, it's just rhetoric. He believes that information should be free, and takes the appropriate position at opposite sides of the "can a tool be intrinsically bad?" argument in order to further his views. There's nothing wrong with thinking that, but he is being dishonest by arguing both sides on the same question depending on who the protagonists are.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
To everyone rushing to disagree with the parent of this post: Remember that the parent is the perfectly logical conclusion of moral relativism. If you think that you believe all morality is relative, yet you can't stomach the parent of this post, then I'd suggest a serious re-examination of your personal philosophy, because you aren't the moral relativist you thought you were.
I lived in Saudi Arabia from the age of 9 until I was 20 years old. My father lived there for an additional 7 years. That is from 1977 to 1997. We know Arabs and they are some of the most loving, gracious, and hospitable people in the world. As long as you don't try to change their culture. They are happy to do business with outsiders but the will not allow them to attempt to change their society. You and I agree, freedom is the natural state of humans. Oppression is not moral. However, if you demand that these people to change overnight then they will react violently. The internet would not even be in Saudi Arabia today if it were not for this filtering technology. And keep in mind, it is just technology, the determined mind can find a way around it.
Corporations exist solely for the production of profit for their shareholders. There is no other reason for their existence. A corporation is like a farm that is owned by several people, they will not continue to operate the farm if it does not produce crops. Likewise corporations. The very fact that a corporation has chosen the internet filtering sector as its market means that the people investing in the corporation and the employees working for it have no compunction against this technology and railing against their attempts to perpetrate that business is useless.
The NET in it's current form would not exist if it were not for "corporatism". I was on the internet in 1993. I had a shell account, no fancy PPP or SLIP connection, and got my first taste of the Internet's power. But the internet didn't really turn into what it is today until corporations decided it would be a good way to make money by providing internet access to "the masses" and then selling on the internet. Most of the internet users out there got access so that they could access information, mostly provided for profit, that they wanted.
Idealism is a nice thing as long as it stays out of the real world. As soon as you attempt to apply your idealistic ideas to the real world they break down. No, your morals are not necessarily right for everyone and No, corporations have no other obligation than to make money, and No the internet has not defined purpose, only the purposes we use it for. It is a tool and not an end.
Seriously though, instead of looking at things from the "Information wants to be free ... or else." perspective, let's start with no access as the reference point. Ok, so these governments are so insecure that they don't trust their people with information about bombs or the water supply or... Oh, sorry, wrong country. Where were we? Right, Saudi Arabia and that bunch. So these governments don't like new ideas. Like it or not, these are independent entities outside the US (or whatever country you are associated with). We can't just go around trying to enforce our laws inside their borders. Wait, sorry about that, apparently we can... Ok, this is getting confusing. The point here is that if a government wants to block information from its people, that's an internal matter for that particular country. We can't force every country to allow access to all information any more than you can demand that your neighbors teach their children all about homosexuality, witchcraft, or Linux. As for American countries selling the tools to block information, they sell the tools that allow your neighbors to block similar information from their children. In both cases, these are areas outside your control, regardless of your opinion on the matter. If your hypothetical neighbors (different ones this time) were forcing their children to participate in the creation of child pornography, you can't just go over there and start beating them up - only the proper authorities can intervene. You can forbid your children from visiting them, you can stop inviting them to your backyard barbecues, and you can refuse to buy those overpriced candy bars that their kids keep selling, but that's about all you can do directly, just like the US isn't in a position to force other governments to treat their people fairly (not that this has ever stopped the US government, but in theory...) - that's a job for a global governmental body.
On the bright side, at least the people in these countries have some access to the internet. Without these "filtering" systems, there might just be a Taliban-style ban (of course, that could be on the way, but taking things away tends to upset people more than not giving them something they never had in the first place). Whether or not that is acceptable is up to the people in those countries, not us. We can't just force our way over there and impose our values on them (well, we could, but that sort of thing doesn't usually go over too well), and we can't ban companies from helping other countries do something we allow our citizens to do to people under their control (again, we could, but that wouldn't make much sense, not that export controls have to make sense). What was the question again? Was there even a point in the first place other than the whole misguided "information wants to be free" type of complaining about limiting access to information?
This is also known as a "foreign policy that has no values".
We can't snap our fingers and make the middle east a democracy overnight.
Please. The US hasn't even made tacit overtures in this direction in fifty years. More accurately, the US doesn't care if Saudi Arabia ever becomes a democracy. As long as it keeps pumping gas.
Unfortunately, to short-sighted people, that makes the US look like we "approve of" regimes like that just because we support them against worse alternatives.
Well, there are always "worse" alternatives. There are always bogeymen hiding in the background. At some point you have to take a stand for some values. The US has never petitioned any of these governments to provide votes to citizens, support basic human rights, or in the case of Kuwait, make indentured slavery illegal.
If now isn't a good time to support democracy, when is????? All your "pragmatic" approach has provided is a stronger Iraq and Iran (yes, the US supported them when the "alternatives were worse").
Don't get off blaming the US for Saudi Arabia's treatment of its people. They have been doing this for many years before we needed their oil. Its common throughout the Islamic world for the people in power to thwart any freedom for their people. Its not OUR fault, it is not the West's fault.
We don't prop up Syria or Iraq yet they do the same as Saudi Arabia...
Its very politically correct to blame America for the worlds woes, but sometimes, just maybe, you have to blame those other countries for their own plight. In fact, dare I say it, Shirah is the primary source of Saudi Arabians oppression - its implementation has nothing to do with our oil or capitalistic needs but everything to do with THEIR culture and religon.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Yeah, "democracy" is pretty buzzy, but in the UN context, it has a pretty clear definition. After WWII, professor Arne Næss, whom I've met several times, lead a committee appointed by the UN to define exactly what was meant by democracy. They presented a huge report, but the definition hasn't stuck, because none of the superpowers liked it a lot....
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
I think USA should not try to force every country to be like US. You see, Thats why people like bin laden hate us, not because we are free, but because we try to force other countries to be like us.
I say let China be China, eventually they'll find an identity, and become a more free nation, yet presure their culture.
You see, China thinks Culture is more valueable than freedom. Sometimes the cost of freedom, is the destruction of culture.
Chinas Culture according to older Chinese government people, is becoming too American. They dont want China to become like America, They want China to be China. I respect them for that, If they want to censor the internet, and seperate the internet so they have their own Chinese internet, They have a right to do this, This is the kinda freedom that they want. They want to be independent, not depend on the USA for ANYTHING.
When you understand this, You'll have respect for China even if you may not want to live in their country, you can look at China and see the culture wasnt completely ruined by American Capitalism like some other countries we can take a look at.
Such as Africa, Japan, a few places in the middle east, If you look at these countries, they are slowly morphing into a smaller version of America.
Perhaps some country dont WANT this?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The Middle East has only recently (in thast 100 years or so) turned into such a hotbed of opression, and it all has to do with oil and foreign involvement.
What exactly do you mean? That there used to be Middle Eastern democracies before 100 years ago? That there was "free speech"? That Shariah was not the law of the land? That women had equal rights with men? That Muslims espousing "heretical" views were not put to death before 100 years ago?
The main difference between now and 100 years ago in the Middle East is that the countries there with oil have more money, which is being distributed in some amounts to the otherwise dirt-poor peasants (making them slightly less than dirt-poor).
As a side note, I will add that you were much better off as a Jew in an Islamic country than a Christian country in the past (esp. 1400-1600). Jews are probably better off in a Christian country today.
I'm not saying that the US is directly responsible for the treatment of Saudi Arabia's people, but I am saying that the US ensures that the status quo is maintained without being concerned about what this entails. Morality just doesn't come into it at all, it's all strictly business.
Given that it was mostly Saudi citizens who attacked NY, that bin Laden has much of his funding from Saudi princes, that the Saudi government funds the Wahabbi schools in Pakistan that teach hate-America fundamentalism, there's an argument that the US should take out the Saudi government. But considering how oil prices were conveniently manipulated so that gasoline went up just before the last US presidential election, Bush will remember his debt to the Sauds, as they remembered theirs to his father, so it's not gonna happen.
So, given that these are morally ugly people we're doing business with (Saudi princes routinely skip 10-15% off the top of all government contracts there, meanwhile religious police beat women in the street), what would a kinder, more moral US do with Saudi relations? We could stop buying oil; but most Saudi oil is sold to our European and Asian allies, not to us; so that wouldn't do much. We could try to arrange an international boycott of oil from non-democratic countries; yeah, right. We could support local forces which would like to replace the monarchy; those forces being mostly Muslim extremists. And who are we to force our model of government on the world?
So what would, like, the most beautiful thing the US could do vis-a-vis Saudi Arabi? A boycott like with Iraq doesn't look pretty either. Yet doing business with them necessarily "props them up." I suppose we could withdraw our troops and encourage Saddam to invade?
Please make a positive suggestion, don't just slime the US for living in the real world.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton