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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.
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
"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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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