The Syrian Government's Internet Strategy

decora writes "In a recent article on Al-Jazeera, Jillian York of the EFF speculates about the true nature of the Syrian 'hackers' who defaced AnonPlus. She references a University of Toronto analysis from May, which pointed out that the supposed independent hacktivist group the Syrian Electronic Army has a website that is hosted and registered by the Syrian Computer Society — a group that dictator Bashar Al-Asad used to run and that was founded by his brother. York has previously written about the mystery of the pro-Asad twitter floods of April, and the convenient unblocking of social media sites like YouTube and Facebook earlier in the year, which allegedly allowed the Mukhabarat to spy on and entrap opposition activists through forged SSL certificates. She also points out the numerous cases of Syrian bloggers being censored, arrested, and persecuted for their writings online. Is the Syrian example evidence against the vision of internet-as-liberator?"

Comments

This should serve as evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

The model of the Internet as a liberator is flawed.

As long as government can control things like DNS resolution and certificate signing then the people are at the mercy of the Internet. Regimes both here and abroad will use the Internet to turn citizens into compliant consumer cattle.

For the Internet to be our liberator it must be decentralized and secure. No one agency must be able to control infrastructure like name resolution or authoritative certificate signing.

What's more, we can't let their identity (that is, the identity the government assigns each of us) become compulsory in cyberspace.

If they can't control the flow of communication and they can't control who communicates (by identifying them) then they cannot use the Internet to control the people.

Up to now the Internet has interpreted censorship as damage and routed around it.

The new Web buzzword.0 model of monolithic branded services, untrustworthy CA roots, and government identity is not designed to route around attempts at meddling.

This is why revisions to empower the people must be decentralized and federated.

Re:This should serve as evidence

[Vintermann]

For the Internet to be our liberator it must be decentralized and secure. No one agency must be able to control infrastructure like name resolution or authoritative certificate signing.

Yes. But this is by no means enough. You fear the threat of governments, but you aren't nearly afraid enough of the undemocratic tendencies in non-government entities.

Fact is, the internet is a place of great inequality. There are inequalities of technical skill, which favor certain classes. There are inequalities of money. There are inequalities of time. There are inequalities of dedication and conviction (fanaticism). There are even inequalities related to such mundane things as time zones, bandwith and latency.

The consequence of all this inequality, is that some people are a lot - and I mean a lot better at making themselves heard, at setting the agenda, at drawing up the ideological boundaries. As surely as in the offline world (only to some degree, other groups are advantaged there). From this inequality we will see new elites form, willing to defend their established influence at the expense of everyone else.

What we need to do, to save democracy, is to start working seriously not just for freedom of speech online (which we pretty much have already), but equality of speech - what the ancient Athenians called isegoria. So that we get representative discourse, not discourse dominated by net-elites who through their advantages manage to drown out moderate and opposing voices.

Re:This should serve as evidence

[Vintermann]

Of course you'd rather have the net elites. You are part of the net elites (as am I).

But no, I'm not suggesting something like the fairness doctrine. That was fundamentally broken legislation (and not just because it was ruled unconstitutional). I'm suggesting that individual sites/forum systems, like disqus, reddit or slashdot for that matter, start experimenting with democratic moderation systems again, to counter one by one the advantages certain groups have in dominating the debate. It can be as simple as a max number on the amount of posts you get to make per day, or as complex as a demographic weighting system based on verified identities.

I think that users will gravitate to quality discussion forums, once we start to see systems that are genuinely superior.

Re:This should serve as evidence

[khallow]

Well, here's the thing. I like that. I don't watch Fox News because it's not news. But they are out there doing their thing which is what free speech is about. It's not just the pretty stuff like open, thoughtful speech, but also the stunted propaganda like Fox News.

It's not government's job to decide that Fox needs to cut their pulp with some sort of viewpoint attached to another side. Nor do I want government to have that sort of power. I'd rather have an abusive Fox News than an abusive government agency with possibly very bogus and unjust rulings on what the "fairness doctrine" means.

Re:This should serve as evidence

[Vintermann]

Fairness (not the fairness doctrine) is needed because on the net, groups like "Devil Worshippers" tend to be grossly overrepresented due to their fanaticism.

Imagine that they decided to abolish elections, and just make decisions in parliament by voting among whoever decided to show up. Every citizen equally entitled to walk in and take a seat. And no pushing! That would make every citizen equal, right?

Of course not. People understand why that would be a bad idea - some people would get there early, have the resources to bus in their people continuously, etc. The advantaged would simply out-shout their opponents. Yet they don't seem to understand the problem of handling important public debate in a similar free-for-all, presistence-makes-right scenario.

Another example

[jaymzter]

Remember the disinformation campaign the Mukhabarat ran to make it seem that the innocent lesbian blogger they were persecuting was really just some American dude? Like we're fools or something!

Free Gay Girl Now!!

Re:Another example

[EvilStein]

you know that turned out to be a complete hoax, right?

Say it again

[Anonymous Coward]

Identity is one of the most dangerous concepts of the 21st century.

As long as the royal "they" (governments, big corporations) can tell us who we are then they shall remain in control.

They can arrest Citizen #123-45-6789. They cannot arrest Anonymous Coward. They cannot arrest LibertyDude123. They cannot arrest anything from cyberspace without first identifying it in meatspace.

If we're all Guy Fawkes then they are powerless.

By resisting the creep of identity into cyberspace we can keep cyberspace free and available for social change.

Anonymous Coward is immortal. He cannot be arrested and his ideas cannot be destroyed. What he says stands on its own merits, provoking thought in everyone who can access his message.

The internet is a tool..

[3.5 stripes]

It's not a liberator, it's not an educator, it's not an oppressor, it's just a tool.

You can use it for those things, and many more, but it isn't any of them.

Gov't and Corp already powerless ...

[drnb]

As long as the royal "they" (governments, big corporations) can tell us who we are then they shall remain in control ... If we're all Guy Fawkes then they are powerless

Democratic (as in democracy, not the US political party) governments and corporations are already powerless. Governments are guided by our voting patters, or our apathy. Corporations are guided by our buying patterns, or our apathy. Neither can do more than we allow.

Running down the street in a Guy Fawkes mask and breaking windows and setting cars on fire is powerless. That plays into the establishment's game, its what the system is designed to handle. What the politicians can not counter is you voting for someone else. What the CEOs can not counter is you buying someone else's product. Politicians and CEOs are both greed oriented, one craves votes the other money, we are the source of both so we are in control. Vote and spend wisely if you want change.