Censorship

France’s Proposed Web Blocking Law: A Threat to Internet Freedom, Warns Mozilla Foundation

France's forthcoming SREN Bill could mandate web browsers to block websites deemed illicit by the government, setting a precarious standard for digital freedoms, warns Mozilla Foundation in a recent blog post. more

China Tightens Internet Control in the Name of Fighting Porn, Piracy, and Cybercrime

As the year draws to a close, China's blocking of overseas websites - including Facebook, Twitter, and thousands of other websites including my blog - is more extensive and technically more sophisticated than ever. Controls over domestic content have also been tightening. People who work for Chinese Internet companies continue to complain that they remain under heavy pressure... more

China Hacks Google, Etc.

Many news sources are reporting on how Google and other corporations were hacked by China. The reports, depending on vendor, blame either PDF files via email as the original perpetrator, or lay most of the blame on an Internet Explorer 0day. more

The U.N.‘s Threat to the Net

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, writing in The Washington Post, declared that it is a "mistaken notion" that the U.N. "wants to 'take over,' police or otherwise control the Internet." Unfortunately, neither the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the WSIS' Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) or the Secretary General's column give comfort to those committed to cyber-freedom. more

Catalan Government Claims Spanish Online Censorship Breaching EU Laws

The Catalan government has written to the European Commission claiming that the Spanish government is in breach of EU law. In a letter from Jordi Puigneró Secretary of Telecommunications, Cybersecurity and the Digital Society at the Government of Catalonia addressed to Andrus Ansip, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, the Catalan government calls out the moves by the Madrid government as censorship. more

EFF Warns ICANN Not to Engage in Censorship, Says It Should Stick to Technical Role

A series of articles published by EFF, coinciding with ICANN's 60th meeting in Abu Dhabi this week, Jeremy Malcolm warns that domain name registrars, registries and ICANN can become "free speech week leaks" for online censorship. more

Breaking the Internet HOWTO: The Unintended Consequences of Governmental Actions

"Breaking the Internet" is really hard to do. The network of networks is decentralized, resilient and has no Single Point Of Failure. That was the paradigm of the first few decades of Internet history, and most people involved in Internet Governance still carry that model around in their heads. Unfortunately, that is changing and changing rapidly due to misguided government intervention. more

FTC to Big Tech: Don’t Trade American Privacy for Foreign Demands

In a striking admonition issued on August 21st, Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), cautioned over a dozen major technology firms against bowing to foreign demands that compromise American users' data security or freedom of speech. more

Proposed New IETF Standard Would Create a Nationally Partitioned “Internet”

For those worried about the threat of a state-based takeover of the Internet, there is no need to obsess over the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) exclusively. Three Chinese engineers are proposing a way to alter Internet standards to partition the Internet into autonomously administered national networks, using the domain name system (DNS). The idea was not proposed in the ITU; no, it was sent to a multi-stakeholder institution, the granddaddy of the Internet itself, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). more

When Did We Give Away the Internet?

I've been following the recent news on the World Summit on the Information Society, and it's getting really bizarre. The Wired article is one example of out of the out-of-this-world coverage on the World Summit; I heard a similar spin yesterday on a radio show that often shares material with the BBC. What king or dictator or bureaucrat has signed the document giving power over the Internet to one organization or another? Did I miss the ceremony? One laughable aspect of news reportage is that the founders and leaders of ICANN always avowed, with the utmost unction, that they were not trying to make policy decisions and were simply tinkering with technical functions on the Internet.  more

‘Internet Fragmentation’: A Defining Challenge for Digital Technology Governance?

At the recent Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 80 Policy Forum meeting, one notable takeaway was its close focus on questions around the stability and security of the technical layer of the Internet: the growing risks which assail it, and potential ways to address these through governance. more

Free, Slow, Censored Internet: A Bad Idea

The FCC is looking for an organization to provide free, slow, and censored Internet access. The censorship apparently would include email as well as websites. According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal: "Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is pushing for action in December on a plan to offer free, pornography-free wireless Internet service to all Americans, despite objections from the wireless industry and some consumer groups [nb. and from me]... The winning bidder would be required to set aside a quarter of the airwaves for a free Internet service [nb. the WSJ hasn't got that part quite right]." more

Egypt’s Internet Blocked - I Call on My Friend Tarek Kamel to Unblock It and Join His People

Internet all over Egypt has been blocked in an unprecedented revolt. I call on my friend Tarek Kamel, Egypt's Minister of Telecommunication, to overturn this oppressive decision and to unblock the Internet in all Egypt immediately and to join his people in their peaceful revolt. I have known Tarek Kamel for more than a decade and long before he became minister back in the days when he used to say he had no authority and that the decisions were in the hands of his boss and that he was a mere decision-less adviser to then Minister of Telecommunication, Mr. Nazif. more

We Must Keep Track of How Countries Will Confront Cybercrime in a New UN Convention

As a designated committee of experts prepares to draft a new treaty to combat the use of information and communications technologies in cybercrime at the UN in January 2022, it is paramount that other stakeholders oversee these discussions to avoid violating human rights on the Internet. This initiative was kickstarted by a 2019 resolution led by Russia and endorsed by other countries considered by many to behavior controversially on cybersecurity matters, such as China, Venezuela, Cambodia, North Korea, and others. more

The Empire Fights Back!

Even as we increasingly discover that every facet of our modern lives now revolve around, and are dependent on the Internet, for which reason its availability, functionality, safety, stability and security are now of great and continuing concern to all of us. These issues have a profound impact on its overall governance. To most of us, during the past three decades, the Internet has always been available, stable, affordable and open; and it should continue this way even as it is controlled and administered in a secure manner... more