Along the way, issues regarding Censorship and the stifling of of freedoms naturally arise as some seek to control content while others strive to acquire content without considerations towards others. Being informed is tantamount as we strive to preserve our freedoms while staying safe and secure. Vietnam Escalates Online Censorship. Most of this report was researched, written, and edited by Hae-in Lim, Lisa Ferguson, Alex Laverty, Ellery Roberts Biddle and Sarah Myers. Global Voices Advocacy's Netizen Report offers an international snapshot of challenges, victories, and emerging trends in Internet rights around the world.
This week we begin in Vietnam, where drastic new restrictions for online speech will soon come into force. Free Expression Internet cafe in Saigon, Vietnam. Photo by Ivan Lian. (CC BY-NC-ND) Vietnam's Internet may take a serious hit come September, when a new decree law banning a wide range of online content will come into force. Chinese singer Wu Hongfei was arrested for threatening to blow up “two Beijing municipal government agencies and a bunch of people [she] hate[s]” on Sina Weibo. Peruvian lawmakers introduced a new bill aimed at protecting children from online pornography. Thuggery Intellectual Property Surveillance Fallout from PRISM continues. Cool Things Publications and Studies. MA Teen Arrested And Held Without Bail For Posting Supposed 'Terrorist Threat' On Facebook. I'm going to take a guess and say the national Terrorism Mood Ring is still set to 'OVERREACT' if this story is any indication.
Cameron D'Ambrosio, a Methuen, MA high school student, was arrested May 1st and charged with "communicating terroristic threats" based on a Facebook posting. He is being held without bail pending a hearing on May 9th and could face up to 20 years in jail for making a "bomb threat. " The threat (at least the one that appeared on Facebook), as reported by the Boston Herald, reads as follows. (For best results, fill in the blanks Mad Libs-style and spell "bombing" correctly.) “I’m not in reality, So when u see me (expletive) go insane and make the news, the paper, and the (expletive) federal house of horror known as the white house, Don’t (expletive) cry or be worried because all YOU people (expletive) caused this (expletive).
This was posted to D'Ambrosio's Facebook page, which looks altogether similar to thousands of teens' Facebook pages. Strange. Wow. Planet Blue Coat: Mapping Global Censorship and Surveillance ToolsThe Citizen Lab. Download PDF version Read The New York Times article associated with this report. The following individuals contributed to this report:Morgan Marquis-Boire (lead technical research) and Jakub Dalek (lead technical research), Sarah McKune (lead legal research), Matthew Carrieri, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, Ron Deibert, Saad Omar Khan, Helmi Noman, John Scott-Railton, and Greg Wiseman.
Summary of Key Findings Blue Coat Devices capable of filtering, censorship, and surveillance are being used around the world. During several weeks of scanning and validation that ended in January 2013, we uncovered 61 Blue Coat ProxySG devices and 316 Blue Coat PacketShaper appliances, devices with specific functionality permitting filtering, censorship, and surveillance.61 of these Blue Coat appliances are on public or government networks in countries with a history of concerns over human rights, surveillance, and censorship (11 ProxySG and 50 PacketShaper appliances).
Part I: Background and Context B: Results. NearlyFreeSpeech.NET Blog » Official UK government attempt at censorship | Rights & Liberties. Court Forbids Linking to Pirate Bay Proxies. The Court of The Hague has handed down another ruling that restricts access to The Pirate Bay website. The Court has forbidden the Dutch Pirate Party from linking to, operating or listing websites that allow the public to circumvent a local Pirate Bay blockade. The political party is further ordered to shutdown its reverse proxy indefinitely and block Pirate Bay domains and IP-addresses from its generic proxy.
After two Dutch ISPs were ordered to censor The Pirate Bay earlier this year there was an influx of visitors to Pirate Bay proxy sites. In an attempt to take these proxies offline the Hollywood funded anti-piracy group BREIN obtained an injunction against one of the sites and used this to convince others to shut down as well. The list of secondary targets included the local Pirate Party, who initially refused to give in to the demands but were later ordered to take their reverse proxy offline by the court. Pirate Bay proxies are a hot topic, and not just in the Netherlands.
Rojadirecta: The Government Reverses Course and Returns Domains Without Explanation. Again. The government has decided to return two domain names it improperly seized and held in its possession for well over a year, without so much as an explanation. This time, it was Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org, Puerto 80’s popular sports streaming sites, which the government seized back in February 2011. Following the seizure, Puerto 80 fought back, petitioning the government for return of the domains, noting that its linking activities were not infringing.
Indeed, Puerto 80 is a Spanish company, and a Spanish court had already found the sites legal. In a disappointing opinion, the district court disagreed, holding that the government did not have to return the domains. Puerto 80 appealed, and the case was still pending, until today, when the government mysteriously dropped the matter. Dropping the case was, of course, the right move. The government's copyright arguments were incredibly weak (it’s pretty well-settled that linking is not infringement). Leaked MPAA Memo Reveals TV-Shack Press Strategy. A leaked "memo" from the MPAA shows how movie industry insiders are being briefed to respond in media interviews on the extradition case of TV-Shack admin Richard O'Dwyer. In the talking points the MPAA describes the UK student as a deliberate criminal while mocking his wardrobe. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who launched a petition to stop the extradition, is called out as "presumptuous" by the movie industry group.
Last year Richard O’Dwyer was arrested by police for operating TVShack, a website that listed user-submitted link to TV-shows. The UK student has since fought a looming extradition to the US, but thus far without success. In March, Home Secretary Theresa May officially approved the extradition request from US authorities. In June the case was once again brought to the attention of the mainstream press when Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales launched a petition to stop the extradition. “This case isn’t about Internet freedom. “We think it’s presumptuous of Mr. The ‘Memo” Are Your Politicians For Sale? Another Internet Piracy Bill Introduced. A bill similar to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) — which was postponed earlier this year following significant public backlash and scrutiny — is being introduced by Rep. Michael Rogers (R-MI) and sponsored by 106 House members. Already, Rep. Rogers’s Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA) is receiving significant criticism.
Per the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Under the proposed legislation, a company that protects itself or other companies against “cybersecurity threats” can “use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyber threat information to protect the rights and property” of the company under threat. EFF staff technologist Dan Auerbach says CISPA and SOPA are separate bills with separate issues.
First, the definitions are too vague in the bill. His third concern: the bill would give authority for gathering “cyber intelligence” over to the super-secretive National Security Agency (NSA): It puts not a civilian agency in charge, but the NSA. Study Finds China Censorship Of Social Media Is Real, Pervasive.
Censorship.