The University of Sunderland posted a blog post about my research:

A C&T [computing & technology] student, who has spent the last nine years using his computing skills to support Tibetan democracy, claims that the freedom fighters are now facing online espionage on an industrial scale.

David Murakami-Wood (of the Surveillance Studies Network) and Richard Thomas (the UK's Information Commissioner) have released a report (via BBC):

Fears that the UK would "sleep-walk into a surveillance society" have become a reality, the government's information commissioner has said.

Reuters

ranked the country alongside Russia and China as "endemic surveillance societies".

I've posted a few pieces on Nortel's GSM-R system along the Qinghai-Tibet railway & located a new tele-geography of security that parallels China's Western Development Strategy.

Lobsang Yeshi, takes up the theme; [“The only thing rising faster than China is the hype about China.”] . . :

The most precise location-tracking system GSM-R digital wireless communication network and surveillance system acquired from Canadian Nortel Networks Corp for the railway is believed to be meant for other strategic purposes.

Phayul had an article at the weekend that helps develop this theory:
Sabotage angst along Tibet Railway

Along the entire railway line, the Military Area Commands of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Qinghai Province have reportedly deployed a security safety net with a contingent of up to ten thousand soldiers and civilians patrolling day and night. The Head Quarters of Qinghai Armed Police Force has assigned several branches of its force to safeguard the train throughout its journey.

Communication for security forces along the railway has been stepped up so that conversations on walkie-talkie are now possible on long distance. To this effect, China Telecommunication Company and China Railway Communication Company installed adequate communication equipment and communication stations every 6 kilometres along the whole railway line.

The report suggests that Chinese paramilitary forces are directly benefitting from the GSM-R installation along the railway.

I'm very excited by Praxis' soon-to-be published book on Cyberwar, Netwar, and RMA:

The end of the Cold War ushered in a new phase of global security in which new threats and challenges emanate from non-conventional sources, and in which the weapons and means to prosecute war harness new technology. By the mid-1990s terms such as cyberwar and netwar were being used to explain a new way of thinking about war. The intervening years have seen the development of new defence policies, such as the US military Vision for 2020 and the Revolution in Military Affairs, whilst the threat of terrorism has become a painful and sad reality. The period has also seen the development and deployment of a range of new technologies for military operations ranging from new smart mechanisms to deliver weapons to surveillance and communications technologies that can change the very nature of warfare and security. This book attempts to consider this balance between the technologies and policies deployed to respond to terror and the need for human and civil rights.

The editors are Dr Eddie Halpin, Dr Philippa Trevorrow, Professor David Webb & Dr Steve Wright

Returned from Dharamsala, India .. ran into Oxblood and others. Xeni Jardin has a series of interesting articles for NPR and Wired:

Across the border from Chinese-occupied Tibet, the tech infrastructure in this high mountain village is a mess. But a former Silicon Valley dot-commer and members of the underground security group Cult of the Dead Cow are working with local Tibetan exiles to change that using recycled hardware, solar power, open-source software and nerd ingenuity. The volunteers are building a low-cost wireless mesh network to provide cheap, reliable data and telephony to community organizations.

[Check out the Air Jaldi summit later this year].

I'm in India, a country that has just joined the North Korea-Myanmar-Saudi Arabia-China-Zimbabwe net censorship club:

So, India has finally made it to a select club of nations. So far, we were only part of a wider group where the state could bar internet access. Now we’ve taken entry to the North Korea-Myanmar-Saudi Arabia-China-Zimbabwe club where even blog access is state-determined. There are two things to note here, and the first would have already struck even those who aren’t sure what a blog is: most newspapers have already carried, alongside the censorship reports, detailed pieces on how to use the internet to access the forbidden sites anyway. This isn’t due to a dissident mindset: newspapers solidly part of the establishment have done so. They had to, simply to remain relevant: an elementary query on Google will take you to website after website which tells you exactly how to evade such decrees and the information was on blog after blog within hours of last week’s order.

The Observer :: Blog:

Google's soul-searching reflects a growing dilemma for all companies operating in countries and contexts where human rights are abused.

Some companies are now beginning to realise that to avoid the risk to their reputation of being seen to aid and abet repressive governments, they need to have in place comprehensive human rights policies.

The mistake that companies such as Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft have made is to move into the lucrative Chinese market without understanding or addressing their impacts on human rights.

openDemocracy: The mass protest in Nepal against the royal dictatorship looks unstoppable – but making democracy will be hard, reports Maya G Kumar Anuj Mishra traces the bitter roots of a grassroots revolution in A breaking wave of democracy. "I want to be back on the streets, to be part of this history-making tide." Prominent Nepali editor Kanak Mani Dixit writes from a Kathmandu detention centre, & detained Nepali civil-society representatives pen an open letter to foreign ambassadors.

A PBS backgrounder on Ultrareach, a software program designed for Chinese citizens to circumvent their government's Internet censorship: transcript.

Geov Parrish introduces the world's proto-fascist superpower in Working for Change. Parrish notes that, "in the U.S., it is primarily ethnic Chinese, evangelical Christians, and hard-line conservatives -- not liberals -- who agitate over China's horrific human rights record". As if to reinforce that point he interviews PNAC fellow Ethan Gutmann.

. . .author of Losing the New China (essentially a memoir of U.S. corporate practices in Beijing), identifies Microsoft as one of the more influential U.S. companies now in China. "In terms of the Internet, foreign corporations are making the human rights situation worse. The problem is not censorship but surveillance equipment," Gutmann says, leading to Internet self-censorship, powerlessness, and fear among Chinese hoping to challenge the totalitarian practices of their government. Cisco Systems is the biggest purveyor of such equipment, but Microsoft is also suspected of colluding with Beijing on this item. . Beijing these days is anything but Marxist; Gutmann identifies it instead as "proto-fascist."

He's not alone in his prognosis. A number of pundits have characterised the fourth generation leadership in this way. Veteran BBC reporter, Tim Luard

This was where the tanks came in on that awful night. Or was it? Modern Beijing is like something out of science fiction: endless galaxies of ring roads, flyovers, vast intersections and gleaming monolithic tower blocks...as China becomes a bigger power in the world its government is becoming ever more fascist. In the run up to the Beijing Olympic games one can't help thinking of Berlin in the 1930s.

another veteran, Jamyang Norbu quoting

Jasper Becker, the Beijing Bureau chief of the South China Morning Post has published a detailed analysis of China's political metamorphosis in a recent article.3 This is his theory on the genesis of the transformation: "Realizing that the demise of communism deprived the CCP of an ideology and a reason to exist, Jiang (Zemin), Hu (Jintao), and their peers are quietly remaking China into a fascist state bearing a striking resemblance to its '20s predecessors... the kind of highly nationalistic right-wing dictatorship that emerged in the '20's and 30's in Germany, Spain, Japan, Romania, and most notably Italy. Since at least the late '80s CCP leaders have instituted economic programs recalling fascist ideas of "planned capitalism." To complement its economic policies, the CCP has developed a neo-fascist political program of mass rallies, nationalist indoctrination, and party control over private lives."

As for what I think, I haven't thought this one through properly, and its too early to tell. I mean, I carelessly stuck the 'neo-fascist' label on the CCP following China's accession the WTO in September 2001, but I'm not convinced that its all that helpful. I think I'll get hold of Giddens' Beyond Left and Right.

The pundits who embrace or reject globalisation too often live in an eternal present and ignore the lessons of the phenomenon’s deep past, says Alex MacGillivray in openDemocracy.

The amnesiac approach is particularly marked in relation to globalisation, where breathless noting of the latest awesome statistic can replace a search for the historical context and meaning that can alone make sense of it.

If this is true of news journalism, it is less so of the background analysis of experts like Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat) and John Ralston Saul (The Collapse of Globalism). The publication of these two books at the moment I was finalising my own book on the subject (A Brief History of Globalization) may be healthy evidence that the balance of understanding is shifting.

Steven Mufson writes in the Wasington Post about the myopia of internet evangelists, a phrase coined by James Mulvenon

to describe those who cling to the belief that the Internet "leads to 'tulip' and 'orange' and every other possible color and flower of revolutions around the world."

Take China, for example. Sure, China is being gradually transformed by the Internet, although not in the way many the majority of observers would have predicted -

The Chinese Communist Party, long expected to be a victim of economic modernization and the transformative powers of technology, has instead been learning how to use those powers to its own ends. This isn'merely a matter of the widely publicized blocking of the Internet; the CCP has been learning how to use the Internet as a tool for surveillance.

In an interview with de Groene Amsterdammer's Richard de Boer [129(47) van 25 november 2005, pp.20-23.] I expressed frustration that media coverage of China's Internet experience focuses on state censorship (when it isn't breathless over the potential of 1 billion consumers logging on) at the expense of analysis of dataveillance:

"Westerse ngo's moeten begrijpen welke rol de staatssurveillance speelt in de onderdrukking van afwijkende meningen", zegt freelance onderzoeksconsultant Greg Walton: "De aan obsessie grenzende nadruk in het Westen op de Chinese internetcensuur leidt de aandacht af van complexere vraagstukken."

meanwhile China is itself transforming the Internet. China, the U.S., everyone is co-evolving within this framework. As I said in 2001,

The self-interested high-tech discourse promises that new information and telecommunication technologies are inherently democratic and will foster openness wherever they are used. China’s Golden Shield...debunks this myth. Technology is embedded in a social context and, in this report, it has been shown to bolster repression in a one-party state in the name of expanding markets and exponential profits.

U.S. corporate capitalism in the service of the security apparatus of Chinese communism ... baffled?!

Christopher R Hughes (reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics (LSE) in oD on China's “socialist spiritual civilisation”:

The overall result is a peculiar globalisation of nationalism that allows some sense to be made of oxymoronic concepts like the “socialist market economy”. It also provides an ideological justification for the emergence of an elitist techno-nationalism appropriate for the current generation of leaders. This was systematically formulated as party orthodoxy when the theory of the “Three Represents” – coined by then-CCP general secretary Jiang Zemim – was put alongside Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory as an element of the party line at the Sixteenth Party Congress in November 2002. The Resurgence of Chinese Nationalism in the Global Era

How can China's security apparatus keep track of people in a country as vast as China?

By using much the same methods that the United States uses to track terrorist cells. Although the National Security Agency's eavesdropping program has attracted a lot of attention here, in China listening-in is an old habit. It's the way the NSA most likely identified the thousands of people it chose to listen in on -- through a program called Novel Intelligence from Massive Data -- that is the source of real hope for China's communist mandarins.

Can you still draw a line between China and U.S. agencies applying data mining to social control? MSNBC:

Holding the line at privacy invasions that “makes sense” is the most subtle of standards, a fine line that police, governments, and citizens will now try to walk in the post Sept. 11 world. Libertarian cries of absolute privacy sound empty these days, with the knowledge that Khalid al-Midhar and other plane hijackers exploited America’s lax security measures. At the same time, what’s to keep overzealous investigators from using the Anti-terrorism Act to create America’s version of Golden Shield? Sullivan, the techno-savvy police investigator, says the Supreme Court will play the crucial role in picking through those issues.

“The crux of the difference (between the U.S. and China) is the Supreme Court,” said Sullivan. “Ultimately they will decide what’s Constitutional and what’s not. We have the ability as U.S. citizens to cry foul. In China, citizens do not.”

WorldVoteNow & Aidworld are researching the infrastucture for a Global Human Referendum. They want to connect with individuals, groups, schools, institutions, organizations, administrations, countries and companies in every part of the world. They are especially interested in working with collaborators who want to participate in the GLOBAL E-VOTING SIMULATION. All that is required is a functioning internet connection and the desire to participate in the field test on May 15, 2006. To get involved with the World Vote Field Test, please contact the coordinating office in Madrid.

There has been a debate about the Chinese translation for "CC" -- now it's formally "zhishi gongxiang". China, welcome to the Creative Commons.

I heard Mairead Corrigan speak last week. Inspiring, Christian witness, the Irish people have - for generations - been friends of the Tibetan cause,

Mrs. Takla last visited Ireland in December 2003 when she was invited for the launch of the Irish All Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet and to speak at the All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs’ hearing on Tibet. At the time she thanked the Irish government and people for all their support, and recalled “the years when Ireland took the initiative in sponsoring United Nations General Assembly Resolutions on the issue of Tibet. The then Foreign Minister of Ireland, Mr. Frank Aiken, who, in appealing to the United Nations General Assembly during its debate on Tibet in 1959, said: "Looking around this assembly, and looking at my own delegations, I think how many benches would be empty in this hall if it had always been agreed that when a small nation or a small people feel in the grip of a major power no one could ever raise their voice here; that once there was a subject nation, then must always remain a subject nation. Tibet has fallen into the hands of the Chinese People's Republic for the last few years. For thousands of years, or for a couple of thousand of years at any rate, it was as free and as fully in control of its own affairs as any nation in this Assembly, and a thousand times more free to look after its own affairs than many of the nations here.”

Phayul:

The Dalai Lama inaugurated the third Tibetan Children Village (TCV) students Peace Jam conference this morning at the TCV hall.

According to a Peace Jam mission statement "Peace Jam is an international youth outreach programme built around 12 Nobel peace laureates who work personally with youth to pass on the spirit, skills and wisdom they embody."

"The goal of Peace Jam is to inspire a new generation of peacemakers who will transform their local communities, themselves, and the world."

The Nobel laureate Betty Williams was the guest of honour at this conference. Betty Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work against violence between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. She shared the Nobel Peace Prize with fellow Northern Ireland peace activist Mairead Corrigan.

The Independent:

Quietly but nonetheless perceptibly a feeling is growing that the
half-century stand-off between Beijing and the Dalai Lama could be about to
be eased, starting with a visit by Tibet's spiritual leader to China.

To allow the Dalai Lama to visit the Buddhist holy sites in China while
keeping him away from Tibet might be a useful device for disarming China's
critics abroad, especially if the news could be announced just before the
visit of President Hu Jintao to Washington later this month. The central
conditions, Beijing insists, would have to be that he promised to declare
his acceptance of Chinese rule. . . .

That may be fine in diplomatic terms. The Dalai Lama abandoned his call for
independence in 1988 and has instead sought a degree of self-rule whin
Chinese control. But even that may be too much for a Chinese communist
government that has arrested monks [not to mention nuns], taken political control of monasteries,
poured in Chinese immigrants and completed a $3bn railway to open up
communications with the country, all in a clear effort to overwhelm a
separate Tibetan culture and religious faith. The Dalai Lama may be right to
try and open the door a little in the hope of using the leverage to open it
still further. But those who believe in a distinct Tibetan culture and
people should be wary of Beijing using the symbolism of reconciliation to
mask the reality of continued suppression.

Almost half a century after the Dalai Lama escaped into exile, Is China ready to welcome home the Dalai Lama? The Dalai Lama has expressed an interest in a pilgrimage Wu Tai Shan for sometime now [an archived link to a site i threw together when the current round of negotiations commenced in 2002, admist coordinated attacks on the TGIE's computer networks].

Yesterday Ye Xiaowen, head of China's powerful State Bureau of Religious Affairs, appeared to extend an olive branch when he said: "As long as the Dalai Lama makes it clear that he has completely abandoned Tibetan "independence", it is not impossible for us to consider his visit. We can discuss it."

Are Tibetans ready to negotiate with China? Samdup offered these reflections as he begins this new phase in his work:

After 20 years of lobbying Canadian politicians and raising public awareness, I have come to realize that this approach on its own, will not achieve peace in Tibet or in other areas of conflict around the world. Knowledge must be informed by wisdom, an ethical base that goes beyond self-interest. I truly believe that the basic principles for ethical living as promoted in the teachings of the Dalai Lama will find resonance with individuals and their communities. Ultimately this approach will contribute more concretely towards changing societies from within. In addition to supporting the DLF's mission of promoting education for ethics and peace, Samdup hopes to build a national peace coalition to advance concepts such as compassion and non-violence. He is currently working with City of Montreal officials to declare September 21st as an International Day of Peace, an initiative that parallels similar efforts at the United Nations. Montreal is well-suited to take the lead in this area. It is home to numerous diverse cultural communities and bears the proud motto Well-being through Harmony.

What's going on?

Some analysts believe Beijing could be prepared to engage in meaningful dialogue because there are fears that when the Dalai Lama dies, it could create a power vacuum which violent young separatists could try to fill. China is keen to ensure whoever succeeds the Dalai Lama is someone it can do business with. . .

I got hold of a copy of People Power and Protest since 1945 last week. Really recomend this compendium. Writing in openDemocracy, Prof. Paul Rogers describes what

could well be one of the most significant books to be published in this decade. It reviews over 900 sources of information on non-violent social change, covering a huge range of movements across the world and bringing together a wealth of experience that will be an eye-opener for many people.

Jim Schuyler (blog) is CTO of the Dalai Lama Foundation and founder and CEO of Red7. Jim picked up on AFMP, (The Game of Non-Violent strategy) - not suprising, since he's been developing 'Serious Games' long before the buzz. Red7s Full-Immersion Technologies (FITs) for example,

make it possible to integrate a learning process, a game, or hands-on support for a complex technology, into your customer's real life. . . Create real-world games where participants find their clues in the cityscape, and interact by calling in for phone messages that take them to new places.. . . Each scenario may contain emails, video (presented online on the salesperson's computer), intranet and other web sites, phone messages, wireless text (SMS-to cellphones or PDAs), and simulated voicemail. These scenarios are implemented as sets of states and rules. A participant will always be in a single "state" within the scenario, and the FIT system is paying attention everything the participant does that's pertinent to that state. It may be sending an email from an in-game "character" to a participant, or waiting for the participant's response to that email. It may have several timers set - and when one expires it may send a reminder to the participant. It examines each incoming email from each participant, and analyzes it against the rules for the current state of the scenario.

The DLF hosts other blogs worth mentioning here. The One Village Foundation, which

Promote ecologically and socially responsible development in emerging markets through a comprehensive and synergistic set of programs called the oneVillage Foundation Initiatives (OVI).

The Study Circles blog - (you can download the Ethics for a New Millenium guide in English here, or in Chinese here). And for those of you who have been asking about this photo of a wifi antenna in the Himalayas have a look at Dharamsala Information Technology Group blog, and the Tibetan Technology Centre:

a charitable organization dedicated to harness modern technology for helping the Tibetan community in India. The center is located at the Tibetan Children's Villages School (TCV) which host and supports it. The center is managed by a board of directors who work closely and consult with a large group of local and International technology experts. The center aims to become financially self-sufficient and generate income to be re-invested in the center and donated to TCV schools.

An interesting paper by Dimitrios Delibasis, State Use of Force in Cyberspace for Self-Defence: A New Challenge for a New Century published in Peace Conflict and Development: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Issue 8, February 2006

Time can only tell how much of a threat information warfare will eventually prove to be. However, it has undoubtedly given a completely new meaning to the term ‘warfare’ and nullified traditional borders between States. In essence, it has set forth, for the first time in the history of the law on the use of force, several new regulatory challenges the successful answering of which calls for the creation of a new paradigm with regard to the legal norms relating to forcible action. This is an issue which sooner or later the international legal community will have no choice but to face. And before it finally does so, perhaps it should remember the words of James Thurbur: “In times of change, learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned are beautifully equipped for a world that no longer exists”.

I hadn't given much thought to this question before reading Delibasis' paper. So, how do you regulate the use of non-kinetic force in international conflict? The Red Cross (ICRC) maintains a reference section on their website that includes documents that explain how parties to a violent conflict are limited in their choice of methods and means of warfare; the rules in force define permissible uses of weapons and military tactics. The ICRC defines IW

as operations to disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy information resident in computers and computer networks, or the computers and networks themselves. The methods and means used are defined as predominantly information systems based or designed to specifically effect the information infrastructure without immediate traditional physical damage.

The work of Dr. Knut Dörmann, (Deputy Head of the Legal Division, ICRC, Geneva) provides a helpful conceptual framework for considering the implications of CNA to International Law, for example:

Computer network attack and international humanitarian law Extract from The Cambridge Review of International Affairs "Internet and State Security Forum", 19 May 2001, Trinity College, Cambridge, UK
& Applicability of the Additional Protocols to Computer Network Attacks

The UN is building a new platform for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue, The Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The mandate of the IGF is set out in Paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda. Mr. Nitin Desai, the Secretary-General's Special Advisor for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held consultations on the convening of the IGF in Geneva on 16-17 February. In advance of the event, the Internet Governance Project released a new discussion paper explaining how the Forum could work. The paper proposes three design criteria for the Forum:

1) It must be as open as possible and give all stakeholders equal participation rights;
2) its deliberations must be wide-ranging and resist politically motivated barriers to discussion; and
3) its products must feed into other, more authoritative Internet governance forums. We proposed a structure and process for the realization of these objectives. We also set out three policy problems that exemplify the kind of issues the Forum should take up: spam, Internet free expression, and public policy principles for the coordination of Internet resources.

The IGP summed up the consultations on the convening of the IGF in Geneva on 16-17 February:

At the conclusion of the meeting, Desai summarized the results as follows:
* A date for the first IGF will be announced in a few days.
* The Forum will have open participation.
* The first IGF meeting in Athens will take 4 days
* There will be a plenary and space for smaller meetings.
* Participants were asked to fix their ideas on three major themes and transmit them
to the Secretariat by March 31.
* It will be a UN process and thus will need a host country agreement
* There was no consensus on a management structure, or even on what to call
the representative decision making body. Desai did, however, rule out separate bureaus.
He asked participants (especially governments) to consider this issue and respond by
Feb. 28. Once the UN process constitutes it, they will solicit names from the various
stakeholders and that will take several weeks.
* In a victory for the civil society advocates, Desai concluded that the text of the
WSIS Agenda doesn't rule out any topic. What the Forum discusses, he said, is
just a matter of priorities.
...
All in all, the outlines of the new Forum are still hard to discern, but in those areas
where consensus was reached the results were not bad. IGP encourages civil society
actors to submit preferred "themes" such as human rights, freedom of expression
and privacy, as few governmental or business entities are interested in those topics.
Submissions should be sent to wgig@unog.ch.

In another article Milton Mueller [academic, lead voice of the Internet Governance Project] goes on to say: "I think it went pretty well. But we do believe the forum should integrate online collaboration into the process in a more radical way than people here can even understand." ®:

With the programme decided, the most controversial aspect of the forum will be the extent and depth of online collaboration between parties.

There was broad agreement that an Internet Governance Forum should have an online equivalent. However, many governments are hoping to keep the level of collaboration down to mere preparation for the annual meeting, while business, academic and civil society all want internet technology to be used to help build consensus, find and discuss issues, and effectively become the IGF.

Already there have been several offers to build and host online tools - one of the most comprehensive from a collaboration between Harvard and Stanford universities going under the name Geneva Net Dialogue. One of the key staff on the IGF's secretariat, Chengetai Masango, is also very knowledgeable about online collaboration tools.

However, governments are still uncomfortable with online interaction and are keen to limit its influence on the process.

Civiblog Central- Is there a possibility of an alternate internet source? Apparently yes.

Milton Mueller in Icannwatch:

This is being widely described as an "alternate root." Technically, this is true: it functions the same way as an alternate root. But in reality it is something more interesting (and dangerous?): it is a national root, a way of keeping the Internet bounded to a political jurisdiction so that it can be regulated more easily. China is not attempting to replace ICANN's root globally. It is not interested in adding TLDs for markets and users outside of China. It is interested in locking Chinese-speaking users within China into a DNS root under its own control.

CRI via Xinhua

Canadian ambassador to China Robert Wright on Friday called for Canada and China to further expand their investment scale.

The ambassador noted that bilateral investment volume between the two countries is still too low as compared with the current rapid growing bilateral trade volume.

China is now the second largest trade partner of Canada after the United States. The China-Canada trade volume reached 35 billion Canadian dollars (approximately 25 billion US dollars) last year, while the bilateral investment volume was much lower.

Canadian investments in China in actual use were only 4.5 billion US dollars until 2004, and Chinese investments in Canada were less than 500 million US dollars.

However, the situation is improving, Wright said, noting that some Canadian financial, telecom and insurance companies are exploring the Chinese market at present.

Canadian telecom giant Nortel Networks set up a group of more than 1,000 researchers in south China's Guangdong Province.

Richard C. Morais, (Cover story for Forbes)

. . . with engineering help from half a dozen Western firms, the Chinese Communist Party has erected a huge apparatus to censor free speech. A ragtag crew of hacker dissidents may succeed in tearing it down.
In a windowless room in New York City a computer engineer with owlish glasses--call her “Jenny Chen”--peers at a color-coded bar graph on her PC screen. Her group is launching attacks on the Chinese wall of censorship that blocks access to sites discussing verboten topics like civil rights and democracy. The graph displays how many Chinese that month evaded the country’s censorship to condemn the Chinese Communist Party.

Chen, a Beijing-born woman of about 40, runs her own IT businesses. Her group, and like-minded “hacktivists” (as they call themselves) spread around the globe, are chipping away at the Golden Shield, the term that describes the filtering system that censors the Internet and e-mail of China’s 110 million Internet users. The invaders slip contraband words and ideas in and out of the country via such means as mass e-mails, proxy servers that aren’t yet blacked out and code words that aren’t yet on government blacklists.

Civiblog launches new community news interface :

Civiblog is very proud to unveil a new look for the Civiblog community. Civiblog users now have acccess to ease of use features. The new Civiblog provides dynamic new ways to follow the discussions throughout the global Civiblog Community. With the new Civiblog it is easy to follow the new and growing members of the Civiblog Community. Civiblog is an international initiative with the aim of giving voice to individuals and organizations involved in global civil society. We provide platforms and resources for NGOs, activists, dissidents and individuals at risk through the medium of blogging.

New York Times:

"If you study the main international practices in this regard you will find that China is basically in compliance with the international norm," he said. "The main purposes and methods of implementing our laws are basically the same."

The briefing was one of the few times any senior official has spoken in detail about China's management of the Internet. Officials assigned to enforce the government's media controls operate behind closed doors and rarely make public statements about their work.

The Internet policies of China have come under closer scrutiny abroad after Google and Microsoft acknowledged helping China censor information available through Web searches and blogs, and Yahoo has been accused of providing data that helped convict dissidents who used its e-mail accounts.

Mr. Liu said the major thrust of the Chinese effort to regulate content on the Web was aimed at preventing the spread of pornography or other content harmful to teenagers and children. He said that its concerns in this area differ minimally from those in developed countries.

Human rights and media watchdog groups maintain that Chinese Web censorship puts greater emphasis on helping the ruling party maintain political control over its increasingly restive society. Such groups have demonstrated that many hundreds of Web sites cannot be easily accessed inside mainland China mainly because they are operated by governments, religious groups or political organizations that are critical of Chinese government policies or its political leaders.

Press release for the hearing in U.S. congress tomorrow. References State department's launch of GIFTF:

Rep. Chris Smith -- chairman of the House panel that oversees Global Human Rights -- is preparing questions for representatives of four major US internet companies that operate in China, State Department officials and representatives of human rights NGO's. The hearing will mark the first time in the House of Representatives that live bloggers will be permitted to report on the hearing in real time.

Earlier today, Secretary Condoleezza Rice announced a Global Internet Freedom Task Force in order to ensure "a robust US foreign policy response" to the international issues and fundamental human rights concerns inherent in the expansion of the Internet including: "the use of technology to restrict access to political content and the impact of censorship efforts on US companies; the use of technology to track and repress dissidents; and efforts to modify Internet governance structures in order to restrict the free flow of information."

"The establishment of the Global Internet Freedom Task Force by Dr. Rice is a welcomed step and is a provision already included in legislation that I am currently drafting to address the issue of internet freedom," said Smith. "I am looking forward to an honest and straightforward dialogue about the operating processes and procedures of internet companies in China, the demands put forth by this communist regime and the continuing human rights abuses by the PRC."

The cDc hereby commands that you print up t-shirts with this graphic and wear them with pride. Join our global campaign against Google's appeasement policy with China. Civiblog Central comments

If you feel outraged by Google's partnership with the Chinese government, make plans this Valentine's Day to boycott Google. Also, try a search engine comparison tool to see the difference made by blocked keywords.

For Joseph Khan, its all over anyway, So long, Dalai Lama: Google adapts to China . . .

Some apprehension communicated to me relating to this brief post the other day - Cybersatyagraha ... Gandhi needs to be reinvented in India today. ..er, no - not a call for "cyberterrorism" or "eJihad". Just what Nagarjunawould make of DDoS I'm entirely unsure, but even the most basic reading of Gandhian thought highlights an overriding commitment to communication - and to keeping channels of communication open: Basic Concepts of Satyagraha: Gandhian Nonviolence: (from the APT Nonviolence Trainer's Manual).

II. "Ahimsa" --- refusal to inflict injury on others.
A) Ahimsa is dictated by our commitment to communication and to sharing of our pieces of the truth. Violence shuts off channels of communication.

You'll find that same commitment in discussions around hacktivism: Hacktivism and Human Rights: Using Technology to Raise the Bar (July 14, 2001, DEF CON 9, Las Vegas).

. . I think it's important to make that clear right from the start. That we're not talking about cyberterrorism, we're not talking about information warfare, we're not talking about taking down the Chinese backbone. We're talking about more constructive, positive ways of dealing with human rights abusers. I think that's something we all agreed on, straight away.

der Derian's concept of Infopeace describes it beautifully:

Information peace (infopeace) is the production, application, and analysis of information by peaceful means for peaceful ends. Starting with Gregory Bateson's definition of information as 'any difference that makes a difference', infopeace seeks to make a difference in the quality of thinking about the global contest of will, goods, and might. Measuring information in terms of quality rather than quantity, and assessing quality by the difference it makes in the reduction of personal and structural violence, infopeace opens up possibilities of alternative thought and action in global politics. Unabashedly utopian and pragmatic, it counters a 'natural' state of war with a mindful state of peace.

A mindful state of peace posits the eventual abolition of violence as a global political option. Peace-mindedness ranges from the prevention, admonition and mediation of violence, to the outright disavowal of violence as a political option for the resolution of problems in the international arena. It draws on a long tradition of peace-thinking, exemplified in early Christian pacifism and Eastern philosophies, in which the need for peace begins internally and proceeds outwardly. It starts by embracing a wholeness of the individual, and expands to families, communities, countries, and beyond. The notion of Gaia, as a self-regulating biosphere, contributes to the rhetoric of peace thinking; but it is the networked reality of an expanding infosphere which makes peace an attainable and evermore vital necessity.

Infopeace seeks to prevent, mediate, and resolve states of war by the actualization of a mindful state of peace. Following Gilles Deleuze's insights about the virtual possessing a reality that is not yet actual, infopeace stresses the actualization of peace through the creative application of information and technology. Critical imagination is the best antidote to the kinds of technological determinism that increasingly circumscribe human choices.

Infopeace integrates a strategy in which difference, conflict, and antagonism are recognized as essential aspects of human relations. It aims to develop an awareness of how these aspects can be addressed by non-violent means. Infopeace accepts the Augustinian paradox that the actualization of peace might entail (limited) violence, yet seeks to apply alternatives means of securing the self, the group, or the state. In short, infopeace is utopian in intention, pragmatic in application.

Beijing blogger Anti (安替) is known as one of China's most prominent and influential investigative bloggers. Widely read both domestically and abroad, Anti's blog at MSN Spaces was abruptly shut down by Microsoft on December 31, 2005. Visitors were greeted with a "Space not available" error message.

Anti has since re-opened his blog at the US-hosted Blog City—although his domestic readers will no longer be able to visit it as access to Blog City is blocked for mainland Chinese Internet users. On January 14, 2006, Anti issued an open statement regarding his views on the unexpected closure of his MSN Spaces blog and the recent congressional briefings and hearings concerning human rights and the Internet in China.

HRIC has provided an unofficial translation of Anti's statement on a new website, IR2008. The original Chinese-language post can be found on Anti's blog:

. . . In addition, with globalization and politics increasingly bound together, I don't think treating the issue as a black-and-white matter will necessarily help expand the rights of Chinese people. On the one hand, Microsoft's shutting down of blogs impedes Chinese people's freedom of expression; on the other hand, in the past year MSN Spaces has expanded the ability and desire of Chinese to use blogs, and MSN Messenger also facilitates disseminating information through the Internet. These are the two-sided effects created by the blind pursuit of profit. How Americans judge and penalize this problem is really their own issue, but I myself believe that if companies compromise all of the principles for the sake of an opportunity to enter the Chinese market, at least in the short term, Chinese netizens will not have more freedom. Moreover, we must recognize that Yahoo's betrayal and Microsoft's compromise are completely different matters.

We are in a very complicated situation, just as with the problem of whether economic sanctions can improve democracy in a country, having seen that in the 1990s this kind of action had both positive and negative impact on China and Iraq. These types of awkward and complex circumstances are the shame of the Chinese, and something I hesitate to discuss outside of China. I can only quietly repeat this dream to friends: I hope that one day, on Chinese land, fairness will surge like water, justice like a torrential river. Even though our voice is weak, inside we remain steadfast as a rock.

With playful speculation bubbling around Google's next moves (Goobuntu or Napster etc.) I thought I might add some ludicrous suggestions of my own.

Google is one of the most powerful supercomputing platforms in the world. Tor is a distributed network that anonymizes web browsing and any other applications that use the TCP protocol. Tor's security is improved as it grows and as more organisations volunteer the time and bandwidth to run servers. Google has alot of bandwidth and servers. (The Googlesphere, as presented in the company's public announcements, comrises more than 100,000 servers ranging from 533 MHz Intel Celeron to dual 1.4 GHz Intel Pentium III - that's 126–316 teraflops, one third the speed of the Blue Gene supercomputer, the most powerful unclassified computing machine available to humanity. There's a significant difference between Google and Bluegene - Google is interwoven with the internet. Physical infrastructure - Google's four U.S.-based datacentres - two in Silicon Valley and two in Virginia - each with an OC 48 (2488 Mbit/s) internet connection. Data - a constantly updated fascimile of the internet itself).

Suppose Google were to install Tor's Onion Routers throughout its serverfarms. Global internet users communications would bounce around anonymously in a massive distributed network of virtual tunnels. It would be unprecendented in scale, a network that would open up the internet to people in censored regimes all around the world. It would enable a generation of software developers to create new communication tools with privacy built-in. The Google platform running onion routers would provide an ecosystem for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their identity. By donating - say, 20kb/s of bandwidth per server(!) - Google would be in a position to - inadvertently - overwhelm, the 'Great Firewall' - a striking way to differentiate itself from competitors - particularly those invited to testify in congress todayand in two weeks time: Cisco Systems, (Google), Microsoft, Yahoo.

. . . I doubt Google can even afford to have people sitting around thinking about providing a free privacy service to the planet. For a (not-so-)small - but vocal - proportion of its users? Perhaps, - or is it that Google's business model is now inextricably linked into a downward spiral of content/user aware advertising and anti-democratic emerging markets - increasingly at the expense of its more mature markets?

HRC:

In the 108th Congress, the provisions of the "Global Internet Freedom Act" (H.R. 48) were subsumed into the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2004-05 (H.R. 1950) and passed by the House on July 16, 2003. Christopher Cox reintroduced the bill (H.R. 2216) in the 109th Congress in May 2005. If passed, the act would authorize $50,000,000 for FY2006 and FY2007 to develop and implement a global Internet freedom policy. The act would also establish an office within the International Broadcasting Bureau with the sole mission of countering Internet jamming by repressive governments.

Update: Google's Human Rights Caucus briefing submitted via blog.

Mark Fiore's iRepress - Search & Repress!

The MacArthur Foundation has awarded $3 million to the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and its partners to advance their collaborative study of state-sponsored Internet filtering worldwide through the OpenNet Initiative. In recent years the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), a joint project among the University of Toronto, Cambridge University, Harvard Law School, and now, Oxford University, has produced a series of snapshots mapping internet censorship and surveillance practices on an international scale - a global MRI of the internet.

Statements from OpenNet Initiative Principals:

"Over the last several years, the OpenNet Initiative's careful and intensive research has put a spotlight on Internet filtering and surveillance practices worldwide, raising serious questions about the transparency and accountability of states and corporations who participate in them," said Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. "The MacArthur Foundation's support for the Berkman Center and the OpenNet Initiative will help to sustain and broaden this research over the coming years."

"The contest between states, corporations, and individuals shaping the technology and rules that govern the Internet is at the core of the new geopolitical environment, and will define civil liberties in the coming decades," said Rafal Rohozinski, director of the Advanced Network Research Group, Cambridge Security Programme (Cambridge University). "The MacArthur Foundation's generous support to the OpenNet Initiative will ensure that the debate defining the appropriate balance between national security and civil liberties is supported by credible comparative research."

Prof. Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard Law School and Oxford University, has brought the Oxford Internet Institute into ONI. Writing recently Zittrain said

Collaborative is the key word. What is needed at this point, above all else, is a 21st century international Manhattan Project which brings together people of good faith in government, academia, and the private sector for the purpose of shoring up the miraculous information technology grid that is too easy to take for granted and whose seeming self-maintenance has led us into an undue complacence.

Google's Answer to the China Question suggests T-Salon? I suggested this exact solution to Google PR people from my 'office' in Berkeley, Ca. in 2002 (old doors for office furniture, not included).