What does this mean in the context of nascent US efforts to regulate American corporate support for Chinese Internet censorship? First, this is further evidence of China’s retaliatory response to perceived western slights and threats against its government. Though the only justification listed in the news for the attacks was industrial espionage, there have been claims that these attacks are responses to affronts such as calls for boycotts of the Beijing Olympics, President Bush meeting with the Dalai Lama, or arms sales to Taiwan. These were also likely causes for preventing a US carrier group from recently making a port call in Hong Kong. China has practiced economic retaliation the past, notably blocking the acquistion by the Carlyle Group of a major Chinese construction machinery corporation following the US blocking CNOOC’s purchase of Unocal.

US policy development to hinder Chinese internet censorship may be seen as an affront by China, and as meddling in its internal affairs. It would not be surprising if a response to this would be increased cyber attack sor cyber reconnaissance of US government agencies and corporations. While these threats likely exist regardless of US regulation of censorship supporting companies, the possibility of it aggravating Chinese cyber-attacks must be considered.

Furthermore, the growing capability of Chinese hackers indicates increasing computer skills of the government and its personnel. As these skills proliferate elsewhere in the Chinese bureaucracy, there are opportunities for China to build indigenous skills to develop hardware and software that manage and control the online information. While there are certain capabilities in the filtering and blocking realm that China has not yet developed, it is concievable that it could acquire those needs elsewhere, or domestically overtime.

These are just a few concerns and challenges that face US efforts to stymie China’s Internet censorship.

According to a press release it issued last week, “Westminster City Council is today launching the UK’s first ever text service to help people find their nearest loo using pioneering ‘SatLav’ technology.” By sending a text message, a reply will be sent to one’s mobile phone detailing the location of the nearest public bathroom.

Though the uses of information, satellite and digital technologies are growing by leaps and bounds, this was not an application that would have immediately come to mind. Although, admittedly I rarely am so far from home, office or school that finding a bathroom has been all that much of a problem for me. Were I to be traveling abroad, or with young kids in tow, my appreciation for this service might be different.

It appears also that there may be a different culture about the loo across the pond that I’m just not familiar with. Westminster reportedly spends 3 million pounds a year maintaining toilets. A local councilman is quoted stating: “Westminster already has an unrivalled, award-winning provision of public toilets, placing us far ahead of any other local authority in the country.” Cheerio.

What does this mean? Well, though there are myriad applications for digital, mobile and information technology to improve living standards, grow economies and spur innovation, seemingly small, local needs will always be a prominent sector. Politicians can plug small programs, such as SatLav, to gain parochial favor, even if the benefit is marginal. Firms can capture markets with ‘gadgets’ and frivilous services. The balance, or digitial divide, between engineering the ‘wants’ of the North versus the ‘needs’ of the South needs examination.

Having the greater forsight and vision to apply technologies more broadly takes a different, and more selfless tact. Economics and markets alone will not solve these challenges. While there is nothing wrong with deploying a technology that helps well-to-do westerners find bathrooms, there are much more pressing needs in the world today. In the developing world, finding health care services, identifying water sources, accessing markets, creating communication links between feuding groups - these are the real challenges for ICT innovation. Let’s hope that the pursuit of western convienence does not force these more pressing needs to be, well, flushed down the toilet.

Regulations issued in 1997, known as the “Computer Information Network and Internet Security, Protection and Management Regulations”, are notable as they prohibit 9 broad information categories:

1. Inciting to resist or breaking the Constitution or laws or the implementation
of administrative regulations.
2. Inciting to overthrow the government or the socialist system.
3. Inciting division of the country, harming national unification.
4. Inciting hatred or discrimination among nationalities or harming
the unity of the nationalities.
5. Making falsehoods or distorting the truth, or spreading rumors
destroying the order of society.
6. Promoting feudal superstitions, sexually suggestive material,
gambling, violence, or murder.
7. Inciting terrorism or inciting others to criminal activity; openly
insulting other people or distorting the truth to slander people.
8. Injuring the reputation of state organs.
9. Engaging in other activities against the Constitution, laws, or administrative
regulations.

September 2004 brought a re-issuance of these regulations, along with 2 new rules, which Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) dubbed the “The 11 commandments of the Internet in China”. According to RSF, the two new rules issued are: It is forbidden to encourage illegal gatherings, strikes, etc to create public disorder; and It is forbidden to organise activities under illegal social associations or organisations.

The broadness of these regulations have been used to widely block, filter, censor information on the web, and at times, to arrest those who post such content. Specific topics or sites that have been forbidden by China include: Falun Gong; Tiannenmen Square; Taiwan; nationalist references to Mongolian, Uygher, and Tibet; democrarcy and dissedence; foreign government sites; foreign news sites; and religion. The empirical testing and analysis conducted by Zittrain and Edelman confirms that websites with this data are blocked in China. It found that also blocked are sites referencing to certain health issues, such as AIDS, sexually explicit content, and even educational sites, including US universities.

In February 2006, the Secretary of State created the Global Internet Freedom Task Force. While not specifically focused on corporate involvment in Internet censorship or control, its mission is certainly related. The GIFT is to report on:

The use of technology to restrict access to political content and the impact of such censorship efforts on U.S. 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.

As has been reported by the Open Net Initiative and others, US corporations are major providers of technology and services to the Chinese government for Internet filtering, blocking, surveillance and other activities. It likely provides similar support to other Internet-restricting nations. In the limited time remaining in the Bush administration’s term, it will be interesting to see if and how it reports on such issues when they will directly reflect on US corporate activity, and responsibility, in this arena. There is opportunity for conflict with the juxtaposition of the administration’s strong support for the business sector (and its promotion of international trade) and its advocacy for democratic governance and freedom.

The announced strategy for GIFT makes slim mention of the role of US corporations in facilitating internet censorship. This blueprint proposes to monitor global internet freedom, respond to challenges of Internet freedom and advance Internet freedom by expanding access to the Internet. While this may reflect the role of the US State Department, it is an issue that requires its attention. The only reference to the technology industry is to interact with it as a stakeholder in “developing shared principles to guide private sector activities in restrictive economies.”

The absence of any apparent consideration of regulating technology industry support for Internet restrictions or censorship is not surprising. This reflects this administration’s aversion to regulation of business. It may also be a recognition of the stark challenges of regulating the provision of technology and services that support government online regulation.

Considering the numbers of people who sought to get Olympic tickets this way is instructive. The WashPost report provides some insight:

[I]n the first hour of ticketing, 8 million page views on the Olympics site crashed the system. Officials said it was designed to handle 1 million hits an hour. At the same time, the ticketing hotline received 3.8 million calls, overwhelming the network. Congestion and data delays also slowed sales at the bank branches.

The failure of the Beijing Olympics e-commerce effort is seemingly in contradictation with the governments application of large-colume computing and data processing for other purposes. According to report from the Open Net Initiative, China pursues “a Herculean effort to tame the Internet activities and expression of over 100 million citizens”. With Internet use surging, from 94 million in 2005 to 137 million users in 2006, Internet censorship and control is a growing challenge for the government. Nonetheless, ONI states that its censorship and control efforts increasingly successful and effective.

Perhaps consulting with the Ministry of Information Industry and Ministry of Public Security - two of China’s leading Internet control agencies, would have aided Beijing Olympic Committee’s ticket release efforts. They appear to have a handle on managing Internet volume.

It notes that Linux sales there grew 20 percent in 2004 with high growth expected to continue. The Chinese government “declared Linux the ‘operating system of choice’ for new installations” in 2003. In 2002 half of Chinese programmers surveyed reported having written Linux applications, and 15 percent more expected to. The growth in use of Linux and other open source software by US information technology companies - MySQL, Apache, Google, Yahoo - is also cited.

It thus stands to reason that at least some, if not much, of the infrastructure used by the Chinese government to control and censor the Internet operates on Linux or other open source software.

Coupling this with the reference to China’s bureaucratic patent invalidation process and the prevalence of software piracy there, the ability of the US government to embargo ICT from the Chinese government could likely be subverted. Software, or perhaps even services, that may otherwise have been procured from or provided by US suppliers might instead be developed locally, obtained through open source third-party developers, or copied from licensed technology (the legality of which will likely depend on national perspective).

If it becomes the policy of the US government to restrict the transfer of ICT that would support Chinese government Internet censorship, it would thus seem that open source development would enable a certain amount of evasion from such efforts.

In an effort to increase their visibility within the presidential campaign forum, and likely to ‘corner’ candidates into supporting their positions, the Alliance produced a letter and a questionnaire for its members to send to the campaigns. This is a common tactic of major organizations to press candidates on their positions, and often, completing the questionnaire (and answering it ‘correctly’), is a requirement for any organizational endorsements.

Couched in broad themes, the 5 questions generally seek out a candidates position on copyright protection, digital rights and the economy, enforcement, inclusion in trade agreements, and the relationship of free speech to copyrights.

It would be interesting to see if, and how, candidates respond to these questions. It is likely that candidates will use phrase-ology that speaks to the Alliance’s concerns, but avoids any overly broad commitments or new initiatives. One hopes that candidates do respond, and that the Alliance posts all responses, as it would provide good insight into the candidates position on this somewhat marginal issue in the presidential campaign.

While this is a parody, there are certainly questions abound about the veracity, and accountability, of Internet rumors in the realm of politics. With the history of Swift-boating and allegations of McCain-tarnishing by the Bush camp in 2000, it should be interesting to see what will arise during the remaining year of the 2008 presidential race.

However, it is clear that this is not a new phenomenon. Defaming political candidates through leaflets and pamphlets is an age old tactic. Sometimes, the perpetrator can be identified, and other times, not. The Internet - blogs, websites and anonymous email - just provide a new forum for this. While it may allow such efforts to be spread more widely, ‘cyber-forensics’ can also facilitate finding the originators.

The New York Times reports this week that a provision included in a college cost reduction bill will impose certain conditions on colleges and universities relative to file-sharing taking place on its networks. According to the NYT blog/article:

The plan would require colleges to “develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.”

It further would allow the secretary of the federal Education Department to offer grants to institutions “to develop, implement, operate, improve, and disseminate programs of prevention, education, and cost-effective technological solutions, to reduce and eliminate the illegal downloading and distribution of intellectual property.”

MPAA sent out a press release commending this provision. Conversely, the article links to a letter sent to the House Education and Labor Committee by officials from Yale, Stanford, Univ of Maryland and Penn State opposing the P2P provision. A representative from the Association of American Universities is quoted as stating “[y]ou have the federal government requiring a nonprofit educational institution to develop plans to help a for-profit industry to earn more revenue from their students. It makes no sense. That’s not what we’re in the business of doing.” Furthermore, the ubiquitous Larry Lessig expresses concerns that the controls the legislation envisions threaten to inhibit legitimate uses of internet technology.

A contact in the administration of Cornell University expressed concern about this to me. According to this source, only 18.5 percent of illicit file-sharing is taking place on campus now. Further, it was stated that the law not only would exact high costs on colleges to be compliant, it could also open the door for the colleges being held liable for the activity occuring on their backbones - through the perceived failure to adequately filter their services of copyright-violating material.

Yet, at the same time, campuses are a convienent and centralized target for the recording industry to focus its attention on. And nearly 1 of 5 violaters is still a high portion of the questionable file-sharing to occur in any one domain.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Buried within a must-pass higher education reauthorization bill, the provisions may prevail. Yet, there is a long path yet for it to go before it becomes law, and one shouldn’t doscount the voices of not only the colleges, but also the college students, in battling back provisions of this type.

A major topic of consideration during this meeting of the IGF is the locus of control of the Internet. Evidentally, and perhaps not surprisingly, many foreign nations believe that the US has too much control over the internet and its users. According to this article, “Brazil, China and other counties have proposed transferring oversight to an international body.”

While this response is understandable, particuarly in light of the attention that American wiretapping and internet snooping has received, it is not likely to bode well for effective Internet governance. With widely diverging views of what activity and information is relevant or permissable on the Internet, it is plausible that any international body charged with oversight over the web will be greatly hindered by intra-party disputes. Ideally, it would serve as a forum for identifying points of agreement and cooperation, such as outlawing child porn or controling Internet crimes. Others worry, that “it would give meddlesome governments the opportunity to censor and regulate the medium until its usefulness as a vehicle for freedom of expression and international competition is crippled.”

Without much agreement, it is likely that change will be difficult. Under those circumstances, Internet governance will continue in an ad hoc fashion, regulated in local and patchwork fashion, with states contuning to seek means to ‘reach’ across borders to regulate activity outside their domain.

Debate centered on two issues. First, Republicans objected that the bill was redundant since the government already conduct such activities - specifically, the FTC already operates OnGuard, which provides “practical tips from the federal government and the technology industry to help you be on guard against Internet fraud, secure your computer, and protect your personal information.” Second, the level of funding was argued to be too substantial. Though some objections remained, even after the Subcommittee Chairman offered an amendment to cut the funding in half, to $5 million annually, the bill was passed by voice vote.

Certainly, internet safety is important. There is not too much that the government can do to actively protect individuals and their networks from internet threats, such as worms, viruses, scams and phishing. Unlike realspace security, it is unreasonable to expect a cop to stand guard around the most threatened computers or users. While many cybercrimes are at higher, more lucrative levels in the commerce system, many individuals remain at risk. The federal Internet Crime Complaint Center found, in its 2006 annual report, that “from January 1, 2006 – December 31, 2006, the IC3 website received 207,492 complaint submissions”, and though “this is a 10.4% decrease when compared to 2005 when 231,493 complaints were received”, this is still a substanial number. Further, according to the report, 2006 was the first year in which complaints decreased (though the financial impacts increased) - “up from $183.12 million in total reported losses in 2005”. “The total dollar loss from all referred cases of fraud was $198.44 million with a median dollar loss of $724.00 per complaint.”

The report notes that only 1 in 7 cases reported is ever followed up by enforcement or regulatory agencies. Therefore, more awareness would help prevent individual users take measures to increase their own security and safety online, and the legislation is well-intentioned. With prosecution and enforcement of cybercrime challenging and limited, awareness and preparedness are more feasible courses of action, particularly for individuals. Firms, on the other hand, typically have greater resources (relative, of course, to their size), and are better poised to provide their own security.

Both CNN and others, including CQ (subscription required), reported on the House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman claims today that Yahoo! “misled Congress regarding information the Internet company gave to Chinese authorities about the journalist Shi Tao”. A hearing will be held next month to determine if, during a February 2006 hearing, executives of the online firm lied to Congress about its cooperation with the Chinese government regarding the online activity of the journalist.

Shi Tao had posted on the Internet under a pseudonym about a crackdown by the government, and was later arrested. Yahoo “gave Chinese authorities information about his e-mail account, his computer address, his log-on history and the contents of several weeks of his e-mail, Lantos said.” Yahoo officials dispute these allegations. They are also being sued by Shi Tao in civil court. It will be interesting to see how this hearing, and case, play out (at least one Republican is noted criticizing Yahoo’s underlying policies that led to the info sharing with Chinese secret police). It is also a curious angle on the course reading, as it now appears that a firm is caught in the middle, having been coopted by one government to control and regulate the Internet, and now running afoul of another government, at least in part, for doing so (Congress certainly is nonplussed about having been lied to, but is intent on examining the underlying Yahoo info sharing policy as well).

Similarly, the Washington Post (“Crackdowns On Bloggers Increasing, Survey Finds”) reports on press freedom and increasing controls over blogging, according to a report from Reporters Without Borders. “”Countries that were not sentencing journalists to prison terms anymore have been doing it these last months for bloggers. This is the case in Egypt and Jordan,” the RPF Director is quoted. North Korea, Eritrea and Turkmenistan make the bottom of the list, while Iceland is tops for press freedom.

Finally, returning to the net neutrality debate conversation from a few weeks ago, the Post also carries an Op Ed written by the otherwise diametrically opposed leaders of NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Christian Coalition of America. The topic: Verizon’s nascent effort to censor NARAL’s text messaging, which it quickly relented on. Not much commentary is needed - the two basically take the telecom firm to task for corporate censorship:

When it comes to censoring free speech, sorry just isn’t good enough. Whatever your political views — conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, pro-choice or pro-life — it shouldn’t be up to Verizon to determine whether you receive the information you requested. Why should any company decide what you choose to say or do over your phone, your computer or your BlackBerry? Technologies are converging in our communications system, but the principles of free expression and the rights of all Americans to speak without intervention should remain paramount.

They go on to note that both organizations, and many others, are seeking to increase awareness of tech discrimination and its potential impacts on their advocacy efforts, and call on Congress for hearings on these issues. That may be a welcome return to the net neutrality debate, smartly taken out of the corp v. corp framework, and to now include otherwise focused members of civil society in the equation. I also share their closing, as I found the analogy appropos:

If corporations can’t tell Americans what to say on a phone call, they shouldn’t be able to control content or tell us what to say in a text message, an e-mail or anywhere else.

Rather, the article, written by Tim Wu, who we witnessed earlier debating Chris Yoo on network neutrality (Wu opposed online commercial discrminiation; Yoo saw it as “nothing more than network owners’ attempts to satisfy the increasingly intense and heterogeneous demands imposed by end users”) is titled “American Lawbreaking; Tolerated Use: The Copyright Problem”, and I thought it’d be interesting. Wu argues here that, after traffic laws, copyright laws are among the most broken in our nation. And in the online world, the practice has gotten worse. YouTube, file-sharing, burning mix CDs - they are all affronts on the creative development, and ownership, of copyrights. But Wu notes an interesting contrast that has arisen, which opens the door to larger questions on IP and copyright enforcement online.

Here is what the real Wikipedia has this to say about it:

Intellipedia was created to share information on some of the most difficult subjects facing U.S. intelligence and bring cutting-edge technology into its ever-more-youthful workforce. It also allows information to be assembled and reviewed by a wide variety of sources and agencies, to address concerns that pre-war intelligence that did not include robust dissenting opinions on Iraq’s alleged weapons programs. A number of projects are underway to explore the use of the Intellipedia for the creation of traditional Intelligence Community products.

In a Senate hearing a month ago, DNI Director McConnell evidenced a growing interest in adopting digital collaboration tools from the Internet for Intelligence use:

And analysts are also increasingly using interactive, classified blogs and wikis, much as the tech-savvy, collaboration-minded user would outside the Community. Intellipedia, the IC’s version of Wikipedia, and “A-Space” a common workspace environment likened in the press to the commercial website “MySpace,” are perhaps the best-known examples. Such tools enable experts from different disciplines to pool their knowledge, form virtual teams, and quickly make complete intelligence assessments. (PDF page 11)

Intellipedia would seem to be a good approach to some of the vexing challenges for the intell community: a new workforce, new threats, and a bureaucracy of secrecy and turf battles. Major structural change has been needed, and is in part underway, and this tool may be indicative of some of the new thinking. As one conservative commentator who apltly stated, “reforms instigated by independent reviews and implemented either by executive order or by congressional legislation need to be aimed at transforming the intelligence community from failed top-down institutions based on obsolete business models of the 1950s to the nimble, bottom-up, flat, and networked organizations that thrive in the age of information technology revolution.”

Contrary to Sunstein’s concerns that the Internet can cause a loss of shared experiences and common space, Intellipedia seeks to stimulate knowledge and experience sharing, debate and communication. Rather than push people away and into isolated communities, Intellipedia is intended to pull them together.

If numbers are a metric, a The New York Times article from a few weeks ago would indicate that the project is a success: “Sixteen months after its creation, officials say, the top-secret version of Intellipedia has 29,255 articles, with an average of 114 new articles and more than 4,800 edits to articles added each workday.” According to USA Today, Intellipedia was used as the platform for developing a new National Intelligence Estimate on Nigeria.

But of course, there are a number of potential pitfalls and problems that Intellipedia can face. Getting all agencies and individuals to contribute and ‘buy in’ is important to it becoming effective at information sharing. It must be open for agencies and individuals to access and use it, but is secrets and information must be secure and confidential. Will contributing and reading it be seen as an added work burden, or will it be seen as a benefit? Perhaps it is too soon to draw any conclusions.