Enemies of the Internet

 

Special report on Internet surveillance, focusing on five governments and

five companies that are Enemies of the Internet

Published on Monday 11 March 2013.

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http://en.rsf.org/special-report-on-internet-11-03-2013,44197.html

 

 

ENEMIES OF THE INTERNET 2013

 

Today, 12 March, World Day Against Cyber-Censorship, Reporters Without

Borders is releasing a Special report on Internet surveillance, available at

surveillance.rsf.org/en. It looks at the way governments are increasingly

using technology that monitors online activity and intercepts electronic

communication in order to arrest journalists, citizen-journalists and

dissidents. Around 180 netizens worldwide are currently in prison for

providing news and information online.

 

For this year’s “Enemies of the Internet” report, Reporters Without Borders

has identified Five State Enemies of the Internet, five “spy” states that

conduct systematic online surveillance that results in serious human rights

violations. They are Syria, China, Iran, Bahrain and Vietnam. Surveillance

in these countries targets dissidents and has grown in recent months.

Cyber-attacks and intrusions, including the use of malware against

dissidents and their networks, are on the increase.

 

China, whose Electronic Great Wall is probably the world’s most

sophisticated censorship system, has stepped up its war on the use of

anonymization tools and has enlisted private-sector Internet companies to

help monitor Internet users. Iran has taken online surveillance to a new

level by developing its own national Internet, or “Halal Internet.” As

regards Syria, Reporters Without Borders has obtained an unpublished

document – a 1999 invitation by the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment

to bid for a national Internet network in Syria – which shows that its

Internet was designed from the outset to include extensive filtering and

surveillance.

 

Without advanced technology, authoritarian regimes would not be able to spy

on their citizens. Reporters Without Borders has for the first time compiled

a list of five “Corporate Enemies of the Internet,” five private sector

companies that it regards as “digital era mercenaries” because they sell

products that are used by authoritarian governments to commit violations of

human rights and freedom of information. They are Gamma, Trovicor, Hacking

Team, Amesys and Blue Coat.

 

Trovicor’s surveillance and interception products have enabled Bahrain’s

royal family to spy on news providers and arrest them. In Syria, Deep Packet

Inspection products developed by Blue Coat made it possible for the regime

to spy on dissidents and netizens throughout the country, and to arrest and

torture them. Eagle products supplied by Amesys were discovered in the

offices of Muammar Gaddafi’s secret police. Malware designed by Hacking Team

and Gamma has been used by governments to capture the passwords of

journalists and netizens.

 

“Online surveillance is a growing danger for journalists,

citizen-journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders,” Reporters Without

Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “Regimes seeking to

control news and information increasingly prefer to act discreetly. Rather

than resort to content blocking that generates bad publicity and is early

circumvented, they prefer subtle forms of censorship and surveillance that

their targets are often unaware of.

 

“As surveillance hardware and software provided by companies based in

democratic countries is being used to commit grave human rights violations,

and as the leaders of these countries say they condemn violations of online

freedom of expression, it is time they took firm measures. Above all, they

should impose strict controls on the export of digital arms to countries

that flout fundamental rights.”

 

Negotiations between governments already led in July 1996 to the Wassenaar

Arrangement, which aims to promote “transparency and greater responsibility

in transfers of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies, thus

preventing destabilizing accumulations.” Forty countries, including France,

Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States are nowadays party to the

agreement.

 

By demonstrating the importance of online information, the Arab Spring

reinforced authoritarian governments’ understanding of the advantages of

monitoring and controlling Internet data and communication. Democratic

countries also seem increasingly ready to yield to the siren song of the

need for surveillance and cyber-security at any cost. This is evident from

all the potentially repressive laws and bills such as FISAA and CISPA in the

United States, the Communications Data Bill in Britain and the Wetgeving

Bestrijding Cybercrime in the Netherlands.

 

Reporters Without Borders has made a “digital survival kit” available on the

WeFightCensorship.org website in order to help online news providers evade

increasingly active and intrusive surveillance.

 

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