They’re experimenting with putting up a page that shows the number of requests they’ve received, and (partially) the action they took, for the most recent six months.

You can view their map and click the pushpins to see country-specific data. For China, it says

Chinese officials consider censorship demands to be state secrets, so we cannot disclose that information at this time.

Isn’t it interesting that rather than saying “removal requests” Google used the word “censorship” in this case?

To read more about legitimate (legal) requests and requests that do not have the force of law behind them and may simply be trying to intimidate a web site owner, visit the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse.

The Open Net Initiative seeks to identify and document Internet filtering and surveillance.

The post Google and government requests for data or removal appeared first on Sky's Blog.

But the great firewall is already blocking Google.com.hk content, as would be expected.

We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. —David Drummond, Google

An experiment gone wrong: I’m glad they did this, but well, why didn’t they do it this way in the first place? Why all the hair-tearing and gnashing of teeth while making the decision, and then put an office and servers in mainland China in the first place, and now have to revisit the decision? Hmmm. To many executives I’ve worked with, that would be a terrible admission of weakness, but to engineers (and to more and more investors) it’s just something they tried that didn’t work, and so they moved on.

When it started (2006): Here’s a report from Human Rights Watch about the new Google.cn service, Race to the Bottom, written at that time.

The cantonization* of the Internet: Ultimately what I’m concerned about is that the Internet is fragmenting into  national enclaves or cantons where 1) content from “outside” is filtered or prohibited, and 2) what can be written by citizens is severely restricted. Most likely that’s not exactly what the early Internet developers were expecting in 1973. [also see canton]

What’s interesting to me, working on the edge of network security, is that the law-abiding citizens of many countries are going to be denied open access to information while hackers (who are “criminals” by their own national standards), who circumvent the technologies and the law, will probably have the most complete access to the wealth of information and communication taking place on the Internet. —Sky

Some good background viewing and reading on the issue:

Yeah, I’m calling it Cantonization rather than the traditional term, balkanization. I think it’s more appropriate to the Chinese situationcanton. [“Canton” comes from the Portuguese pronunciation of Guangdong, the Chinese province.]

What will happen if countries draw international borders on the Internet? [2008, Odeo, MIT] And some comments on Laitman.com

Apple’s iTunes, NPR, Barriers to Giving, and the “Appliancing” of National Boundaries [2008] Some materials can only be downloaded within certain geographical areas, and it may be illegal to take them into certain countries due to local restrictions (wipe your computer before you travel…)

Adrian Monck, Unrequired Reading – particularly the last part where he points out that Google is [December 2008] becoming able to negotiate with national governments on what will or won’t be done with respect to searches performed by residents of their countries.

The post Google Chinese-language search, Hong Kong, and Internet Cantonization appeared first on Sky's Blog.

Its clear that the decision to filter was tough. And it probably took less to get them to reverse the decision than if the original decision had been clear cut. The issues that I see are involved include these:

• Censorship – even if mandated by local laws;
• Censorship – on more universal grounds (such as censorship of hate speech, etc.);
• Increasing Chinese cyberaggression – hacking servers, looking for industrial secrets (supposed Chinese, because it’s almost impossible to really know);
• Aggressive attacks against minority communities and free speech advocates (cited by Google, but I’ve seen them personally);
• Drive-by malware insertions in free-speech web sites, and whether this is targeted or not;
• Whether an equivalent of the Geneva Protocol (which deals with weapons as opposed to prisoners) can be developed for cyberwarfare.

The Social Graph of Malware is a site I started a few months ago, and sporadically contribute to, that describes how social engineering contributes so much to the spread of malware. The Google incident that sparked their “reversal” decision to stop filtering (just a week ago) was largely a piece of social engineering. We have been seeing targeted attacks on the Tibetan exile community (and others) recently, utilizing social engineering tactics to get people to open poisoned files that then infect their computers. So I’ll continue to track the Google.cn issue on The Social Graph of Malware because of this connection.

The post Google.cn in again out again appeared first on Sky's Blog.

In a post on the Official Google Blog a couple of hours ago, David Drummond, SVP Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, says that Google and other organizations have been the targets of attacks from China, and that Google may suspend operations within China.

He characterizes the attacks as “highly sophisticated” and “targeted” — though his description doesn’t really describe the sophistication — and it seems to be much like what we’re seeing in terms of attacks against the Tibetan exile community and Tibet support groups [TSGs] in general.

He specifically says the more than twenty attacks they identified, had as a primary goal:

“…accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.”

He cites a number of reports, including the GhostNet report, which you should read if you’d like a little more detailed analysis of how some of this stuff takes place.

And here’s the punchline:

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Whoa! He used the word censoring here! I don’t recall that Google described their actions as censorship when they first started filtering results at Google.cn…

This is a welcome step forward, assuming they follow through, and I applaud their willingness to listen to others who have been criticizing Google’s decision (to provide censored search results in China) from the beginning, as well as (now) to respond to the  censorship and repression of free speech that we see spreading now.

The post Google, Human Rights, Free Speech appeared first on Sky's Blog.

We are a species that communicates by telling tales, and we learn from the stories told by others.

YaleGlobal Online carried an interesting article [part II is the part you want to read] examining China’s dual standard when it comes to interference in what they call their “internal affairs.” China strongly opposes the granting of visas to His Holiness the Dalai Lama when he visits countries around the world — calling it “interference in China’s internal affairs.” However, the attempts by the Chinese to block the Dalai Lama’s appearances can just as easily be interpreted as Chinese attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. They have succeeded in many countries, and notably failed in countries such as Germany and France. And particularly in the US, where the Dalai Lama received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007, and in Canada, where he received honorary citizenship in 2006.

Here’s what YaleGlobal said about their two-part article: “China, a significant beneficiary of globalization, is happy to go out into the world, but seems less willing to let the world come in, according to writer Frank Ching. In fact, China, which asserts that it does not interfere with the internal affairs of other countries, appears to do the exact opposite, especially with regard to issues surrounding alleged separatism in China. Notably vocal whenever a foreign leader meets with the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama or a country grants him a visa, Beijing claims that such actions “grossly interfere” with China’s internal affairs and “hurt the feelings” of the Chinese people. For a country that prides itself on having signed more human rights treaties than the US – certainly a mature approach to international affairs – such a reaction seems oddly truculent. Indeed, as Ching argues, globalization is a two-way street where the benefits hopefully compensate, even outweigh, the loss of sovereignty. Rightly or wrongly, China seems yet to agree with such logic. – YaleGlobal”

[1] Julius Genachowski, Chairman of the [US] Federal Communications Commission, on net neutrality

The post The free flow of information does not respect political borders appeared first on Sky's Blog.

This June 16, 2009 c|net article —  Google’s censorship struggles continue in China describes many of the ups and downs. I’ve written a few articles about this relationship, including Censorship as Punishment and Search engines’ blocking in China “improves.” [See also the Related articles section below]

Google is reported to have around 15% of the online search market in China, compared to 75% for Baidu.com. Both companies comply with Chinese government site blocking (censorship) regulations. [Network World article cites the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) as the data source – they publish periodic reports on Internet use in China]

CNNIC’s reports are quite interesting, and for a statistician they’re a lot of fun to puzzle through. For instance, of 338 million Internet users, the “accounts or passwords of 110 million were stolen.” And among all users, 320 million (94%) are on “broadband” – but note that 46% of users access the Internet from “mobile” connections…which seems to me like they would in no way be considered broadband. Also, 28% of mobile Internet users said they would access the Internet by 3G mobile phone – what are the rest using? Maybe wi-fi is considered mobile Internet? Anyone have the answer?

Previous articles I’ve written on Google and censorship in China:

Censorship as Punishment

The post Google and censorship in China – the tale continues appeared first on Sky's Blog.

The post The Onion- Internet adds 12th website appeared first on Sky's Blog.

[2] Here’s the source report in The Guardian. And a quote:

Earlier in the day, the main state and communist party media – Xinhua and People’s Daily – condemned Google for providing links to pornographic websites through its search engine. Last week, the government ordered the US company to halt foreign website searches as a punishment.

See also my notes on China’s Golden Shield.

The post Censorship as punishment? appeared first on Sky's Blog.

From the New York Times:
China Requires Censoring on New PCs
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: June 8, 2009
BEIJING — China has issued a sweeping directive requiring all personal computers sold in the country to include sophisticated software that can filter out pornography and other “unhealthy information” from the Internet.

The rules, issued last month in a government directive, ratchet up Internet restrictions that are already among the most stringent in the world. China regularly blocks Web sites that discuss the Dalai Lama, the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters, and the Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement.

Called “Green Dam” — a reference to slogans that describe a smut-free Internet as “green” — the software is designed to filter out sexually explicit images and words, according to the company that designed it. Computer experts, however, warn that once installed, the software could be directed to block all manner of content or allow the government to monitor Internet use and collect personal information.

On Monday, Green Dam’s own Web site offered a hint of discontent over the filtering software. On the bulletin board section of the site, one writer described it as a “web devil” and several users complained that pornographic images slipped through or that their computers had become painfully slow. “It seems pretty lousy so far,” one posting said.

By Monday night, however, most of the comments had been deleted.

A similar debate has swirled within the librarian communities and library users in the US and Australia, where filtering software is in widespread use. In the US it is referred to as content filtering but it may also be called blocking. Schools have filtered on their computers for years, where it is not really a civil rights issue, but the majority of US libraries have not. Some libraries in the US have warning signs next to their computers making parents aware that content on the computers is not filtered. In the US this is generally regarded as a constitutional issue related to the right of free expression (being a part of the first amendment to the US constitution, adopted by Congress in 1789 and sent to the states for ratification). The American Library Association Bill of Rights, adopted in 1948, has been cited many times in the debate — librarians, in general, seem to want to preserve the right of access to all materials, and this would apply to Internet-based materials (web or otherwise).

The post China requires that all new computers contain censoring software appeared first on Sky's Blog.

The post China firewall lockdown again appeared first on Sky's Blog.

One of Sam’s recent projects (it’s a couple of years old now) involves a group of Chinese-speaking (reading and writing as well) Tibetans who live in Dharamsala and spend their time chatting with people inside China. About what it is to be a part of the Tibetan culture and how it relates to the rest of China. It’s an actual project with financial supporters and employees, and you can contact me if you’re interested in helping support it. Sam also spends a lot of time in the Tibetan exile settlements in the rest of India, but that’s another story.

The post Chatting our way to World Peace appeared first on Sky's Blog.

The thing that made the biggest impression on me is the number of countries that block bloggers or Flickr. (You can check this yourself by going to their site and clicking the pushpins on their Google map.) ·Opennet.net also tracks blocking/filtering worldwide. They look at the reasons given for filtering and compile maps tracking four different types of filtering.

• Political content (illustrated at right) – Content that expresses views in opposition to those of the current government, or is related to human rights, freedom of expression, minority rights, and religious movements.
• Social content – Content related to sexuality, gambling, and illegal drugs and alcohol, as well as other topics that may be socially sensitive or perceived as offensive.
• Conflict/security – Content related to armed conflicts, border disputes, separatist movements, and militant groups.
• Internet Tools – Web sites that provide e-mail, Internet hosting, search, translation, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service, and circumvention methods.

The post Access Denied – Which Countries Filter and Why? appeared first on Sky's Blog.

Tibetan monasteries empty as China jails monks to silence Olympic protests in TimesOnline UK

“Chinese authorities tightened security around Tibet’s main monasteries and banned visits to a sacred site on the edge of the capital, Lhasa, for fear of a fresh outburst of unrest on the Dalai Lama’s birthday.

“Few monks remain, however, in the province’s three most important monasteries. Many have disappeared, their whereabouts a mystery. Chinese officials have deployed troops and paramilitary police around the ancient religious institutions, suspecting these sprawling hillside communities are at the heart of the unrest that has swept the region since early March.”

Seems to me that the theory must be that silencing protest during the Olympic Games is intended to remove it from the world’s stage (Shakespeare “All the world’s a stage…”) at a time when China is receiving increased attention – but it certainly will backfire because it is happening at a time when China is center-stage, and even after the restraints are removed, it will keep China center-stage in the human rights spotlight for a longer time.

This report has naught to do with electronic media, networks or technology. It’s just unfortunate to see how governments  deal with the things that embarrass those in power by muzzling the mouths (and sometimes the bodies) of those who disagree with the powerful.

The post Silence is… appeared first on Sky's Blog.

I’ll start with China, which is of course very much in the news right now for repressive measures it takes against its citizens. Many of you will know already that China monitors and censors Internet (particularly web) users, but may not be aware how widely it monitors its citizens.

This article China’s All-Seeing Eye by Naomi Klein in Rolling Stone, should get you started. Her subtitle is With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export.

China is notable because what we in the U.S. might regard as fundamental freedoms, like the right to free speech and dissent, seem to be viewed as hindrances to social and economic development.

The post The All-seeing eye (in China) appeared first on Sky's Blog.