Stories from May, 2011
G8 taking over the Internet
For the first time and on the occasion of the Summit of Heads of State and Government or as known for Group of Eight (G8) (a “ritual” created by France in 1975 for the governments of 8 major economies (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, USA, Canada and Russia) –that will...
India's Information Technology Rules 2011 Has Many Fuming
Is India following China's lead when it comes to user generated content online? Many will answer yes, following newly released Information Technology Rules 2011. The Economic Times reports that the rules are “…evoking the ire of internet community in India and chiefly from the largest search engine firm Google, which...
China: Cracking down circumvention tools
A number of Chinese netizens report that since May 6 2011 visiting overseas website via China Telecom and China Unicom has become highly unstable. This time the disruption mainly affected corporate connections, including university, while ADSL connection at home performs normally. Some technology bloggers point out that the Great Fire...
Nepal: Facebooking Revolt and Censorship
Arab spring has brought winds of change into Nepal. On Saturday, May 7, group of young people gathered near Maitighar area of capital Kathmandu demanding speedy resolution to the current deadlocke caused by delay in formulating new constitution. Inspired by a Facebook page Show up, Stand up, Speak up, they conducted peaceful protest and...
Egypt: how companies help the government spy on activists
Few weeks ago when authorities didn’t respond immediately to people’s demand, many Egyptians stormed the State Security Investigations (SSI) headquarters to protect the evidences against SSI offices (including torture equipments and documents). Among those documents where communications between SSI units related to censorship, monitoring online content, controlling computes/ laptops, as well as shutting down communications services.
Azerbaijan: Youth Activist Sentenced
Jabbar Savalan, a 20-year-old opposition youth activist, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison on drug possession charges. However, others maintain that Javalan was detained because of calls made on Facebook for demonstrations to be held in Azerbaijan following popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.
Did Syria replace Facebook's security certificate with a forged one?
Ana Souri [I'm Syrian in Arabic] tumblr user is claiming that Syrian Telecom Ministry has replaced Facebook's security certificate with a forged one that makes it easy to spy on users, record their passwords, and view their private content.
China: Political Spam in Twitter
The tag system in Twitter is an effective way in distributing information beyond a user's social network. However, the system can easily be contaminated by spam messages. In western countries, most of the spammers are driven by commercial interest, while in China, they are political tools for disrupting information flow....
In Bahrain, World Press Non-Freedom Day
Today is World Press Freedom Day, a day that is being commiserated more than celebrated in many nations, including Bahrain, where journalists and bloggers are currently under siege by government.
China: Exposing Internet Surveillance Abroad
The U.S-China Human Rights Dialogue did not have any concrete consensus last week. While the U.S government questioned Chinese government's crackdown on dissent, oppression of religion and expression freedom, Chinese leaders condemned Washington's hypocritical attitude, in particular the killing of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, western countries’ double standard...
