The Geopolitics of Asian Cyberspace

Seth Finkelstein writes “Far Eastern Economic Review —
The Geopolitics of Asian Cyberspace (Ronald Deibert): “The increased sophistication of Internet content filtering practices
can be attributed, in part, to the services provided by Western
(mostly U.S.-based) software and Internet service firms. Whereas once
the best and brightest of Silicon Valley were associated with wiring
the world, and opening up access to vast stores of information, today
they are just as likely to be known for doing the opposite. Although
Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo!, Skype, and Google have all come under
scrutiny for colluding with China’s Internet censorship practices,
perhaps the most significant, serious, and yet overlooked contribution to Internet censorship by Western corporations comes from the manufacturers of the filtering software used to block content.””

January 8, 2007 by Uncategorized 1

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1 Response

  1. Turner says:
    January 9, 2007 at 1:48 am

    It’s going to get Draconian folks …
    This is an old school article dwelling on censorship of the end user.

    The filtering “edge†– now is to enable forced micro-managed information control for
    business/government applications. The enemy is within. If you don’t know it…you can’t leak it

    The issue of transparency is interesting. Yes, the filter companies have secret lists for
    varied reasons. However, they would not be secret if you demanded transparency.

    We realized the importance of transparency and put our secret list on the web for all to see in 2002. Jay Currie and myself wrote about this in this very lis-serve as well as to the ALA and those voices (Karen and Lori – I think) that were speaking out about filtering
    at that time. Like walking into a brick wall.

    List is here 450,000 porn domains in all their glory…millions of porn sites…

    http://research.vision-options.com/research.php

    If libraries had simply said we will not buy your software unless you open the list…they would have provided lists. In fact no one outside of Seth Finkelstein and a few others are interested
    enough to actually do something. Yet the tired old mantra continues to repeat itself.

    In this age of continuing to make America secure remember:

    If you don’t know it you can’t leak it.

    Its going to get Draconian folks… you can’t just sit their carping.

    Reply

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