[Dialogue] [Fwd: [IP] Face to Face with the Great Firewall of China]

[Ed Reames]

This is the scariest article that I have read in a loooong time!

Ed Reames
La Rivera de Belén
Costa Rica
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Pressure 30.03  


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	[IP] Face to Face with the Great Firewall of China
Date: 	Mon, 2 May 2005 08:10:09 -0400
From: 	David Farber <dave at farber.net>
Reply-To: 	dave at farber.net
To: 	Ip <ip at v2.listbox.com>
References: 	<p062007cdbe9b53eaf38c@[10.0.1.54]>



Begin forwarded message:

From: Michael Geist <mgeist at pobox.com>
Date: May 2, 2005 7:21:16 AM EDT
To: dave at farber.net
Subject: Face to Face with the Great Firewall of China


Dave,

Of possible interest - my regular Law Bytes column reflects on a  
recent trip to China and the frustrations I encountered dealing with  
censorship of the Internet.  Despite similar appearances with  
broadband access in my Beijing hotel, I found sites blocked, email  
downloads short-circuited, and Google searches cut off.

The column (posted below) notes that the experience was a powerful  
reminder that unfettered Internet access is far more fragile than is  
commonly perceived.  I try to connect the Chinese firewall experience  
to recent events in Canada (including web-based disclosures of  
information subject to publication bans and law enforcement  
authorities for greater surveillance powers) and conclude that it  
would be mistake to think that the North American Internet will  
always remain as free as China's is censored. The challenge in the  
months and years ahead will be to promote a vision of online freedom  
through lobbying for greater access abroad and rejecting unnecessary  
and potentially dangerous limits at home.

A freely available hyperlinked version of the column is at
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/resc/html_bkup/may22005.html
Toronto Star reg. version at
<http://geistchinafirewall.notlong.com>

MG

FACE TO FACE WITH THE GREAT FIREWALL OF CHINA

May 2, 2005

Michael Geist

As the Internet was taking flight in the early 1990s, John Gilmore,  
one of the co-founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a  
leading online civil liberties group, is credited with having coined  
the infamous phrase that "the Internet interprets censorship as  
damage and routes around it."  Gilmore's view has since been  
regularly invoked whenever there are failed attempts to limit the  
dissemination of information.

Beginning with a string of cases dating back to the Paul Bernardo  
trial in the mid-1990s, the Internet has undermined court-ordered  
publication bans in Canada with surprising frequency. The latest  
incident occurred last month when a U.S. website posted evidence from  
the Gomery inquiry that was subject to a publication ban.  The ban  
was lifted within days, however, as Judge Gomery acknowledged what  
had become obvious to all - supposedly secret testimony was readily  
available to anyone with Internet access.

While these events seemingly affirm the notion that the Internet is  
beyond the reach of governments and courts, my recent trip to China  
provided a powerful reminder that unfettered Internet access is far  
more fragile than is commonly perceived.  China, which boasts the  
world's second largest Internet user base, is currently home to more  
than 94 million Internet users, yet their Internet is far different  
from ours.

These differences are not immediately obvious.  My hotel in Beijing  
featured high-speed Internet access much like that offered in hotels  
throughout North America.  Logging onto the network was a snap and I  
quickly found that bandwidth speeds were comparable to those found at  
home.

It was once I sought to access common news sites that I found myself  
face to face with the "Great Firewall of China."  Google News, a  
popular aggregator of news stories from around the world, would not  
load into my browser, apparently blocked by a filtering system that  
employs 30,000 people to regularly monitor Internet traffic and  
content.  Similarly, while the BBC website would load, attempts to  
access news stories on that site yielded only error messages.

My frustration increased when I attempted to download my own email.   
While I was able to access my Canadian-based mail server storing my  
messages, the download was short-circuited midway as I suddenly lost  
the connection.  Although I initially thought that perhaps the error  
lay at the Canadian end, when the experience repeated itself, it  
became clear that the Chinese system was filtering my email messages  
and cutting off the connection.

Having experienced limits in accessing both news and email, it came  
as little surprise to find that the search engines were subject to  
similar restrictions.  Searches for articles on circumventing the  
Chinese filters yielded a long list of results, none of which could  
be opened.  Moreover, inputting politically sensitive words such as  
the "Falun Gong" cut me off from the search engines completely.

While I found using the Chinese Internet exceptionally frustrating,  
most people I spoke to were resigned to an Internet with limits.   
They live with the fact that in recent months the government has shut  
down thousands of Internet cafes, an important point of access for  
many citizens.  Many noted that the censorship "only" affected  
political information, but that business could be conducted online  
unimpeded.  At one academic conference, Chinese law professors even  
spoke of the desirability of increased content regulation and  
supported government limits on search engine results.

As groups such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders  
regularly seek to remind us, the Chinese Internet is not unique.   
Countries throughout the Middle East and in parts of Asia employ  
similar technologies to limit their citizens' access to a medium that  
most Canadians now take for granted.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that the Canadian Internet  
will always remain just as free as China's is censored.  Canadian law  
enforcement officials are actively lobbying for a series of "lawful  
access" reforms that will provide authorities with dramatically  
increased Internet surveillance powers.  These include mandating real- 
time network surveillance capabilities on Canada's biggest Internet  
service providers and providing authorities with the right to demand  
subscriber information without the need to obtain a prior court order.

While it would be unfair to characterize the lawful access proposal  
as comparable to the monitoring and censorship used in the Chinese  
Internet, my experience provided a sobering reminder of the dangers  
inherent in increased surveillance and weakened judicial oversight.
The Internet may be accessible from Toronto to Beijing, yet people in  
these two cities do not access the same Internet.  The challenge in  
the months and years ahead will be to promote Gilmore's vision of  
online freedom through lobbying for greater access abroad and  
rejecting unnecessary and potentially dangerous limits at home.

--
**********************************************************************
Professor Michael A. Geist
Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law
University of Ottawa Law School, Common Law Section
57 Louis Pasteur St., Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5
Tel: 613-562-5800, x3319     Fax: 613-562-5124
mgeist at pobox.com              http://www.michaelgeist.ca


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