Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that since last year more than 400,000 Iranians began surfing the uncensored Web using software created for the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has been suppressed by the Chinese government since 1999. More than 20 countries now use increasingly sophisticated blocking and filtering systems for Internet content, according to Reporters Without Borders, including Iran, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria. The creators of the software seized upon by Iranians are members of the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, based largely in the United States and closely affiliated with Falun Gong. Interestingly enough, the United States government and the Voice of America have financed some of the circumvention technology efforts, and a coalition is organizing to push for more Congressional financing of anti-filtering efforts, bringing together dissidents of Vietnam, Iran, the Uighur minority of China, Tibet, Myanmar, Cuba, Cambodia, Laos, as well as the Falun Gong, to lobby Congress for the financing. 'What is our leverage toward a country like Iran? Very little,' said Michael Horowitz, a fellow at the Hudson Institute. 'Suppose we have the capacity to make it possible for the president of the United States at will to communicate with hundreds of thousands of Iranians at no risk or limited risk? It just changes the world.'"
Hopefully the citizens of Britain and Australia and Germany can get a hold of this software so that they can use the Internet without government censorship impeding them.
I doubt the terrorist plot claim hold much water in the US any more.
No, these days you can hear the plaintive wail of "Won't someone please think of the Children" anytime someone speaks out against censorship.
Child porn is the major excuse for excessive censorship today, but Australia proposed to block thousands of legitimate sites in the pursuit of child porn, and Minnesota wants to block gambling sites.
Most censorship in the US is not done by the Federal Government, but rather by over zealous ISPs, Schools, and in the work-place.
The US government is large enough that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
However, don't expect this inconsistency to last if those pushing for more censorship gain the ear of the current administration.
That being said, I will bet you Dollars to Donunts that government censorship will arrive in the EU before it arrives in the US on any comparable scale.
This is because, when you strip away the rhetoric, the EU is based on the notion that people can not govern themselves, and the elite must assume this burden. The US has historically espoused the concept of self government.
How long either can be true to their founding principals is anyone's guess.
Yes, even people who didn't vote for Bush are responsible for his actions.
Oh, that makes sense. I suppose you should be charged for murder, because I'm sure one happened.. and you're responsible for your government NOT protecting its citizens.
Your entire country should be put on trial. Voting for such Presidents again and again makes you responsible. Yes, even people who didn't vote for Bush are responsible for his actions. When your country invades another and kills hundreds of thousands of people -- FOR PROFIT, you all deserve sanctions for allowing it to happen, and shielding those responsible.
Since the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Ayatollahs, Iran has politically regressed to a very dangerous stage. However, culturally the country is still very close to America. Despite the religiosity demanded by the mullahs, many consolations have been made to keep the populace from rioting.
From simple things like not requiring a full hijab to really bizarre things like ultra-temporary marriages to allow single men the pleasures of prostitutes legally under Sharia. Iran is a country struggling to break back into the modern world.
The faster we can get a strong secular leader in power there, the better the odds of Iran returning to the peaceful international fold.
Not to defend the current theocrats, but you do realize Shah was a dictator and already "politically regressed to a very dangerous stage" which is why the revolution happened. The current government is learning that that fever of the revolution has died and people just want to live their lives. The progress will be slow but I have confidence Iranians will increasingly reject the cultural neanderthals within their current government.
I too think it is wrong for one sect to have complete control of a country (as do most of the Ayatollahs in Iran). However, given what I've seen of Ahmadinejad's shoot from the hip, I don't care who I piss off, fiery rhetoric versus Khomeini's quietly cautious even though overly conservative and dogmatic style, I'm personally thankful that Khomeini has all the real political power, not Iran's duly elected president.
Although it's true the Shah was a dictator of sorts, what the people of Iran wanted with the revolution was not an absolute theocracy. During the revolution there was a coalition of nationalists, communists, and others along with the Islamists. It just happened that the Islamists betrayed them all before the smoke even cleared and then wielded absolute power.
I think anything to allow the Iranian people better access to the rest of the world is a tremendous step.
The faster we can get a strong secular leader in power there, the better the odds of Iran returning to the peaceful international fold.
Hopefully the "we" is you and your fellow Iranians (wonder if/. can be read in Iran). We (as in the rest of the world) have countless examples why we should not be in the business of installing our favorite "leaders" at the heads of unstable governments. Supporting means for people to criticize, mobilize, and install a leader that meets their best interests (as determined by them, not outsiders) may take longer, but ultimately results in a more stable society.
Look at the military industry for example. There is a large market for guns, shells and missiles on one side, and also large market for bulletproof vests, armour and missile defense on the other side.
This is a similar situation. Especially the makers of internet filtering software, such as Cisco, should take note of this emerging market opportunity.
So, we should really keep the markets do their own thing, and the economy will grow and prosper.
I wouldn't dismiss this progress out of hand. Both the problems faced by censors and the problems faced by those routing around them are very significant issues in the science of networks. The solutions, even the ones used by the "enemy" (the censors) will have wider applications: For example, the packet filtering algorithms could be useful against botnets.
. . . free market sophistry makes when you stretch it almost to the breaking point.
This comparison is NONSENSE. TOA details a case of a counter culture's home-brew counter measures being used to get around state censorship. It's not like Iranians went to Best Buy to buy a copy of Freedom Industries' new app.
Not every problem in the world is amenable to "free market" solutions. Deal with it.
The market is only effective at maximizing profit, regardless of the consequences for human rights, or the environment, or whatever.
For instance, if there's a market for selling drugs that kill people for enormous profit, the market will kill people, buy off scientists to claim that their product does not kill people, buy politicians who will support their operations, and sell those drugs to children in countries where there is no effective legislation. If you think that petrochemicals, genetically modified
Falun Gong/Falun Dafa have been brutalized by the Chinese government for years for doing nothing more than practicing a mental and physical discipline.
They are experts in software like this because their leadership is almost certainly under constant surveillance.
Falun Gong/Falun Dafa have been brutalized by the Chinese government for years for doing nothing more than practicing a mental and physical discipline.
From what I read about the Fulun Gong is that they are pretty similar to Scientology in beliefs and certain "practices". Now even though Scientologists can be a bit shady with their cult, I would still argue that it would be wrong to throw them in jail and beat their members much like the Chinese did to the FG.
Oh, I can think of at least two [icanhascheezburger.com] species [ihasahotdog.com] who want, very badly, to evolve. At least to the point of not staring and begging for cheezburgers or hotdogz.
Look at it as the equivilant non-cyble technology. In this case, it would be like handing out encrypted radios to all the people in the target country. I don't know that that would constitute an attack, but it sure would piss off the powers that be.
"'Suppose we have the capacity to make it possible for the president of the United States at will to communicate with hundreds of thousands of Iranians at no risk or limited risk? It just changes the world.'"
Right, because those dumb Iranians couldn't possibly know anything until POTUS tells 'em about it. Obama will just do a two minute webcast on how many great jobs are available in the American auto industry, bookended by lolcats, and the government will fall!
That said, I find it a bit whacked that on one hand we have part of our government demanding filtering and selective blocking of websites in public locations and schools. While at the same time a different part of our government is supporting and funding software to bypass filtering and blocking.
Maybe we should drop the Politically Correct filtering efforts and quit wasting everybody's money. After all, isn't that what our government seems to be saying to other countries? Or is it just our country and our allies that are allowed to filter? Come on USA, get your story straight.
Yes, and I'm sure plenty of Iranians are using this kind of technology to download software from US sites, despite attempts by those sites to honor US export control laws that require the boycotting of Iran. Not that any of this really matters from a security point of view, as the Iranian government would always be able to get what it wants.
We blow up foreign infrastructure only to rebuild it.
We give tax breaks while simultaneously starting new spending programs.
We fight poppy growers, who fund terrorism, while simultaneously sustaining an artificially expensive black market for drugs. In a sense, we're both funding and fighting terrorism.
So there's absolutely nothing inconsistent about our behavior here.
Dude. Everything is not black and white. I appreciate a little nuanced pragmatism if it keeps you and your homeless comrades from enjoying pron at the library.
Suppose we have the capacity to make it possible for the president of the United States at will to communicate with hundreds of thousands of Iranians at no risk or limited risk? It just changes the world. You're assuming those thousands of Iranians would actually want to download messages from Obama, rather than downloading porn. As a general rule, the more repressed people's public lives are, the more sleazy their secret, private lives become. Iran has a huge surplus of educated but unemployed young men. I suspect that "free porn" is pretty high on their list of motivations for defeating filters, while "hearing what Obama has to say" is pretty low. Especially given that Obama doesn't speak Farsi. Porn is universal, it needs no translation. When was the last time you saw a foreign language porn flick with subtitles? One doesn't really need to understand the language to follow the plot line in a porn flick. And their stage direction is mostly just:
In!
Out.
In!
Out.
In!
Out.
In!
Out.
Actor 1 moans...
No mention of the U.K., Germany, or Australia which are also implementing blocking technologies? Very western of us to ignore the other supposed free countries.
"the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that has been suppressed by the Chinese government since 1999"
Falun Gong [apologeticsindex.org]. Do we need yet another weird cult added to the very long list [watchman.org] of those already available. Something for everyone. What was wrong with the weird cults of yesteryear? Long live Mao and down with hegemony of running dogs for western capitalists exploiters.
It's funny how certain kinds of people praise the defiance of authority like this but admonish those who defeat filters in school to access controversial information. They force their public schools and libraries to install buggy censorware which has been demonstrated time and time again to block legitimate but incorrectly categorized information.
Heck, the Australian and German governments filter their entire countries, for ostentatious "think of the children" reasons, but all it takes is a flip of a switch for it to go political. Neither country historically has much of a problem with certain kinds of political censorship.
How long ago was it that we had Republicans telling us to watch what we say?
We need a pan-national dedication to transparency and the free flow of information. The people who scream about Iranian and Chinese injustice the loudest are also some of the worst censors at home. The free world won't be until we hold our own people accountable.
It's funny how certain kinds of people praise the defiance of authority like this but admonish those who defeat filters in school to access controversial information. They force their public schools and libraries to install buggy censorware which has been demonstrated time and time again to block legitimate but incorrectly categorized information.
It's a damn shame that the press doesn't call out hypocritical policies. I know why, of course. If a reporter asks too many awkward questions, he isn't invited to
Breaking their firewall is really nothing to brag about, it took me about 5 minutes to ssh into my server in the US and apt-get tinyproxy. As far as I could tell they make no effort to block proxies at all.
What's old world is new world again (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully the citizens of Britain and Australia and Germany can get a hold of this software so that they can use the Internet without government censorship impeding them.
Re:What's old world is new world again (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What's old world is new world again (Score:5, Interesting)
I doubt the terrorist plot claim hold much water in the US any more.
No, these days you can hear the plaintive wail of "Won't someone please think of the Children" anytime someone speaks out against censorship.
Child porn is the major excuse for excessive censorship today, but Australia proposed to block thousands of legitimate sites in the pursuit of child porn, and Minnesota wants to block gambling sites.
Most censorship in the US is not done by the Federal Government, but rather by over zealous ISPs, Schools, and in the work-place.
The US government is large enough that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.
However, don't expect this inconsistency to last if those pushing for more censorship gain the ear of the current administration.
That being said, I will bet you Dollars to Donunts that government censorship will arrive in the EU before it arrives in the US on any comparable scale.
This is because, when you strip away the rhetoric, the EU is based on the notion that people can not govern themselves, and the elite must assume this burden. The US has historically espoused the concept of self government.
How long either can be true to their founding principals is anyone's guess.
Parent
As Always (Score:5, Insightful)
"The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it". People can do so too.
Re:Great Idea, but Wait 4 Years Please (Score:4, Funny)
Yes "I'm sorry we didn't prevent the Islamic revolution in 1979".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"I'm sorry we didn't prevent the Islamic revolution in 1979... ... by not overthrowing your democratic government in 1953."
I agree, that would be a nice place to start.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, even people who didn't vote for Bush are responsible for his actions.
Oh, that makes sense. I suppose you should be charged for murder, because I'm sure one happened.. and you're responsible for your government NOT protecting its citizens.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Collective blame is a substitute for thinking.
I have a dream... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I have a dream... (Score:4, Informative)
And the world has not been driven to dysfunctionalty by the freewheeling Internet, so censors and critics may as well get a life
Parent
As the son of an Iranian refugee (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Ayatollahs, Iran has politically regressed to a very dangerous stage. However, culturally the country is still very close to America. Despite the religiosity demanded by the mullahs, many consolations have been made to keep the populace from rioting.
From simple things like not requiring a full hijab to really bizarre things like ultra-temporary marriages to allow single men the pleasures of prostitutes legally under Sharia. Iran is a country struggling to break back into the modern world.
The faster we can get a strong secular leader in power there, the better the odds of Iran returning to the peaceful international fold.
Re:As the son of an Iranian refugee (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:As the son of an Iranian refugee (Score:5, Insightful)
The faster we can get a strong secular leader in power there, the better the odds of Iran returning to the peaceful international fold.
Hopefully the "we" is you and your fellow Iranians (wonder if /. can be read in Iran). We (as in the rest of the world) have countless examples why we should not be in the business of installing our favorite "leaders" at the heads of unstable governments. Supporting means for people to criticize, mobilize, and install a leader that meets their best interests (as determined by them, not outsiders) may take longer, but ultimately results in a more stable society.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
This is Slashdot, so you're probably right about the time estimate.
The markets are effective at this sort of thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the military industry for example. There is a large market for guns, shells and missiles on one side, and also large market for bulletproof vests, armour and missile defense on the other side.
This is a similar situation. Especially the makers of internet filtering software, such as Cisco, should take note of this emerging market opportunity.
So, we should really keep the markets do their own thing, and the economy will grow and prosper.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
>
So, we should really keep the markets do their own thing, and the economy will grow and prosper.
Except we end up creating useless products without a point, instead of using those resources for something that might be helpful.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly! Maybe that was why I was sarcastic..
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't dismiss this progress out of hand. Both the problems faced by censors and the problems faced by those routing around them are very significant issues in the science of networks. The solutions, even the ones used by the "enemy" (the censors) will have wider applications: For example, the packet filtering algorithms could be useful against botnets.
It's like spammers advancing OCR technology.
So that's the sound that . . . (Score:2)
. . . free market sophistry makes when you stretch it almost to the breaking point.
This comparison is NONSENSE. TOA details a case of a counter culture's home-brew counter measures being used to get around state censorship. It's not like Iranians went to Best Buy to buy a copy of Freedom Industries' new app.
Not every problem in the world is amenable to "free market" solutions. Deal with it.
No (Score:2)
The market is only effective at maximizing profit, regardless of the consequences for human rights, or the environment, or whatever.
For instance, if there's a market for selling drugs that kill people for enormous profit, the market will kill people, buy off scientists to claim that their product does not kill people, buy politicians who will support their operations, and sell those drugs to children in countries where there is no effective legislation. If you think that petrochemicals, genetically modified
Hooray for Falun Gong (Score:5, Interesting)
Falun Gong/Falun Dafa have been brutalized by the Chinese government for years for doing nothing more than practicing a mental and physical discipline.
They are experts in software like this because their leadership is almost certainly under constant surveillance.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Falun Gong/Falun Dafa have been brutalized by the Chinese government for years for doing nothing more than practicing a mental and physical discipline.
From what I read about the Fulun Gong is that they are pretty similar to Scientology in beliefs and certain "practices". Now even though Scientologists can be a bit shady with their cult, I would still argue that it would be wrong to throw them in jail and beat their members much like the Chinese did to the FG.
Re: (Score:2)
So tell me, are you an employee of the Chinese government, or just an ordinary Chinese citizen?
Why the surprise over Voice of America Support? (Score:5, Insightful)
Voice of America started as a radio network for broadcasting news that shows a different point of view from that by censors in the old Soviet Bloc.
This just seems a continuation of the same mission.
Information does not "want" to be free. (Score:4, Insightful)
In the same way that an object does not "want" to fall when it is dropped, or a species does not "want" to evolve.
But it will, regardless, simply because that is its natural state.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Information does not "want" to be free.
It's more like information has a tendency to diffuse like a gas. It's hard to keep information bottled up.
Re:Information does not "want" to be free. (Score:5, Funny)
Anthropomorphism hates being used in an analogy.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
or a species does not "want" to evolve.
Oh, I can think of at least two [icanhascheezburger.com] species [ihasahotdog.com] who want, very badly, to evolve. At least to the point of not staring and begging for cheezburgers or hotdogz.
Cyber attack? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, the United States government and the Voice of America have financed some of the circumvention technology efforts,
Would that count as a cyber attack on Iran or China?
Re: (Score:2)
Look at it as the equivilant non-cyble technology. In this case, it would be like handing out encrypted radios to all the people in the target country. I don't know that that would constitute an attack, but it sure would piss off the powers that be.
Patronizing as hell (Score:2, Funny)
"'Suppose we have the capacity to make it possible for the president of the United States at will to communicate with hundreds of thousands of Iranians at no risk or limited risk? It just changes the world.'"
Right, because those dumb Iranians couldn't possibly know anything until POTUS tells 'em about it. Obama will just do a two minute webcast on how many great jobs are available in the American auto industry, bookended by lolcats, and the government will fall!
Sheesh.
Re: (Score:2)
Way to let your ideology block you from getting the point.
Left hand, meet right hand (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I'll state that I support this, worldwide.
That said, I find it a bit whacked that on one hand we have part of our government demanding filtering and selective blocking of websites in public locations and schools. While at the same time a different part of our government is supporting and funding software to bypass filtering and blocking.
Maybe we should drop the Politically Correct filtering efforts and quit wasting everybody's money. After all, isn't that what our government seems to be saying to other countries? Or is it just our country and our allies that are allowed to filter? Come on USA, get your story straight.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Left hand, meet right hand (Score:5, Insightful)
It makes perfect sense.
We blow up foreign infrastructure only to rebuild it.
We give tax breaks while simultaneously starting new spending programs.
We fight poppy growers, who fund terrorism, while simultaneously sustaining an artificially expensive black market for drugs. In a sense, we're both funding and fighting terrorism.
So there's absolutely nothing inconsistent about our behavior here.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The 'net is pull, not push, technology (Score:3, Insightful)
In!
Out.
In!
Out.
In!
Out.
In!
Out.
Actor 1 moans...
What about the other countries? (Score:5, Informative)
No mention of the U.K., Germany, or Australia which are also implementing blocking technologies? Very western of us to ignore the other supposed free countries.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you got it all wrong.
UK, Australia and Germany are doing it for the good of the people, if the government wouldn't protect them, then who will?
China and Iran on the other hand are suppressing freedom and liberty.
Will someone think of the children!
Falun Gong a spiritual movement ? (Score:2)
Falun Gong [apologeticsindex.org]. Do we need yet another weird cult added to the very long list [watchman.org] of those already available. Something for everyone. What was wrong with the weird cults of yesteryear? Long live Mao and down with hegemony of running dogs for western capitalists exploiters.
Obviously, this won't work... (Score:2, Insightful)
Falun gong? Those suicidal ones? (Score:3, Informative)
From google cache:
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:d3NzsFRIiU4J:english.peopledaily.com.cn/200103/20/eng20010320_65533.html+falun+gong+suicides&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca [74.125.95.132]
IMHO Some things should be outlawed.
Radio free world (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny how certain kinds of people praise the defiance of authority like this but admonish those who defeat filters in school to access controversial information. They force their public schools and libraries to install buggy censorware which has been demonstrated time and time again to block legitimate but incorrectly categorized information.
Heck, the Australian and German governments filter their entire countries, for ostentatious "think of the children" reasons, but all it takes is a flip of a switch for it to go political. Neither country historically has much of a problem with certain kinds of political censorship.
How long ago was it that we had Republicans telling us to watch what we say?
We need a pan-national dedication to transparency and the free flow of information. The people who scream about Iranian and Chinese injustice the loudest are also some of the worst censors at home. The free world won't be until we hold our own people accountable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny how certain kinds of people praise the defiance of authority like this but admonish those who defeat filters in school to access controversial information. They force their public schools and libraries to install buggy censorware which has been demonstrated time and time again to block legitimate but incorrectly categorized information.
It's a damn shame that the press doesn't call out hypocritical policies. I know why, of course. If a reporter asks too many awkward questions, he isn't invited to
this is so cool (Score:2)
does Iran seriously censor Obama? (Score:3, Insightful)
I seriously doubt the Iranians censor much in the way of non-pornographic English material.
I was in Iran 6 weeks ago and (Score:4, Informative)