The Syrian Government's Internet Strategy 45
decora writes "In a recent article on Al-Jazeera, Jillian York of the EFF speculates about the true nature of the Syrian 'hackers' who defaced AnonPlus. She references a University of Toronto analysis from May, which pointed out that the supposed independent hacktivist group the Syrian Electronic Army has a website that is hosted and registered by the Syrian Computer Society — a group that dictator Bashar Al-Asad used to run and that was founded by his brother. York has previously written about the mystery of the pro-Asad twitter floods of April, and the convenient unblocking of social media sites like YouTube and Facebook earlier in the year, which allegedly allowed the Mukhabarat to spy on and entrap opposition activists through forged SSL certificates. She also points out the numerous cases of Syrian bloggers being censored, arrested, and persecuted for their writings online. Is the Syrian example evidence against the vision of internet-as-liberator?"
Say it again (Score:3, Interesting)
Identity is one of the most dangerous concepts of the 21st century.
As long as the royal "they" (governments, big corporations) can tell us who we are then they shall remain in control.
They can arrest Citizen #123-45-6789. They cannot arrest Anonymous Coward. They cannot arrest LibertyDude123. They cannot arrest anything from cyberspace without first identifying it in meatspace.
If we're all Guy Fawkes then they are powerless.
By resisting the creep of identity into cyberspace we can keep cyberspace free and available for social change.
Anonymous Coward is immortal. He cannot be arrested and his ideas cannot be destroyed. What he says stands on its own merits, provoking thought in everyone who can access his message.
Re:The American example is much better evidence (Score:2, Interesting)