Info/Law

Putting up roadblocks on the Internet isn’t always about keeping people away from things – even the most sophisticated firewall is Swiss cheese to the savvy. The goal of information control is often subtler: to channel Web users towards, or away from, certain content their country / employer / parents wouldn’t like them to see. Nudges can be nearly as powerful as shoves – and far less obvious.

It’s like the FastLane automatic toll collection system employed here in Massachusetts. In exchange for a small fee and a deposit, you receive a transponder that you attach to your windshield. It debits your checking account or credit card each time you go through a toll. Of course, the system records when you went through the toll and how much you paid – giving authorities a potential tool to track you, or at least catch speeders, and (like EZ Pass) for jealous spouses to find out whether their husbands were, in fact, at work at night last Thursday.

So why use FastLane? Well, in addition to the convenience of not fumbling for change, the FastLane lines at the tollbooths are always very short or non-existent, while the ordinary cash lines can stretch (literally) for miles. So, there’s a strong incentive for one to participate “voluntarily” in the system, giving up data and some funds to avoid maddening waits on the way to a Red Sox game.

What’s the Internet equivalent? Let me offer two examples. First, Burma (or Myanmar, as its military dictators prefer) has tightened its system of Internet filtering to block Google and its Gmail service. The OpenNet Initiative‘s research shows that Burma already blocks most free Web-based e-mail (85% of sites tested). Thus, Gmail’s addition to the block list isn’t surprising. Why filter freemail? Because the state’s security services like to monitor citizens’ e-mail exchanges. Using official Burmese e-mail accounts is easy. Using outside ones is hard. Block Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail, and people are more likely to resign themselves to living with the e-mail version of a tapped phone line.

Second, China – always jealous of its pride of place as the top filtering state – is using a new set of regulations about publishing news on-line to steer citizens towards official news sources, such as the Xinhua News Agency. Publish “breaking” news (think SARS) without permission, or put out one’s own version of the story, and a site faces significant fines. The regulations are tilted against individuals and small groups that attempt to publish news or editorial opinions – think bloggers – by requiring them to have more employees and operating capital than authorized news agencies. This comes in tandem with a short shut-down of popular search engines Sina and Sohu to refine their censorship of search results. It’s the same tactic: make it more difficult to get information from one channel (independent sources such as bloggers), and users will surf over to docile providers like Sina. (Lest you think this is a quirk of authoritarian regimes, similar moves have been proposed here in the States.)

When there’s a FastLane, there’s a SlowLane (this is the hidden story of the Net Neutrality fistfight). A clever state can use technology such as filtering, burdensome rules, fees, or even public pressure to push users into the favored, efficient, and carefully monitored FastLanes. Sometimes, convenience isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.

A final amusing note: when ONI was researching Burma’s filtering, we detected what appeared to be the American software firm Fortinet’s Web filtering product. The company claimed to have no idea what we were talking about. I was about to delete this from the study – after all, would a major corporation be less than up front with us about aiding an authoritarian state? – until I found a photo of Fortinet’s Sales Director for the region presenting a gift to Burma’s Prime Minister in commemoration of the country adopting Fortinet’s filtering product. (Scroll down, look for the guys shaking hands.) We have a legal term for this: “oops!” (The Sales guy in question, Benjamin Teh, refused to confirm he’d even been in Rangoon. Apparently the junta is also excellent at faking photos of random software company bureaucrats. Or is there a simpler explanation?)

Props, by the way, to the prolific and insightful EastSouthWestNorth on the China bit.

Filed under: Anonymity, Filtering, Intermediaries, Internet & Society, Privacy