CNN China Spat with Google won’t affect relations with U.S.
Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre, which studies the intersection of digital policy and human rights, said Google’s move didn’t come as a surprise.
“It’s become unsustainable for Google to operate in this environment,” he said. “They’ve made a decision that the risks are too great for them, so they’re going to pull out.”
From CNN
China’s Cyberspace Control Strategy: An Overview and Consideration of Issues for Canadian Policy
Published in Canadian International Council by Ron Deibert Canada should lead global effort to counter Internet censorship and cyber-espionage in China and elsewhere, new CIC paper argues.
Google, China, and the coming threat from cyberspace
Published in the Christian Science Monitor By Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski Cyberspace attacks are set to increase. Here’s why – and here’s what we can do to stop them. The recent cyberespionage attacks on Google and that company’s subsequent announcement that it would reconsider its search engine services in China gripped the world’s focus [...]
NY Times Room For Debate – Can Google Beat China
More Than a Tech Problem For years, innovative solutions to sidestep Internet filters have plagued Internet censors. Rebellious kids, hoping to sneak a peek around parental controls, have come up with some of the best of these ideas. Others are highly sophisticated open-source systems tended to by brainy PhD.’s and caffeine-fueled programmers.
Google, China and a wake-up call to protect the Net (Globe and Mail comment)
By Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski Action is needed at the global level to ensure that cyberspace doesn’t slip into a new dark age Google’s announcement that it had been hit by cyberattacks from China and that it’s reconsidering its services in that country has smacked the world like a thunderclap: Why the drastic [...]
Some Facts about the Incident at the IGF Egypt
1. We were told that the banner had to be removed because of the reference to China. This was repeated on several occasions, in front of about two dozen witnesses and officials, including the UN Special Rapporteur For Human Rights, who asked that I send in a formal letter of complaint. 2. Earlier, the same [...]
ONI Bulletin on China’s Green Dam Filtering Software
The OpenNet Initiative has released a bulletin entitled “China’s Green Dam: The Implications of Government Control Encroaching on the Home PC.” You can read more about it here. Executive Summary A recent directive by the Chinese government requires the installation of a specific filtering software product, Green Dam, with the publicly stated intent of protecting [...]
Software can bypass China’s “Great Firewall” but hard to get inside country
Two years ago the Citizen Lab released a program called Psiphon, which allows users in countries such as China and Iran to circumvent their governments’ Internet censorship. The free software uses computers outside the censoring country — known as proxies — to fetch web pages and send them back over encrypted connections. The technique is [...]
China’s Overeager American Censors
Published on Forbes.com June 20, 2008 Practically every U.S.-owned search engine has caved to the Chinese government’s demands that they censor political Web sites in China. But none of them seem to agree on just what sites need censoring. Google, at times, blocks Chinese users’ access to the BBC while Yahoo! permits it. Yahoo! sometimes [...]
Testimony to US Congress
I am testifying to US Congress today, at the US China Economic and Security Review Commission. My testimony covers the research of the OpenNet Initiative on Internet censorship practices in China, the range and effectiveness of circumvention methods, including our own tool — psiphon, and the role of US and Western corporations in aiding and [...]