Getting around Internet censors
Vietnam's government tries to block its citizens from such US-based Web sites
as the one run by expatriate Pham Ngoc, whose pro-democracy message it
considers dangerous and subversive.
The ruling Communist Party doesn't like the dissident writings and other postings on
his Thong Luan site, shortened from the Vietnamese for ''information debate.''
No matter. Third-party Internet gateways known as proxies have long allowed
Vietnamese citizens to bypass government filters by masquerading the sites they are
trying to reach.
But lately, governments in such countries as Vietnam, China, and Saudi Arabia
have gotten smarter about blocking those proxies as well. And that's forcing
technologists to devise new ways of evading the censors.
''It's like a game,'' said Pham Ngoc, a Vietnamese expatriate who operates the
Thong Luan site from San Jose, Calif. ''If they discover this is a new proxy, they
will spread the word to friends. But if they know, the police know.''
Say what you want about the Internet as the Wild West, where information flows
freely and the masses are in control; Net censorship is on the rise.
A February 2001 report from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders found
censorship in 58 countries. The group expects to list about 40 more in a January
update.
And longtime censors have gotten even more aggressive in the past year or so, as
they play what amounts to a digital version of Whac-a-Mole.
They have poured countless resources and hired the brightest technicians to find
and close the technical loopholes through which people can get forbidden content,
including Western news outlets, dissident writings, and in the Mideast, pornography
and other sites deemed anti-Islam.
They have largely succeeded.
''Most of these governments are not as worried about the elite,'' said Jack Balkin,
an online speech expert at Yale Law School. ''It's about making sure the vast
majority don't get unfiltered access.''
Early this year, the Chinese government took 24 hours to discover new proxies as
they circulated through online discussion groups or chat rooms, said Greg Walton,
a San Francisco researcher who provides technical support for a Tibetan-freedom
organization.
''Then it gradually went to 12 hours, six hours; now it's 15 minutes,'' he said.
And when technical measures fail, the Chinese government can encourage
self-censorship by sending police to cybercafes and imposing lengthy prison
sentences for downloading ''subversive'' materials.
Vietnam, meanwhile, concedes it can't afford the estimated $400 million needed to
fully block sites and keep up with proxies. But that won't stop censorship: It
recently proposed to severely punish cafe owners who let customers access porn
or anti-government sites like Pham Ngoc's.
Other countries like Cuba and Iraq make accessing the Internet so expensive and
difficult that it is effectively censored for the majority. China, too, has tried to limit
access, closing thousands of cybercafes following a deadly June fire at one.
By Anick Jesdanun - The Associated Press - September 02, 2002.
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