
Internet Freedom Wanes as Governments Target Messaging, Social Apps - happy-go-lucky
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/14/500214959/internet-freedom-wanes-as-governments-target-messaging-social-apps
======
jwtadvice
How did the Snowden Disclosures get completely dismissed by this report? US
intelligence has been backdooring social and messaging apps for mass
surveillance and propaganda (e.g. Zunzuneo) for decades.

Internet freedom was only a short, small blip of possibility. It died decades
ago when control was consolidated into regulated corporations, its companies
were infiltrated by intelligence personnel, and when modern communications
became a specific military target (with UK and US leading the charge).

This story doesn't offer solutions (I get that it's not trying to). Rather, it
repudiates specific countries for specific decisions while giving others a
free pass for their own unsavory behavior.

It's cute that their map shows the former Soviet Union as "not free" and the
former American Cold War strategic assets as "free" \- but this cute glib
approach to assessment is backed by a severe lack of security analysis and a
severe lack of reasonable acknowledgement of basic facts.

Here's an approach: encourage technology whose transparency and control is
centered in individuals & cede top-down influence over the networks of those
individuals and their technology as much as is technically possible.

Don't like that solution? Well, you're in for a ride called "waning internet
freedom". Color the map however you want. But appropriating the free software
movement into some military geopolitical nonsense loses you credibility.

~~~
rdtsc
> It's cute that their map shows the former Soviet Union as "not free" and the
> former American Cold War strategic assets as "free"

Very good point. I think anyone interested in how "Free" press is used and how
un-free it usually is, should read Manufacturing Consent by Edward Herman and
Noam Chomsky. Hate them or love them, they provide a very good examples that
are documented of "free" media bias.

My favorite example is CNN recently. I think they at some point dropped the
pretense and sunk to levels lower than what Fox has been considered. My
favorite recent example is of course Chris Cuomo from CNN who said "...it is
illegal to possess these stolen documents. It is different from the media. So
everything you learn about this, you are learning from us." That is such a
brilliant example of what is happening.

The only question there to ask is why be so blatant and desperate about
censorship. And I think the answer is because they got desperate. They
realized they lost control.

As you say, and Snowden showed US govt has been using Tweeter and other such
thing to control and conduct various operations. I am guessing the Arab Spring
is a good recent example.

~~~
Natsu
That would be this CNN clip:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X16_KzX1vE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X16_KzX1vE)

And this is the best explanation for why he was wrong:

[https://popehat.com/2016/10/17/no-it-is-not-illegal-to-
read-...](https://popehat.com/2016/10/17/no-it-is-not-illegal-to-read-
wikileaks/)

As for why they would do that, well, they leaked the debate questions to Donna
Brazille. And then she lied about it, saying they were modified. Anyone on
here can go check the DKIM headers, they're both valid and they cover the body
of the message providing cryptographic non-repudiation.

~~~
rdtsc
Yes! that's the one. For some reason I just really remembered it and in my
mind it summarizes what "media" has become.

It has always been this way, but I guess it has recently hit new lows.

------
hackernews2000
Brazilian politicians are currently suggesting to create a new federal agency
to regulate mobile apps because they "are unfair competition" to the services
provided by the government-enforced oligopoly of four mobile carriers that
basically share the market equally
([http://img.estadao.com.br/link/files/2012/01/operadoras-
tele...](http://img.estadao.com.br/link/files/2012/01/operadoras-telefonia-
jan12.jpg)), and because Whatsapp doesn't (can't) hand out encrypted
conversation histories to the police
([http://adrenaline.uol.com.br/2016/11/09/46694/mp-defende-
cri...](http://adrenaline.uol.com.br/2016/11/09/46694/mp-defende-criacao-de-
agencia-para-regular-whatsapp-e-aumentar-o-controle-sobre-app/)).

~~~
diego_moita
Brazilians being Brazilians it is quite likely that this will create an
incentive for people to start using illegal apps.

E.g.: in Brazil abortion is illegal but quite common, tax evasion is illegal
but quite common, smuggling from Paraguay is illegal but quite common,
gambling is illegal but quite common, ...

~~~
marcosdumay
It's very hard to make those applications actually illegal (the Congress
literally does not have the power for that).

More likely, the government will regulate any company distributing them out of
existence, while foreign companies and software-only protocols will get the
entire market.

------
walrus01
Network engineer here: the best crypto in the world won't save you when the
government sends men with guns to your offices to tell you to null route
certain IP blocks (google IPs, YouTube, Turkey) or forces all ASNs in the
country to single home themselves to the government run ASN (DCI, Iran).

There are a lot of bottlenecks at layers 1-3 that autocratic regimes can use
to mess with the internet long before layers 4-7 become important.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Network engineer here: the best crypto in the world won't save you when the
government sends men with guns to your offices to tell you to null route
certain IP blocks

Yep. This is _exactly_ why crypto is not the solution to government
oppression. The only thing crypto does is make the government's snooping more
difficult, which can definitely piss them off and/or flag your activities as
suspicious. And that is generally NOT what you want when facing a government
actor.

Look, I'm going to say something that's going to be very unpopular here since
this forum is full of techies. Here it is: you can't solve social problems
using technology, because at the end of the day it's humans who are the
weakest link in any equation. Keeping your communications encrypted isn't very
meaningful when the government can just torture whatever it needs out of you
and your loved ones. Sure, that's illegal in much of the West today, but that
is now. The future holds no such guarantees. In fact, I'd posit that the USA
at least is just one major terrorist attack away from full-on tyranny. Another
September 11 equivalent and we're all fucked, crypto or no crypto.

------
forgottenpass
This is what we get for designing systems with a low number (typically one)
privileged centralized controlling body.

The government gets to roll up and says "I'll have some of what they're
having."

I'm not saying that there aren't advantages to centralized architectures, just
that this is one of the inseparable tradeoffs that comes with those decisions.

~~~
DamnYuppie
I will admit I maybe missing the point of your comment. Are you referring to
the infiltration of large telecommunications and social media providers? If
you are referring to the underlying protocols themselves then it doesn't make
much sense as packet based protocols were initially funded and built by the US
Department of Defense.

~~~
voxic11
He is referring to technologies like Facebook which are controlled 100% by 1
person. Verses technologies like email which are not fully controllable by a
single entity.

~~~
niels_olson
How is Facebook a technology? It's a database-backed website, complete with
PHP and MySQL. What innovation is intrinsic to anything about Facebook?

~~~
sangnoir
Wait a sec - you're getting caught up in the minutae. OP said

> This is what we get for designing _systems_ with a low number (typically
> one) privileged centralized controlling body.

The successive replies morphed the word into _protocol_ and then _technology_
, and here we are arguing how Facebook is in any way innovative in order to
qualify as a _technology_ \- an argument totally disconnected from the one
upthread.

------
qwertyuiop924
...Well, just stick to the web and the more underground sections of the
internet, and avoid big silos. Don't log into facebook. Don't log into google.
Hell, don't even use google, if DDG works for you now.

Overall internet freedom isn't waning as much as you think. Step outside the
silos, and look at the net, not just your corner.

~~~
dualogy
Sure. Same old story though, "the silos" are where "the masses" are. If you're
doing Just Underground Thangs in "the more underground sections", "TPTB" will
happily leave you alone because you're fringe (no leverage, no voice) and
you're not engaging "the masses". If you aimed to, you'd have to play in the
silos, by "silo rules". ;)

Back when we had the communist bloc or before the fascist axis, the above
model seemed much more potently free-est-of-all because "autocrats would
target and shut down underground channels, not here though"..

------
rm_-rf_slash
Although perhaps politically impossible, I maintain that the only check
against corruption and misuse of mass data collection is to make it freely
available to the public.

Mass surveillance is not going away. If anything, it will accelerate. The only
way to keep the powerful from misusing it is to put everybody on the same
level playing field.

The alternative is to glue our crossed fingers together and hope that nobody
will abuse a technology that can bring so much good to do many people.

~~~
CaptSpify
You might be interested in this:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/this-
man...](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/this-man-has-
nothing-to-hide/379041/)

> The only way to keep the powerful from misusing it is to put everybody on
> the same level playing field.

I'm inclined to agree with you, but I have a few issues:

1) Nobody will ever be on the same playing field. There will always be someone
who needs special closed-door meetings because "state-secrets" or "to catch
the bad guys" or whatever. I think it is just too easy to abuse by those in
power for them to let it slip by.

2) We'd need to stop treating criminals or outsiders as "bad" people first.
Example: We need to treat violent offenders as people who don't fit in well
with our non-violent society, rather than horrible people who need locked away
and punished. We'd have to start recognizing that people who don't fit in well
are often products of our culture, and we need to do more to support them.

3) I think the social changes would be _drastic_ , for good and bad. Example:
We'd start to realize how, statistically, everyone watches porn from time to
time, and what types they watch. There's way too much social stigma out there
right now for me to think that would end well.

~~~
ccvannorman
for a follow up to 3) I recommend investigating South Park's "TrollTrace"
episodes where a town riots due to browsing/troll history lookup power given
to the citizens.

------
vaadu
So Freedom wanes because governments are doing what internet
monopolies(facebook and google) have been doing for years?

~~~
fauigerzigerk
So far Google hasn't prosecuted me for spreading atheism.

~~~
ccvannorman
"First they came for the neo-liberal Trump supporters, and I didn't speak up."

~~~
sangnoir
When did Google do that? I guess it's more romantic than "First they came for
the link-spammers, and I didn't speak up."

------
Kenji
We will witness the day when everyone is forced to have a unique internet ID
and your full name and address are revealed when you visit a website. It will
have a vast chilling effect on free speech. Everyone who uses non-backdoored
encryption will be a prosecuted criminal. Uncontrolled free speech only harms
government and prevents it from growing.

~~~
pyrale
I hate to be the sheeple-ception guy, but :

> We will witness the day when everyone is forced to have a unique internet ID

FB and google can already fuly trace most people's web journeys

> your full name and address are revealed when you visit a website.

They also have your physical data.

> It will have a vast chilling effect on free speech.

Facebook and Youtube's comfort bubbles of information already regulate your
ability to reach people, and filter your information sources.

> Everyone who uses non-backdoored encryption will be a prosecuted criminal.

Meanwhile, Whatsapp, the standard bearer of encryption, leaks your data to the
parent company, for advertising purpose.

> Uncontrolled free speech only harms government and prevents it from growing.

You're already owned by people in power. Breaking free already entails
becoming an outcast in your society. And maybe, just maybe, if you fear the
government to take control, allowing such power to concentrate in a couple
corporation is not a good idea, and you should drop your dichotomy between
private and public entities.

~~~
myowncrapulence
The irony that most people agree about "around-the-corner" dystopian futures
but when you provide fact that we are already living in one you start seeing
"conspiracy nut/paranoid/shadow-people" replies.

Many don't step out of mainstream lifestyles and so they don't see the rigid
boundaries. Think Allegory of the Cave.

~~~
uabstraction
Those who do not move do not notice their chains.

------
niftich
Better link (prefer original sources):
[https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-
net-2016](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2016)

The "what about Snowden's revelations" argument is partially missing the
point. People in the 'green' countries don't experience network-wide blocks,
or loosely-targeted, blanket arrests for merely participating in platforms,
even in places where other chilling-effect factors exist, like in the US [1],
and Hungary [2] (both of them conductors of mass surveillance [3][4]), which
are documented in detail in the long-form reports. This lack of active, direct
governmental harassment of ordinary citizens is a fairly observable difference
in outcomes from those places where this occurs.

But in any case, their reports are more valuable than their map, which
distills many disparate, sometimes orthogonal factors into one of four
discrete colors. In my opinion, despite Freedom House's good content in their
textual reports, the Reporters Without Borders 'World Press Freedom Index' [5]
provides a ranking that more accurately represents chilling effects that are
not due to direct governmental coercion.

[1] [https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2016/united-
stat...](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2016/united-states) [2]
[https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
net/2016/hungary](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2016/hungary)
[3] [http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/01/top-european-
co...](http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2016/01/top-european-court-to-
snooping-governments-mass-surveillance-needs-judicial-oversight/) [4]
[http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/hungary...](http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/hungary-
study-data-surveillance-hu.pdf) [5]
[https://rsf.org/en/ranking](https://rsf.org/en/ranking)

------
gnipgnip
Considering the biased source, it'd be nice to hear first hand experience from
HNers.

Let me start.

India:

Generally free. Sometimes random people are arrested because they happened to
curse a politician, and some moron complained to the Police. It's more often
comical, in contrast to say cases like Snowden/Assange, The IT dept. (like
much else) are rather incompetent, and have at various points blocked Github
and Vimeo in their puritanical zeal.

------
slezyr
How could germany be so free?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_YouTube_videos_in_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_YouTube_videos_in_Germany)

~~~
tormeh
GEMA is not the German government as far as I can see...

------
piotrjurkiewicz
Germany free?

Especially to those ones who criticize Merkel's immigration policy...

This report is a joke.

~~~
tormeh
German police here, downvoting this comment. /s

Just stop. There are limits on free speech in Germany, but it's mostly for
denying the Holocaust and yelling "sieg heil" in the street etc. I assume
you're not referring to that?

~~~
kr7
Or satirizing Erdogan:

[https://boingboing.net/2016/04/23/german-political-leader-
ar...](https://boingboing.net/2016/04/23/german-political-leader-arrest.html)

Or "hate speech", which will certainly have a chilling effect on the
legitimate discussion of immigration policy:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/germany-
springs-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/germany-springs-to-
action-over-hate-speech-against-
migrants/2016/01/06/6031218e-b315-11e5-8abc-d09392edc612_story.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/19/head-of-
german...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/19/head-of-german-anti-
islam-group-pegida-trial-hate-lutz-bachmann)

~~~
_nedR
While we are on the subject the UK has a law that states : "No extracts from
parliamentary proceedings may be used in comedy shows or other light
entertainment such as political satire"

So political satire shows like Jon Stewart and the Late show? Can't happen in
UK. Guess thats why John Oliver, an englishman, is doing his show in the US.

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/31/jon-
st...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/31/jon-stewart-
parliament-broadcast-satire)

