"The Geopolitics of Asian Cyberspace" - Ronald Deibert
[Underechoed (h/t: XarxAsia)]
The Geopolitics of Asian Cyberspace
Far Eastern Economic Review, December 2006, by Ronald Deibert
"Conventional wisdom had it that the Internet was an unstoppable force for liberalization, with nondemocratic states powerless to control this sprawling, seamless network of networks. But this vast international "underbelly" of the Internet -- almost completely invisible to most Internet users -- has become an object of geopolitical contestation among states, and a site where political power is being asserted." ...
"The increased sophistication of Internet content filtering practices can be attributed, in part, to the services provided by Western (mostly U.S.-based) software and Internet service firms. Whereas once the best and brightest of Silicon Valley were associated with wiring the world, and opening up access to vast stores of information, today they are just as likely to be known for doing the opposite. Although Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo!, Skype, and Google have all come under scrutiny for colluding with China's Internet censorship practices, perhaps the most significant, serious, and yet overlooked contribution to Internet censorship by Western corporations comes from the manufacturers of the filtering software used to block content."
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in censorware | on January 07, 2007 09:37 PM (Infothought permalink)
At the same time, however, the West is also providing the anti-filtering tools.
Not at anywhere near the same size and scope.
The filtering “edge” - now is to enable forced micro-managed information control for
business/government applications. The enemy is "within". If you don't know it...you can't leak it.