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Orwell Denied
by Robert Drake
March 1st, 2006
It is impossible to help, but asking whether or not the internet is the new ground for censors and information tyrants. At a time when the Chinese demand a separate Google page, an NSA wiretapping scandal is erupting, and the Unites States Government is demanding major web browsers provide access to their search records, it is easy to see a dangerous trend. The effectiveness of the Chinese government in controlling information is especially terrifying. There are few governments that would not prefer to keep certain aspects of their policy from their people and China is teaching the world how to censor. This is the position put forth in the article titled, “China 1, Internet Freedom 0” written by Kathleen E. McLaughlin.
I believe there is a danger in how one analyzes the situation. It is too easy to see a slippery slope beginning from a few internet controls put down in a communist nation and leading to the proverbial Orwellian society. For sure Chinese censorship is to be watched carefully, but it hardly leads to a world where the internet is controlled by any nation or any person. Danny O’ Brien says in the article, “The biggest danger is that China creates a very large market and testing ground for surveillance and filtering software." This is absolutely true. China is acting as a test subject for mass censorship. This all sounds very bad, but there is an interesting inverse to this quote. If China feels the need to censor data than that means the people of China are seeking information banned by their government.
There is a resistance to this policy and a resistance that is sufficient enough to warrant the millions of dollars the Chinese government is putting into its enforcement including as many as 30,000 telecom operators trolling the internet looking for sites to censor.
China has more or less successfully created a censored internet, but I believe Ms. McLaughlin has failed to note the presence both here and abroad of an internet resistance which is amazingly resilient and effective. A perfect example is with digital rights management. The RIAA and music producers of American have not been able, with all their money, power, and expertise, to do much of anything against the rampant trading of mp3 files and movies. Each new encryption method and tracking mechanism is defeated primarily for trading music, but could just as easily be, and most likely is, used for trading information subversive to the government’s interests. One only has to look at Sony BMG’s rootkit to see how far these companies are going to stop illegal downloads. For all their effort they are still failing. The rootkit was detected and worked around in November 2005.
As long as there are groups who seek censored information it has been proven that censorship cannot successfully prevent its access. The reason this has not been visibly demonstrated yet in China is for a couple of reasons. Firstly, no one is going to report, “I fought Chinese Censorship and Won.” and even if they did China wouldn’t fuel the fire by putting it on CNN Beijing. Secondly China is still a fledgling country. Technologically they remain behind. True 134 million Chinese are predicted to be online within the year, but keep in mind this is China: The Land of One Billion.
Ms. McLaughlin mentions Microsoft and Google, and how they participate in the censorship:
“Part of the Chinese success has been co-opting American tech companies with the lure of its lucrative consumer market. Microsoft blocks bloggers from posting politically sensitive words in Chinese; Google shuts down for several minutes when a user in China looks too many times for forbidden words like "Falun Gong;" and Yahoo recently admitted turning over private e-mail information that helped lead to the jailing of a Chinese journalist.”
Sure we can blame our tech companies all day long for bowing to Chinese censorship demands, but we should also acknowledge the clever opportunity they have given the world. Every censorship demand they fulfill opens up the internet a little more and makes the resistance that much more intent on winning.
With each router sent to the Far East another individual is given all the power they need to become the internet resistance of the next generation. As we make their people more technically competent with the devices of the internet we assure the world that censorship will fail. The tech repair man who knows how to set up a small LAN will learn how to create darknets. The software engineer who designs encryption for online retailers will understand cryptography algorithms. The network administrator of Tiananmen’s Square Widgets will set up a proxy server on the side. It is good that Kathleen and others are carefully watching Chinese censorship, but as long as there is a will to resist the internet is a tool that cannot be hindered. It is resilient by its design and censorship is anathema to the very concept.
Whether it be China, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, or elsewhere, there is little to fear from any mass censorship of the internet in the long term. The companies and countries taking the internet to these far locals are ending censorship with every new computer and each new cable. It is the fascinating and marvelous fact that the same skills needed to run the internet can be used to beat censorship…and not even China can control 1 billion hackers. Chinese Censorship 1, Hackers 10.
McLaughlen, E. Kethleen, (Sept. 22, 2005). China 1, Internet Freedom 0. The Christian Science Monitor, Retrieved February, Twenty-Second, 2006, from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/22/tech/main878926.shtml
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