Hi, I like your view of the agenda and maybe a good combination would convey the most critical bits of the message. of course Ahmed needs to tell us what the time window he has to explain the topic, and of course he must have his own views on what is important to highlight and what is not. I of course totally agree on your selection of countries and a few others around the world which would fit in the 'totalitarian regimes' in my book. When I read your message, it occurred to me that perhaps a good analogy to draw on would be 'monitoring phone conversation'. Egyptians in their 50s-60s should easily relate to that because of historical reasons related to 'Salah Nasr' , and the concept is not alien to the younger generation. One can even find international examples like the McCarthy period in the US. This could bring home the idea of how does an entity know what to censor: by monitoring the communication.
I would also like to say, I think it is important to use a medium as powerful and far reaching(depending of course what channel you gonna on Ahmed :) ) to convey a message and make an appeal that it is a violation of personal right, an inappropriate empowerment to the government and a waste of resources better spent on something else. I would try to hammer this a bit, if we can built a popular view that it is wrong for a government to censor based on political or "moral" motivations then I think it is much better than trying to explain the circumvention techniques which are likely hard technically to describe and are available for the curious minds to discover anyway. Good luck Ahmed Regards Mohamed On Thursday, February 21, 2013 2:04:54 PM UTC+1, Rayna / Malicia wrote: > > Hi, > > Although I find Mohamed's approach pretty exhaustive, I'm not sure one > could comprehensively talk about this during a TV show. These are pretty > thorough and high-voltage questions which, when approached in this very > quick&dirty way as during a TV show, repel the people and give them the > impression everything is so complicated and doesn't concern them at all. > > You need to find a much more "low-level" approach, so to speak. Which may > be: what is censorship, why do I need to circumvent it, and how does the > govt know what to censor? > > These are three pretty different yet intimately related questions. You > need to explain why the govt (or a company) may want to censor content on > the web. In the case of a company, for instance, the censorship may be > explained by "we block Facebook cuz we don't want our employees to waste > their time there", which will be considered as OK by most of the people. If > you speak of govts censoring politically-motivated content, you need to > *really* well define in which cases this happens. > > Then, this immediately calls the question of circumvention. Many will > react that the company has the right to do so, and that there is nothing > you can do legally, so you are actually infringing your work contract by > circumventing. This is a defendable or not position, you can discuss it, > but the conditions are that you do have a contract with a company which > rules this kinds of things as well. The question is much trickier when it > boils down to politically motivated censorship. What is it? How do you > prove it so? No need to go in China: have a look at Qatar, KSA, Bahrain, > UAE, keda. In the case of govt censoring politically incorrect content and > the circumvention of such censorship are clearly a form of disobedience. > This is a point people don't always get: they'll just mock the officials as > idiots and tell them "I can use a proxy". Sure, but this is a somewhat dull > reaction... > > Which brings the question of surveillance, right. Which is imho THE issue > when it comes to censorship. Censoring content is the consequence of the > govt/company knowing your internet habits. How do they know this? Aslan, by > spying you... Do I need to tell the story about FinFisher? Or Ammar 404 in > Tunisia? Etc. This part of the story is something people don't think of at > all. Or when you talk to them, they generally react as: "well, I have > nothing to hide, so they can always have a look". Which is wrong. You need > to argue on this to make the point of the red line that must not be crossed > by the govt when it boils down to people's personal communications. (Again, > for the company, it is different cuz one can assume that your workstations > belongs to the company, so if they want to dig your web browsing while you > work on this station, it is their right. Whether one finds this cool or not > is a totally different question.) > > Lastly, if you want to speak of copyright-motivated censorship, I do > advise you to adopt a vocabulary that speaks to anyone, and to have a few > very easy-to-get examples. Yet this part is really tricky as > copyright-based internet regulations are a nightmare and don't really > concern Egypt thus far. I'd much more get into a discussion of cybercrime > provisions (see Iraq, UAE), the ongoing discussions around the EU Directive > on the topic + the EU Data Protection directive that is being reformed atm, > CISPA in the USA. These all touch to -- putting it simply -- transposing > the penal laws that govern our everyday offline life to the transborder and > governmentless internet. With this respect, you may be interested to get > the troll going around the ITU ;) > > > Not sure this is clear, as I ignore anything about your knowledge of the > above + the indications that have been given by the people from the TV. But > hope this is useful :) > > > Rayna > > 2013/2/21 <[email protected] <javascript:>> > >> Hi Ahmed, >> >> I don't have any materials ready but If I were you I would try to: >> >> 1-The internet as a large scale network with few points of controls and >> highlight that both good and bad(for various definitions of good and bad) >> content and usage exist >> 2-Censorship, both as an act of controlling information/content flow and >> the motivations, broken down to Political, Legal, Moral and how that >> affects the censorship techniques. >> 2.A- Various examples for the different types : China's censorship of >> Facebook, Netflix or Youtube blocking certain media content in certain >> countries because of legal/licensing issues, Restriction of content based >> because of legal reasons like Export control. >> 3-Regimes and governments most often associated with censorship: >> totalitarian regimes >> 4-Censorshop techniques : ISP managed, Server side managed, Routing >> based, Transparent and non transparent proxies. >> 5-Determining if you are being censored >> 5-Bypassing the censors, VPNs, SSL/SSH tunneling, proxies, anonymous >> proxies and the risks associated with them. P2P anonymity networks as a >> mean to bypass censorship. >> 6-The cost of censorship, in terms of latency, computing resources, and >> exposure to denial of service and privacy violation by interested 3rd >> party. This might be interesting to elaborate on how a censorship wall >> being an inline, whether at ISP or other level could present a risk to >> everyone passing through it in both terms of denial of service and in being >> a high valued target to breach since now a great information asset is being >> centralized somewhat. >> >> May also want to look at http://www.howtobypassinternetcensorship.org/ >> >> >> Regards >> Mohamed >> >> >> On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 7:18:23 PM UTC+1, Ahmed Mekkawy wrote: >>> >>> Hello everybody, >>> >>> I will be talking on on tv this saturday about censorship and how to >>> bypass it - from the technical POV- . I appreciate if anyone got any >>> material ( mainly videos or slides) that can help me in showing that. >>> >>> Thanks, >>> --- >>> Ahmed Mekkawy >>> Founder | CTO >>> www.SpirulaSystems.com >>> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "OpenEgypt" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> > > > > -- > "Change l'ordre du monde plutôt que tes désirs." > > http://de.linkedin.com/in/raynas -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OpenEgypt" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
