Une loi Internet «liberticide» en Turquie

LE FIGARO: Une loi contrôlant strictement le Web a été votée par les députés turcs. L'opposition dénonce une nouvelle atteinte à la liberté d'expression de la part du pouvoir d'Erdogan.

«Big brother» a les Turcs à l'œil. Le gouvernement islamo-conservateur a toujours eu Internet dans le collimateur mais de là à placer sous surveillance tous ses utilisateurs, il y a un pas… qui a été franchi. En dépit des inquiétudes des organisations des droits de l'homme, des partis de l'opposition à l'unisson ou de l'Union européenne, qui la jugent liberticide, une loi contrôlant strictement le Web a été votée par les députés turcs. » | Par Laure Marchand | vendredi 07 février 2014

Turkish MPs Endorse Internet Control Law

Turkey's parliament has adopted a new Internet bill roundly criticised as an assault by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on freedom of expression, access to information and investigative journalism. Al Jazeera spoke to Mehmet Karli, assistant Professor of International Law at Galatasary University, in Istanbul.

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Turkey Pushes Through New Raft of 'Draconian' Internet Restrictions

THE GUARDIAN: New law requiring ISPs to make web user data available to authorities seen as threat to democracy, says opposition party

The Turkish government has been accused of imposing draconian censorship after pushing harsh new internet curbs through parliament. The new internet law was met with outrage in Turkey on Wednesday night, with opposition parties accusing the government of wanting to introduce ever tighter control by bypassing the courts.

The regulations were adopted after a heated Parliamentary debate yesterday, during which one MP of the main opposition People's Republican Party (CHP) compared Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan to Hitler. The law now needs to be signed by Turkish President Abdullah Gül to go into effect.

"When you came into power you talked of increasing democracy in Turkey, but now you are trying to implement fascism," Hasan Ören said. "Remember that Adolf Hitler used the same methods when he rose to power."

The new measures will allow Turkey's telecommunications authority (TIB) to block any website in 24 hours and without first seeking a court ruling. The law also obliges internet providers to store all data on web users' activities for two years and make it available to the authorities upon request.

Deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç rejected all accusations of censorship. "We are freer and have more press freedom than many other countries in the world", he said.

However, critics say that the law violates citizens' rights to freedom of expression and current privacy rights, turning Turkey into an Orwellian surveillance state. » | Constanze Letsch in Istanbul | Thursday, February 06, 2014

Erdogan will totale Kontrolle über das Internet

DIE WELT: Zeitungen werden in der Türkei schon lange zensiert. Mit einer Änderung im Internet-Gesetz will Erdogan nun auch Online-Inhalte beeinflussen und so das Verhalten seiner Bürger im Netz kontrollieren.

Erst Gewalt gegen die Gezi-Park-Proteste, dann die Korruptionsskandale der türkischen Regierung und schwerwiegende Eingriffe in die Justiz – jetzt erhitzt die Regierung des türkischen Premiers Recep Tayyip Erdogan mit einem neuen Aufreger die Gemüter.

Er möchte per Gesetz Internetseiten sperren, Inhalte im Netz kontrollieren, das Internetverhalten der Bürger beobachten und Daten für zwei Jahre speichern. Kritiker fürchten staatliche Internetzensur, der türkische Unternehmerverband bewertet das Vorhaben als "besorgniserregend".

Die türkische Regierung möchte mit den neuen gesetzlichen Eingriffen erreichen, dass der Staat ohne jeglichen Gerichtsbeschluss die freie Nutzung des Internets kontrollieren und steuern kann. So soll er Zugriff auf Daten haben, die zeigen, welche Seiten besucht worden sind, welche Begriffe die Bürger in Suchmaschinen eingegeben haben und welche sozialen Medien sie nutzen. » | Von Cigdem Toprak, Istanbul | Donnerstag, 23. Januar 2014

Danger! Tens of Millions Targeted by Email 'Ransom’ Virus

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Internet fraudsters are targetting tens of millions of British customers with a virus which locks computers until the victim pays a £500 ransom

Internet fraudsters are targetting tens of millions of British customers with a virus which locks computers until the victim pays a £500 ransom to be released, the National Crime Agency warned today.

The spammers are particularly aiming the virus - known as ransomware - at small and medium size businesses. It is disguised as an email alert about suspicious payments or invoices.

Once opened the virus 'freezes' the computer and the local network and demands two Bitcoins of internet currency - approximately £536 - to unlock the machine.

The NCA described the 'mass spamming' event as a 'significant risk'. » | Telegraph reporter | Friday, November 15, 2013

US and UK Spy Agencies Defeat Privacy and Security on the Internet

THE GUARDIAN: • NSA and GCHQ unlock encryption used to protect emails, banking and medical records
• $250m-a-year US program works covertly with tech companies to insert weaknesses into products
• Security experts say programs 'undermine the fabric of the internet'

US and British intelligence agencies have successfully cracked much of the online encryption relied upon by hundreds of millions of people to protect the privacy of their personal data, online transactions and emails, according to top-secret documents revealed by former contractor Edward Snowden.

The files show that the National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have broadly compromised the guarantees that internet companies have given consumers to reassure them that their communications, online banking and medical records would be indecipherable to criminals or governments.

The agencies, the documents reveal, have adopted a battery of methods in their systematic and ongoing assault on what they see as one of the biggest threats to their ability to access huge swathes of internet traffic – "the use of ubiquitous encryption across the internet".

Those methods include covert measures to ensure NSA control over setting of international encryption standards, the use of supercomputers to break encryption with "brute force", and – the most closely guarded secret of all – collaboration with technology companies and internet service providers themselves. » | James Ball, Julian Borger and Glenn Greenwald | Thursday, September 05, 2013

Britisches Parlament: 300.000 Klicks zu Pornoseiten

DIE PRESSE: In rund einem Jahr haben Parlamentsmitarbeiter Tausende Male versucht, Pornoseiten aufzurufen. Erst Anfang des Jahres wurde bekannt, dass die Mitarbeiter öfter Facebook anklicken als Nachrichtenseiten.

Zwischen Mai 2012 und Juli 2013 ist von Computern im britischen Parlament aus knapp 300.000 Mal versucht worden, Internetseiten mit pornografischem Inhalt aufzurufen. Diese amtlichen Zahlen teilte das Parlament auf Anfrage der britischen Online-Ausgabe der "Huffington Post" mit, wie am Mittwoch bekannt wurde. Demnach gab es zwischen Jänner und Juli 2013 auch 52.000 Klicks auf sogenannte Seitensprung-Seiten im Web. Das Parlament zählt 5000 Beschäftigte. » | APA/AFP/Red. | Mittwoch, 04. September 2013

EU Porn Ban Voted Down Amid Censorship Concerns

RT.COM: Language that would ban online pornography has been dropped from a report approved by the European Parliament. But major concerns over the future of Internet privacy remain as legislators themselves were blocked from reading constituents' complaints.

Members of the European Parliament voted 368-159 in favor of passing a report titled “Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU.”

The rejection of a controversial “porn ban” proposal has seemingly become a major victory for online freedom. But the result was “a little bit unclear,” Christian Engstrom, MEP with Sweden's Pirate Party, told RT. (+ video) » | Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Global Surveillance: The Public Must Fight for Its Right to Privacy
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The British-American surveillance program Tempora marks a historic turning point. Unnoticed by the public, intelligence agencies have pursued total surveillance. Governments have deliberately concealed from the public the extent to which we are being watched.

The term, "information superhighway" has always been insufficient to describe the Internet. In reality, the Web is a global communication space containing the private information of a large part of the population of every developed country. If someone were able to train an all-seeing eye onto the Internet, the blackmail potential would be almost limitless.

It is precisely this all-seeing eye that the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the American National Security Agency (NSA) have developed under the name Tempora. An appropriate real-world metaphor for the program might be something like this: In every room of every house and every apartment, cameras and microphones are installed, every letter is opened and copied, every telephone tapped. Everything that happens is recorded and can be accessed as needed. » | A Commentary by Christian Stöcker | Monday, June 24, 2013

Crackdown Cohorts: US Backs Gulf Regimes, Ignores Rights Abuses
Support for several Gulf states where a crackdown on Internet freedom has reached new highs, resulting in arrests and bans, is also causing deep concern. Given this disturbing string of incidents across the Gulf States, many wonder why Washington is ignoring the persistent human rights violations there.

Kuba will den Zugang zum Internet erleichtern
DIE WELT: Das Regime will seinen Bürgern jetzt Anschluss ans Datennetz gewähren, allerdings nur in speziellen Internet-Räumen zu sehr hohen Tarifen. Ein eigener Anschluss für Private ist in weiter Ferne.

Kuba will seinen Bürgern den Zugang zum Internet erleichtern, Anschlüsse für Privatpersonen an das weltweite Datennetz soll es aber weiter nicht geben. Es sollten ab kommender Woche im ganzen Land zusätzliche 118 "Internet-Räume" eingerichtet werden, teilte das Kommunikationsministerium des kommunistischen Landes in Havanna mit. Auch weiterhin werde der Web-Zugang aber "nur von den Internet-Räumen aus" möglich sein. » | AFP/flo | Mittwoch, 29. Mai 2013

Three Arrested in Bangladesh for Defaming Islam
ZEE NEWS: Dhaka: Three atheist bloggers in Bangladesh were today arrested here on charges of defaming Islam, as the government set up the country's first cyber crime tribunal to prevent exploitation of religion on the Internet.

The crackdown as well as the announcement came two days after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina pledged stern action against people found guilty of defaming Islam using the Internet.

"We are amending both the Right to Information Act and the Penal Code toughening punitive measures for hurting the people's religious sentiments," Law Minister Barrister Shafique Ahmed told a press conference also joined by Home Minister Mahiuddin Khan Alamgir and two state ministers.

Ahmed said that the government constituted the tribunal appointing a judge in the capital while a process was underway to set up identical special courts at divisional cities including Chittagong.

He said a government committee comprising two Islamic scholars was constituted to identify websites which were either exploiting or defaming the religion. The committee had recommended the arrests of the three, who have been sent to seven days remand.

The trio, who were paraded in hand-cuffs at today's press conference, could face 10 years in jail if convicted under the country's cyber laws, which outlaw "defaming" a religion, deputy commissioner of Dhaka police Molla Nazrul Islam said. » | PTI | Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Indicted Tycoon Kim Dotcom Launches New Site
Kim Dot Com, perhaps the United States' most-wanted computer geek, once operated the file sharing website 'Mega Upload'. It's estimated that it accounted for up to four per cent of the world's internet traffic. A year ago, however, US authorities had the site shut down, and charged Dot Com with piracy. He managed to escape extradition to the US, and now he's started a new website that allows users to share files - but also to choose who they share them with.

Related »

Kim Dotcom Wants to Encrypt Half of the Internet to End Government Surveillance (Full RT Interview)

ITU Dubai: Internet Regulation in Focus
Internet giant Google says web freedom could be curbed by a UN regulatory body meeting in Dubai. The International Telecommunication Union has been imposing controls for more than five decades. Al Jazeera's Tarek Bazley reports.

Neues Gesetz: Russland startet Totalüberwachung im Internet

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Russland startet umfassende Kontrollen im Internet: Ein neues Gesetz führt eine schwarze Liste für Internetseiten ein. Der gesamte Datenverkehr soll dafür überwacht werden. Kritiker fürchten um Meinungsfreiheit und Datenschutz.

Seit dem 1. November 2012 hat der Kreml ein Werkzeug, mit dem er das gesamte russische Internet kontrollieren kann. Denn jetzt ist ein Gesetz in Kraft getreten, das dafür sorgt, dass nun eine Liste von Websites und Inhalten existiert, die Internetprovider künftig blockieren sollen. Begründet wurde das von Putin verabschiedete Gesetz mit dem Kinderschutz: Die Liste sollte eigentlich Seiten enthalten, auf denen etwa Kindesmissbrauch dargestellt wird, oder solche, die Suizid-Anleitungen enthalten. Doch derzeit betreffen die Sperr-Entscheidungen vor allem Oppositions-Websites und solche, die als extremistisch eingestuft werden. Im Vorfeld hatte es viel Kritik gegeben, die russische Wikipedia hatte schon vor Verabschiedung des Gesetzes mit einem 24-stündigen Streik protestiert - ohne Erfolg.

Doch das Gesetz bringt eine weitere, viel tiefgreifendere Veränderung mit sich: Umgesetzt wird es offenbar mit Hilfe einer Technologie, die es erlaubt, den gesamten Internettraffic aller in Russland ansässigen Nutzer zu überwachen, permanent und automatisiert. E-Mails, Website-Aufrufe, Chats - alles können die Behörden künftig mit geringem Aufwand mitschneiden oder gar manipulieren. » | Von Andrej Soldatow und Irina Borogan, Moskau | Freitag, 02. November 2012

German Islamists Target Youth on the Internet

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: A growing community of German-speaking Islamists has developed on the Internet. Aiming to find new recruits, they glorify jihad and call for attacks on Germany. A new study warns that such online propaganda might foster a new generation of terrorists.

As a rapper, Denis Cuspert was a bit player, but as a propagandist for jihad he is a star in some circles. He has gained considerable prominence since 2010, when he transformed himself from a Berlin hip-hop artist named Deso Dogg into the Islamist Abu Malik.

Actually, not much has changed since he became a Salafist. He still makes music, and distributes it primarily through the Internet. But instead of performing rap songs like "Gangxta" and "Ich und mein Baby" ("Me and My Baby"), he releases so-called Anasheed, or Islamic vocal music in which he glorifies jihad.

Cuspert's songs have attained cult status among radical Islamists in Germany. At the request of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Berlin, three of his jihadist songs were labeled as being harmful to minors in early 2012.

Today, the ex-rapper is one of the most prominent German-speaking propagandists for jihad on the Internet. A new study by the Berlin-based Foundation for Science and Politics (SWP), which advises the German government, addresses the development of the Islamist scene on the Internet in detail for the first time. » | Christoph Sydow | Thursday, November 01, 2012

’Halal Internet’ Imminent in Iran
DEUTSCHE WELLE: The first phase of Iran's national Internet project has already been launched in the country's government departments. Activists fear it's a step toward cutting the population off from the World Wide Web.

In the past few days, several Iranian officials have mentioned the imminent launch of "our own Internet," or what has previously been described as the "Halal Internet."

Reza Taghipour, Iran's information and communications minister, announced last week that the first phase of this nationwide project, which covers governmental institutions in 29 provinces, was set to launch on September 21. Taghipour said all Iranian universities would become part of this network by early 2013, putting Iran a step closer to disconnecting itself entirely from the global Internet.

As the news spread, government officials also announced that Iran was blocking access to Google and Gmail in reaction to the US-made anti-Islam film that has triggered protests across the Muslim world in recent weeks.

Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, an Iranian official from the online censorship department, claimed the decision had been made because of [a] request from the censorship committee. » | Farnaz Seifi / Ben Knight | Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Iran Planning to Cut Internet Access to Rest of World
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Iran is drawing up plans to cut off its internet users from the rest of the world with a so-called Halal or "clean" internet.

Iranians are already used to censors blocking Facebook, Gmail and foreign news sites, and being spied on with surveillance software purchased from Western companies.

But the ambitious plans would go much further, blocking access to foreign-based social media sites and email. Instead, there will be an Iranian version of Facebook and a new email service, to be called Iran Mail. Users will have to register their home address and social security number with police.

The plans have received the backing of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the most powerful man in Iran, who has denounced the internet as sinful and a means for the West to wage "soft war" by invading Iranian culture.

But his real target is anti-regime activists who have relied on the internet since the failure of the "Green Revolution" which followed the disputed 2009 election. Since then security has been so tight on Iran's streets that protests are broken up almost as soon as they start.

When the system, called Halal internet or National Internet by the regime, is introduced this summer only a few approved and carefully monitored businesses and government departments will have access to the World Wide Web. In effect Iran will have a giant, country-wide intranet, with cyber police blocking websites that are not approved. Read on and comment » | Nick Meo | Saturday, April 28, 2012

Arizona Legislature Passes Sweeping Electronic Speech Censorship Bill
CBLDF: Yesterday [Thursday, March 29, 2012], the Arizona legislature passed Arizona House Bill 2549, which would update the state’s telephone harassment law to apply to the Internet and other electronic communications. The bill is sweepingly broad, and would make it a crime to communicate via electronic means speech that is intended to “annoy,” “offend,” “harass” or “terrify,” as well as certain sexual speech. Because the bill is not limited to one-to-one communications, H.B. 2549 would apply to the Internet as a whole, thus criminalizing all manner of writing, cartoons, and other protected material the state finds offensive or annoying. The Bill is currently on Governor Jan Brewer’s desk awaiting her decision on whether to veto or sign the bill. » | Charles Brownstein | Friday, March 30, 2012

HT: Always On Watch »