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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 09 May 2011
In an interview with IRNA in March 2011, Ali Agha Mohammadi spoke about the idea of starting the Halal Internet for the first time. The most important quality of this kind of internet would be to remove all immoral websites. Moreover, among other facilities of this Halal Internet, according to him, is the facilitation of electronic government, commerce and banking transactions, which is considered a huge step forward with the Halal Internet for Iranian users.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 09 May 2011
Think you're on the Internet right now? Well, you're not. You're on your Internet. The exact version of the online world that you see is available only to you.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 09 May 2011
Talks on implementing a Europe-wide firewall to censor and block ‘illicit’ websites has caused concern among many Internet users in recent weeks, and today one of the targeted sites has joined the discussion. Quoting one of Churchill’s most famous speeches, The Pirate Bay team is rallying the public to defend the free Internet and end the threat posed by the entertainment industries’ copyright lobby.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 09 May 2011
The secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved all 1,506 government requests to electronically monitor suspected “agents” of a foreign power or terrorists on US soil last year, according to a Justice Department report released via the Freedom of Information Act.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 06 May 2011
The Kingdom announced Friday a series of amendments to its media law that includes a ban on publishing materials that damages the reputation of the country's religious authorities or harms national interests.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 06 May 2011
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has asked Mozilla to remove a simple Firefox extension that redirects visitors from one domain name to another. Why? Because the MafiaaFire Redirector (no, the name isn't subtle) makes it easy for Web surfers to bypass the government's domain name seizures. Mozilla, the foundation that oversees Firefox development, has resisted the request.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 06 May 2011
Yesterday we learned of reports that the Syrian Telecom Ministry had launched a man-in-the-middle attack against the HTTPS version of the Facebook site. The attack is ongoing and has been seen by users of multiple Syrian ISPs. We cannot confirm the identity of the perpetrators.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 05 May 2011
The possibility of Facebook entering China has started to draw political scrutiny, with U.S. senator Dick Durbin questioning whether a rumored tie-up between the U.S. social networking site and Chinese search engine Baidu would affect users' free speech and privacy.
In recent months, the Web has been abuzz with reports that Facebook is gearing up to launch a site for China by partnering with the country's largest search engine, Baidu. Access to Facebook is currently blocked in China due to the country's strict Web censorship, which takes down content considered harmful or politically sensitive. Baidu, China's most popular search engine, censors some search results in order to comply with Chinese laws.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 05 May 2011
Are Baidu and Facebook cooking something up for China? U.S. Senator Richard Durbin (D, Ill.) wants to know, too.
The assistant Senate majority leader wrote a letter this week asking about rumors that have been circulating about a potential partnership between the two companies, expressing concerns that the Baidu doesn’t take measures to protect its users’ rights to freedom of expression and privacy, and asking what the company would do to protect users if it launches a social-networking service with Facebook.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 05 May 2011
We are just beginning to get a clearer picture of how rough the road ahead will be for Facebook if it enters China, as many believe it hopes to do in a joint venture with Chinese search giant Baidu. A report last week at All Things Digital suggests the Chinese Facebook would connect with the global one in a way that might scare off users outside China. And this week the same site hosted a comic strip that amusingly lampooned such plans by comparing Mark Zuckerberg and Chinese President Hu Jintao’s relative respect (or lack thereof) for users’ privacy.
Now Congress is getting into the act, as was of course inevitable. Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who just visited China, has written to Baidu’s billionaire CEO Robin Li, expressing to Li his concerns about “you company’s censorship of the internet.” Durbin says he is preparing legislation that would make companies “take reasonable steps to protect human rights or face liability,” adding that Baidu, listed in the U.S. on Nasdaq, would be subject to the legislation. He also asks Li if he is working on a joint venture to bring Facebook to China, and asks “what safeguards will you implement to protect the users of the service.”
