Review Questions (Friday, 10/9/09)

1- Why is file compression important on the Internet?
--It makes thing easier for when people search things online. It takes words that are redundant and "marks them up" and if they appear again, then they are easily put in. It's slightly confusing.

2- What new services are available as a result of the commercialization of the Internet? What new problems are arising as a result of that commercialization?
--A lot of people are buying and selling online. This can also be a problem because if someone wants to buy something from online, they can't always be guaranteed safety (identification theft happens a lot) and they can't be guaranteed satisfaction. They can't see the product in from of them, so they don't know if other people are fooling them or if anything else is going on on the other end. People can always be dishonest...and then there are a few who are honest...even on the net. :)

3- Residents of the People’s Republic of China can have their Internet access blocked for a period of time if they attempt to access banned sites. Do you feel this is an effective way for the Chinese government to control people’s behavior on the Internet?
--I think, just like any other kind of restriction, that is not a good way to do it. There's restriction and then there's just plain idiotic restriction. You can't force your people to do a certain thing and not do another. There's a limit to how much a country can restrict their own citizens from watching or taking part in certain activities, and I believe it's not up to the government to say whether their people should or should not view certain things (unless they are COMPLETELY immoral), but even then, who's to say who can or can't do what? I just think there should be a limit to all the restrictions in certain countries. ahem ahem...


COUNTRIES AND THEIR ACCESS TO THE INTERNET:

China
Research into mainland Chinese Internet censorship has shown that censored websites included, before the 2008 Summer Olympics:
Websites related to the persecuted Falun Gong spiritual practice[11][12]
News sources that often cover some taboo topics such as police brutality, Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, freedom of speech and democracy sites.[13] These sites include Voice of America, BBC News, and Yahoo! Hong Kong
Media sites which may include unregulated content, social commentary or political commentary censored by the PRC. The Chinese Wikipedia and Livejournal are examples of such blocked sites.
Sites hosted by Taiwan's government and major newspaper and television media and other sites with information on Taiwanese independence[11]
Web sites that contain obscenity, pornography, and criminal activity.[14][15]
Sites linked with the Dalai Lama and his International Tibet Independence Movement, including his teachings.[11]
"Nine Commentaries" or the nine articles that were published by theepochtimes.com that comment on the Chinese Communist Party [16]
From the above list, the websites of the Voice of America, BBC News, Yahoo! Hong Kong, and the Chinese Wikipedia are currently (17 August 2008) unblocked.
Blocked websites are indexed to a lesser degree, if at all, by some Chinese search engines, such as Baidu and Google China. This sometimes has considerable impact on search results.[17] According to a Harvard study, at least 18,000 websites are blocked from within mainland China.[18] According to The New York Times, Google has set up computer systems inside China that try to access Web sites outside the country. If a site is inaccessible, then it is added to Google China's blacklist.[19] However, once (if) unblocked, the websites will be reindexed.

Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is in ONI's substantial category and is on RSF's internet enemy list. Saudi Arabia directs all international Internet traffic through a proxy farm located in King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology. Content filtering is implemented there using software by Secure Computing.[30] Additionally, a number of sites are blocked according to two lists maintained by the Internet Services Unit (ISU):[31] one containing "immoral" (mostly pornographic) sites, the other based on directions from a security committee run by the Ministry of Interior (including sites critical of the Saudi government). Citizens are encouraged to actively report "immoral" sites for blocking, using a provided Web form. The legal basis for content-filtering is the resolution by Council of Ministers dated 12 February 2001.[32] According to a study carried out in 2004 by the OpenNet Initiative:
The most aggressive censorship focused on pornography, drug use, gambling, religious conversion of Muslims, and filtering circumvention tools.[30]

Cuba
Main article: Censorship in Cuba
Cuba is on ONI's watchlist and on RSF's internet enemy list. According to Reporters Without Borders, Cuba has the lowest ratio of computers per inhabitant in Latin America, and the lowest internet access ratio of all the Western hemisphere.[14] Citizens have to use government controlled "access points", where their activity is monitored through IP blocking, keyword filtering and navigation history checking. The government cites its citizens' access to internet services are limited due to high costs and the American embargo, but there are reports concerning the will of the government to control access to uncensored information both from and to the outer world.[15] The Cuban government continues to imprison independent journalists for contributing reports through the Internet to web sites outside of Cuba.[16]
Salim Lamrani, a professor at Paris Descartes University, has accused Reporters Without Borders with making unsupported and contradictory statements regarding Internet connectivity in Cuba.[17]

Brazil
Brazilian legislation restricts the freedom of expression (Paim Law), directed especially to publications considered racist (such as neo-nazi sites). The Brazilian Constitution also prohibits anonymity of journalists.

United States of America
Main article: Internet censorship in the United States
The United States of America is in ONI's nominal category and is not on RSF's internet enemy list.
Although some content is illegal and can be taken down, e.g. child pornography, there is no nationwide filtering of (foreign) content. This would be considered a violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, especially since no filter is perfect and some overblocking would occur.
In 1996 the United States enacted the Communications Decency Act, which severely restricted online speech that could potentially be seen by a minor – which, it was argued, was most of online speech. Free speech advocates, however, managed to have most of the act overturned by the courts. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalizes the discussion and dissemination of technology that could be used to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms, and makes it easier to act against alleged copyright infringement on the Internet. Many school districts in the United States frequently censor material deemed inappropriate for the school setting. In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) which requires schools and public libraries receiving federal funding to install internet filters or blocking software.[83] Congress is also considering legislation to require schools, some businesses and libraries to block access to social networking websites, The Deleting Online Predators Act. Opponents of Internet censorship argue that the free speech provisions of the First Amendment bars the government from any law or regulation that censors the Internet.[84]
A 4 January 2007 restraining order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein forbade a large number of activists in the psychiatric survivors movement from posting links on their websites to ostensibly leaked documents which purportedly show that Eli Lilly and Company intentionally withheld information as to the lethal side-effects of Zyprexa. The Electronic Frontier Foundation appealed this as prior restraint on the right to link to and post documents, saying that citizen-journalists should have the same First Amendment rights as major media outlets.[85] It was later held that the judgement was unenforcable, though First Amendment claims were rejected.[86]
The Department of Defense filters certain IP addresses. The US military's filtering policy is laid out in a report to congress entitled Department of Defense Personnel Access to the Internet.

India
Main article: Internet censorship in India
India is in ONI's nominal category and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. As of July 2006[update] the Indian government has directed ISPs to block seventeen websites, including some hosted on the Geocities, Blogspot and Typepad domains. Initial implementation difficulties led to these domains being blocked entirely.[56][57] Access to sites on these domains other than the specifically banned ones was restored by most ISPs after about a week.[58] The first documented incident of Internet censorship in India was the Yahoo! Groups ban of 23 September 2003. Kynhun, a Yahoo! group linked to the outlawed "Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council", a minor separatist group, was ordered banned by the Department of Telecommunications. Difficulties in implementing the ban by the ISP's ultimately led to all Yahoo! groups being banned for a period of about two weeks.
Recently, Indian law enforcement has entered an agreement with the popular social networking site Orkut to track down what it deems defamatory content which, in their example, includes content critical of Bal Thackeray.[59]
India is also looking to block Google Maps due to the Mumbai attacks.

France
France is in ONI's watchlist and is not on RSF's internet enemy list. French courts demanded Yahoo! block Nazi material in the case LICRA vs. Yahoo. The case is currently[citation needed] on appeal for an en banc rehearing.
The Hadopi law, enacted in 2009, allows disconnecting from the Internet users that have been caught illegally downloading copyrighted content, or failing to secure their system again such illegal downloads; as of August 2009, this law is to be supplemented by a Hadopi2 law. The LOPPSI law, brought before Parliament in 2009, will authorize a blacklist of sites providing child pornography, established by the Ministry of the Interior, which Internet service providers will have to block.

Internet censorship in Germany is practised by some court decisions.
The Cabinet of Germany passed a federal law[1] regarding internet censorship for child pornography access and distribution in the internet on 18 June 2009.[2][3] after the first government initiative in this matter by the federal government came up in January 2009 from the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth under minister Ursula von der Leyen (hence dubbed Zensursula - a portmanteau of censorship and Ursula).[4]
The first internet censorship occurred in 1996, when the Verein zur Förderung eines Deutschen Forschungsnetzes banned some IP addresses from internet access[5] Most cases of internet censorship in Germany were after state court rulings.