The Net Delusion - Evgeny Morozov [81]
The best that Western governments can do is to educate, whether in person or remotely, those running websites that oppose the government about how to build communities, make their content visible, and find ways to resist being overloaded with pro-government commentators. Although the proliferation of spin is a natural feature of the modern Internet, it may still be possible to outspin the spinners.
chapter six
Why the KGB Wants You to Join Facebook
Imagine that you are a target of some deeply mysterious spying operation. While you happily poke your online friends, tweet your breakfast plans, and shop for Christmas presents, all your online activity is being secretly reported to an unknown party. Imagine that someone has also broken into your computer and is using it to launch DDoS attacks. They could be targeting Saudi websites about philosophy or dissident Georgian bloggers. You have no idea that your computer is part of this mysterious cyber-army, let alone who is being attacked or why. It’s as if a stranger has been secretly reading your diary and also using it to clobber a passerby.
This is precisely what happened to a number of brave activists from Vietnam who in 2009 were protesting the building of a new bauxite mine in their country. (The project is a joint venture between Chalco, a subsidiary of China’s state-run aluminum company Chinalco, and the Vietnamese government.) Their computers were compromised, allowing an unknown third party not only to monitor their online activity but also to attack other online targets in Vietnam and elsewhere. But theirs was not a case of basic computer illiteracy, where pressing the wrong button or visiting a weird porn site could surrender months of hard work to a nasty virus. It’s quite likely that the Vietnamese dissidents did no such thing, avoiding any suspicious-looking sites and attachments. What could have gone wrong?
Vietnam, nominally still ruled by a Communist Party, boasts a burgeoning Internet culture, with antigovernment bloggers mounting frequent campaigns about social issues, especially the poorly regulated sprawling urban development. The government, concerned that its tight hold on public life is beginning to loosen, has been trying to reassert control, preferably without drawing much ire from Vietnam’s trading partners in the West. The authorities, all too keen on harvesting the information benefits of globalization, do not shy away from computers or the Internet outright. In April 2010 they embarked on an ambitious crusade to supply farmers in more than one thousand communes with free computers, so that they could, as one official put it, “contact and consult with ... scientists ... [about] the current epidemics on their breeds and seeds.” The government was even kind enough to organize computer training courses for the farmers.
Those opposing the government’s paradigm of “modernization at all costs” are unlikely to be invited to attend such courses. In 2009 two of the most vocal blogs that challenged the government, Bauxite Vietnam and Blogosin, became targets of powerful DDoS attacks similar to those launched against Tomaar and Cyxymu. Soon, Bauxite Vietnam was forced down the “digital refugee” route, eventually emerging on a Google-owned blogging service, while the blogger behind Blogosin told his readers that he was quitting blogging altogether to “focus on personal matters.” Those attacks made it quite clear that the Vietnamese government was up-to-date on the rapidly evolving nature of Internet control and wouldn’t stop at just blocking access to particular websites.
Most likely, the antimine activists, careful as they were, inadvertently hit a government trap that allowed the secret police