The Cobra Effect: Banned Documentaries, Tech-Backdoors and Free Internet

Pratima H

INDIA: Pollution is a messy problem, and often there’s more to scrub than what meets the eyes, or ears, or lungs, or whatever.

It so happened that a social networking site became the sponge to absorb some crud that was lying stubbornly evasive for many years, when the US Embassy reportedly used live tweets to limn a picture of the actual state of pollution in Beijing.

Beijing, a name which may be now a familiar one in environment circles, was once like the ozone layer that existed centuries before. It was hard to drill a hole in the general perception and government acceptance, irrespective of the sense of urgency that pollution was assuming day after day. But something changed or set the moss rolling in 2008 when, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing tried the idea of installing a rooftop air-quality monitor which would automatically tweet data every hour on the pollution’s severity to US citizens.

There it was, right from and around China, publicly available data that was focusing on a dangerous air pollutant – the PM2.5 and gradually but steadily these scientifically-talking tweets covered a wider audience. If you thought that was almost impossible given the notoriety and fastidiousness of China’s Internet firewalls, we were on your side too. But turns out that there were third-party apps capable of circumventing these Great Walls and the credibility that Embassy’s data offered, only galvanized more people to the pollutant alerts.

Media reports have interestingly shown how Beijing residents started turning more and more dissatisfied with the data that the country’s own air quality monitoring efforts were indicating and ultimately pressure mounted on Chinese officials for properly acknowledging the seriousness, scariness and scale of the problem.

Well, that’s just one story.

Last few days, something transpired in US and India separately as they faced two ‘not so similar’ situations, ones with different contours and implications, albeit with a similar undercurrent. And with that, the ultimate question rears its ugly, slippery head once again. Yes, we know piracy is bad, protecting IP or national security agendas overwhelms democracy, and also that freedom of speech needs boundaries; but has the air changed too much already and turned the atmosphere too stale or stinking for today’s user?

India’s Daughter - Did you watch it?

Ok, point taken. That’s an absurd question. It should have been rephrased. For anyone who really ‘wanted’ to watch it did so easily enough. Anyone who did not ‘want’ to watch it did not, with at least not too much of contribution coming to the credit of government’s ban per se.

The did-you-did-you-do-not chat floated around almost every coffee-break or water-cooler on Monday, but as we at our Desk discovered as well – we did not watch it only because we thought it would be too upsetting, and not because the government felt the same.

The debate over the fairness and approach of the ban continues and we wouldn’t want to get into those cracks here. Yes, sometimes, some issues are sensitive enough. And yes, sometimes issues are too sensitive to be brushed under the carpet or bolted inside closets. Or they are too dangerous or dirty to be dusted in public?

The real line is blurred. Whether the government made a righteous move in banning the controversy child ‘India’s Daughter’, the BBC documentary about the Delhi gang rape of 2012, from broadcast in India, is a subject of another contemplation and discussion.

The question is something else- did the ban really work? And if not, is there something that regulators and policy-shapers need to be cognizant of while devising their well-intended prohibitions?

The so-tagged ‘danger to women safety’ film, as described by some; roamed freely on YouTube, both inside and outside India, as some reports suggest. Even after Google pulled it out and blocked copies, citing legality reasons, the film continued to jaywalk in the online world.

If it was a breeze to view on the BBC’s iPlayer within the UK and if BBC stood its ground saying it was only broadcasted in UK, there were others who were apparently using their tech-skills with a private VPN or fake-IP address creations to see this British filmmaker Leslee Udwin’s documentary.

Mitch Stoltz, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation explains that the method of bypassing a block depends on how the block was accomplished. “In many places, websites are blocked through the domain name system, a global database that translates human-readable names like “eff.org” into the numerical addresses that computers must use, like “69.50.225.155”. Removing or corrupting a site’s DNS entry is like removing a person’s name from the telephone book. This form of blocking can be bypassed by using the site’s numerical address, rather than its name. Also, facing DNS blocking, a site can simply switch to using a new domain name.”

If that sounds simple, look at how other forms of blocking are more effective, such as actually intercepting traffic to and from a site and blocking some or all of it. This sort of blocking may be based on location. For example, an Internet service provider or telecom operator may prevent all access to a site from outside of India, or from certain countries. Location-based blocking can often be bypassed by using a virtual private network (VPN), or the Tor network, which can disguise a user’s location. VPNs and Tor are widely available and fairly easy to set up, Stoltz discerps.

This is a world where technology is opening backdoors at a pace and scale that was unimaginable just a few years back.

Whether you are a professor trying to stall students from poring over their Facebook accounts in classrooms or a Government rummaging for ways to ensure some sense of control and calm waters; the struggle could not have found a more thick-skinned adversary than the one that the current times have tossed in the rings. More so as there is a sprawling terrain of short routes that can bypass almost everything.

Take a leaf from our day to day life, at homes and offices only. We are using, keyboards, mouse, webcams, microphone, scanner and printers. Smart gadgets such as a smart TV, smart fridge, smart iron, smart vacuum cleaner add to the list too. But if we tell you, that all such devices are weapons which hackers are using to steal your personal and official data from your computer systems! Obviously, you’ll be shocked, teases Dr J S Sodhi, AVP, CIO and Director at Amity Education Group.

Dr Sodhi, who is also Director of CCFIS (Center for Cyber Forensics and Information Security), dices the new-age backdoor architecture further. “Thinking how a hacker can use your webcam to steal documents and PDF files? But it is very easy with hardware backdooring technique. Have you ever raised a concern with yourself that where the driver software is stored in a keyboard! It is these custom ICs which are only as big as your fingernails that contains the driver coding.”

What he wants to hammer well possibly is that there are endless, seemingly-tiny and invisible ways to install a backdoor in any device.

Extrapolate this anywhere now. You can hack your way into a website with these backdoors as a hacker can break in into unwanted territories. So where do the fences actually stand when is it’s so easy to trespass anywhere and at one’s whim?

That could explain why illegal downloads continue and always have whenever anything is gagged or prohibited or not allowed. That is and will remain the basic human tendency. The more you stop something, the more water will rush out of the dyke.

A small finger on a large hole, after all, can just only stop so much.

A court order banning the screening is a good start, Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting officials successfully executing the removal of a number YouTube versions is another strong headway, but the sprint fails miserably on the finishing line.

This is where these words echo loud and hint at something being grossly underestimated. BBC’s director of TV Danny Cohen seems to have appreciated the government’s concern and yet added that the film represents “an important account of an event that galvanized Indian opinion to ensure such tragedies are not repeated”.

Cohen had also argued that they were satisfied with the editorial standards of the film and did not feel the film as currently edited could ever be construed as derogatory to women or an affront to their dignity.”

“We think the film is an important account of an event that galvanized Indian opinion to ensure such tragedies are not repeated. Accordingly, after lengthy and careful consideration we have decided to show India’s Daughter on BBC FOUR in the UK at 22:00 tonight.” The letter’s (conveying Cohen's arguments to Indian Govt) excerpts, now available in some media posts, concluded.

Listen closely to these words and it’s hard not to wonder at the irony. Will showing a film like this, abet or mitigate the real shape of women – oriented crime? But then, is a ban the right way to solve a Catch 22?

Specially, when the ban gets extremely diluted when you dissolve it in today’s viewership and media consumption mediums? When you live in world, when people have smart phones and Internet almost surgically-attached to their lives, what if we leave it to people instead if they really want to watch something which can be disturbing or unpalatable?

Consider the possibility that when left to their own devices (pun intended) people will usually and reasonably walk the moral and rational grounds that a good government expects them to. But turn a suggestion into an iron-handed rule, and watch yourself grappling with snakes of a new problem species, everywhere.

Governments are not always right and not always wrong. Hypothetically, if they are trying to evade a bad disease, forced vaccination, makes it all the more viral.

Same as what Stoltz also tries to insinuate. There are many reasons why governments try to block websites, ranging from the noble (but often ill-considered) to the tyrannical, Stoltz contends. “Blocking a website because it contains some objectionable conduct is a blunt instrument of censorship, as it almost always suppresses lawful speech. Websites are often blocked simply to suppress speech or facts that are viewed as a threat by people in power. Because of this, people bypass site blocking to access information that governments would deny them.”

And nothing is more counter-effective than the idea of a blanket ban. Specially if you inhabit or rule a world that has, in the last few years, been abuzz and awash with umpteen campaigns and movements for freedom of Internet et al.

Back there in US too, government has been caught up in the changing contours of Net Neutrality debate and new rules on the subject have just started rolling in from FCC (Federal Communication Commission). This move, however small or big in the grand of scheme, says a lot about the power of freedom-advocates and public petitions fighting for the cause of an open and un-muffled world.

Leave us alone

SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and other alphabet soups have been creating sleepless nights and picketing lines for many on the two sides of the Internet world in this very decade.

Activists have accentuated their presence, support-weight and protests right from the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) days to Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Act (ACTA).

Are they right? Or are they just on the wrong side of law? Is Freedom to speak and consume Internet without any policing a valid right?

Stoltz, for instance, represents the Electronic Frontier Foundation which is a notable nonprofit organization when it comes to defending civil liberties in the digital world. It champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. The idea is to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows.

EFF’s premise is simple and strong - protecting access to developing technology has been central to advancing freedom for all. Think of open source software, encryption, security research, file sharing tools, and you would be able to imagine why an organization would be using a fierce amalgam of technologists, activists, and attorneys in its efforts to defend free speech online, fight illegal surveillance, advocate for users and innovators, and support freedom-enhancing technologies.

Demand Progress is another such huddle that wants to mobilize the public to challenge entrenched power and promote freedom. Such organizations and their close and distant cousins have been stirring many interesting campaigns to fight Internet censorship in its many incarnations.

They fight so that the government is not able to shut down Web sites at the slightest provocation, so that government and corporations do not get new powers to block Americans' access to sites that are accused of copyright infringement, or put people in prison for streaming certain content online.

Campaigns against SOPA, ACTA are part of the same mega-wave. They have also been putting pressure on all ilks of political parties, whether it is the Democratic and Republican officials for helping the cause of a free and open Internet, unfettered by censorship and undue violations of privacy.

Another instance is that of the Internet Defense League which attempts to take the tactic that killed SOPA & PIPA and turn it into a permanent force for defending the internet, and making it better. It highlights loudly that Internet freedom and individual power are changing the course of history. “But entrenched institutions and monopolies want this to stop. Elected leaders often don't understand the internet, so they're easily confused or corrupted. When the internet's in danger and we need millions of people to act, the League will ask its members to broadcast an action. With the combined reach of our websites and social networks, we can be massively more effective than any one organization.” It proposes.

No doubt that such movements tagged proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA as Internet Blacklist Bills and have been standing firmly against cyber snooping legislation.

The new-found anti-ACTA movement is making enough noise already on how ACTA locks countries into obsolete copyright and patent laws, or criminalizes users by making noncommercial, harmless remixes into crimes; or criminalizes legitimate websites, making them responsible for user behavior by "aiding and abetting". (art 2.14.4). It warns that like SOPA, the founders of your favorite sites could be sued or (worse) thrown in jail for copyright infringement by their users.

The movement is worried about the part that ACTA will let rights holders use laughably inflated claims of damages (based on the disproven idea that every download or stream is a lost sale) to sue people. The more serious concern - ACTA permanently bypasses democracy by giving the "ACTA Committee" the power to "propose amendments to " (art 6.4). In other words, voting for ACTA writes a blank check to an unelected committee. These closed-door proceedings will be a playground for SOPA-supporters like the MPAA, the movement quips well.

As to the hot-and-still-baking Net Neutrality movement, the concept of net neutrality is also important to guaranteeing freedom of speech. The Internet is the pre-eminent medium for free speech today, but unlike operating a newspaper or speaking in the streets, speech on the Internet is almost always transmitted by commercial intermediaries - Internet service providers, EFF has emphasised well.

"The ISPs’ commercial interests may not always align with a policy of free speech and free access to information. At times, an ISP may find commercial advantage in allowing some websites, apps, services, and content providers faster or more reliable access to Internet users. Then, because some Internet traffic is given priority over others, some are better able than others to speak to an audience. Favorable access might be given to those who can afford to pay for it, or simply to people who have a favored relationship with the ISP. An Internet without Net Neutrality rules may come to resemble television networks, where only those with a great deal of capital or political connections can speak to a broad audience. The U.S. government has just put in place clear new rules to promote net neutrality, and I hope other countries will follow that example," Stoltz encapsulates precisely.

Right or wrong, well-meant or mistaken and wobbly; there is no stopping such movements where the Arab Spring has caught the attention of the world as much as Tiananmen Square did once.

People are not just demanding freedom but getting increasingly ruffled when it is denied. Internet may be a civilization and political terrain that is still evolving, but this is where the call for Freedom is snowballing at a speed and scale, more fierce than most revolutions in history billowed into. It is as much a renaissance as it is a rebellion.

We circle back to the same question, hence, again.

It is a new era where snakes can be harmless too. But if you still dread the venom, is killing the reptile the sure-shot answer?

As some other generation of Britishers witnessed in India many many years back, incentivizing people to kill snakes can instead lead to many more breeding than you can ever deal with. Look for something else in what you dread as venom.

That’s exactly where an anti-dote often hides.