Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace by Ronald J. Deibert Read Free Book Online Page A

can stop using Skype, they cannot delete their accounts: Skype does not allow it.
    The Internet is sometimes described as a massively decentralized and distributed “network of networks,” a virtual place where information from everywhere is concentrated and accessible to all, an egalitarian thing of beauty. From one perspective, this description accurately characterizes its architecture. But within this network of networks there are critical chokepoints: a tangible, physical infrastructure that includes the hardware, software, cables, even the electromagnetic spectrum that exists in definable, real space. There are also regulatory and legal chokepoints: the ways in which cyberspace is structured by laws, rules, and standards that can facilitate forms of control. Mobile forms of connectivity, now the central method of communicating in cyberspace, are a case in point. The mobile industry is controlled by manufacturers of “closed” devices, handsets whose owners are prohibited from opening (“jailbreaking”) or fiddling with their insides at the risk of warranty violations. Closed or proprietary software (with the exception ofGoogle’s open-source Android operating system) means that the millions of lines of instructions that run a mobile phone’s system are restricted to everyone but the company that sells the software. They operate through networks owned and serviced by a small number of ISPs and telecommunications companies (sometimes only one or two, depending on the region or country), and they function according to government-issued licences that set the conditions under which people can use the wireless spectrum. What from one perspective (that of the average user) looks like an ephemeral network of networks, from another (that of people in positions of authority) looks more like a tangible system of concrete controls through which power can be exercised and the nature of communications shaped for specific political or economic ends.
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    It is important to understand the political architecture of cyberspace because the companies that own and operate its infrastructure, applications, and devices are under increasing pressure from a variety of quarters to police the networks they manage: from the technical demands of managing increasingly complex types of communication flows like bandwidth-sucking video streams; from lucrative market opportunities to repackage and sell user data; from regulations passed down by governments to corporations to manage content and users. The latter are especially noteworthy because the Internet crosses political boundaries, and many companies have operations in multiple national jurisdictions, some of which do not respect the rule of law or basic human rights and whose policing of the Internet lacks transparency. To operate in some jurisdictions search engines, mobile carriers, and other Internet services are required to filter access to content deemed objectionable by host governments, turn services on andoff in response to crises, push intimidating mass messages onto citizens living in certain regions, cities, or territories, and/or share information about users with state security services. More often than not the companies comply.
    The cyberspace experience can vary dramatically depending on what application or device we use, which Internet café or hotspot we log on from, which ISP we contract with, and, most fundamentally, which political jurisdiction we connect from. Without the aid of special anti-censorship software, an Internet user in China is unable to connect to Twitter or Facebook, while a user in Pakistan cannot view YouTube. Users in Thailand cannot access videos on YouTube deemed insulting to the royal family. A user of the ISP du Telecom in the United Arab Emirates cannot access information about gay and lesbian lifestyles. (Using filtering technology produced by the Canadian company Netsweeper, such content is censored by du.) Indonesian users of