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Erin: Welcome to T2A webchat for November 7th. We are meeting information technology expert Ken Berman as we discuss Internet filtering and circumventing roadblocks on the Information Superhighway. Leading Internet search engine companies, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have been criticized for cooperating with the Chinese Government in censoring online information made available to its citizens. However, software called the Circumventor, partially funded by VOA, helps Chinese Internet users get around their government’s strict Internet filtering. Ken is Information Technology Director for the International Bureau of Broadcasting.
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Wondwossen, Ethiopia (email): Please explain what software engineers may have to say about the Circumventor program and its connection to the recent verdict that settled the battle between Microsoft and other European companies?
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Ken: Circumventor is one of a number of programs that works, but requires that someone outside the firewall of the censored country have this program running. Thus, if you are in China or Iran, for example, and find your content censored, to use Circumventor, you need a “friend” to set it up on his machine in an uncensored country and then tell you in China or Iran what his “address:” or IP connection information is. Then you connect through his machine and out to the Internet. It is a clever solution, but limited, since one has to learn about the “friend’s” machine.
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Anil, India (email): In India, the Internet connection is very slow. When do you believe Internet access will improve in India and move away from a dial-up connection?
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Ken: This seems to be a matter of economics. When the ISPs in India feel they can get back the investment from installing the equipment to allow higher speeds, they will do it. I can safely predict that more and more users are demanding this higher speed, and current audio and video applications require it, so when the competition starts improving the speed, and users migrate from dial-up to broadband, other ISPs will follow.
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Charles, Nigeria (email): What are some of the modern electronic circuit improvements to achieve smooth Internet connectivity?
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Ken: Most countries start out by just adding dial-up to their existing customer base. To go to broadband, either a TV cable company offers the service as an "add on feature", or the phone companies add what is called “digital subscriber line” (DSL) to their phone company central office equipment. This requires an investment of thousand of dollars, so the phone companies want to make sure there are enough customers out there before they make the investment. On the other hand, with wireless connectivity being available at Internet cafes, some users just choose to use that rather than wait for the services to be brought to their home.
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A.C. Rathinavel / Dr. A.K. Mehta, India (email): Twenty years from now, how will the Internet have changed?
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Ken: We cannot see out more than 2-3 years, in all honesty. But I see a completely transformed world where all one’s dealings with the world go through a wireless, completely portable interface that will allow one to get any and all information, speak with anyone any where, and - on the downside –be tracked and monitored wherever they go.
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Alan Heil: Ken, Could you please explain how Circumventor has worked so far in China, and whether it is used in other markets? Any evidence the Chinese are sharing their Internet blocking technology with other nations (e.g., Iran and Russia) and whether their methodology is being applied by regimes in these countries?
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Ken: Circumventor has achieved only modest success in China, as has Psiphon, the product out of the OpenNet Initiative (Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and U of Toronto). Both require a known party in the 'free area' to set up their machine and pass the address of their machine to the party in China. The best results seem to be coming from the client software known as DynaWeb, Ultrasurf,a and a few other programs that one loads on their machine - but that in itself entails risk to the users in hostile areas. No evidence of sharing, since several countries seem to developing their own home grown solutions - and the question is WHY the Chinese are not being more successful in sharing their filtering technology.
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Botimi Obed Jacob: how will the international community try to solve the problem associated with Internet fraud in 20 years?
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Ken: No one really knows. Some have suggested that the UN take up Internet fraud in the same way they regulate international frequencies, or by other international organizations. The problem is compounded by the fact that people who commit fraud are citizens of countries that may have no desire to cooperate with an international organization.
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Kemal, Ethiopia (email): How did the Internet start and which countries contribute most to computer technology development?
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Ken: The real basis of the Internet was a US Department of Defense initiative to allow military systems to reroute data traffic around nodes that were eliminated in one way or the other. This intelligent routing formed the basis of the commercial Internet, where my message to you will select the most optimum path to get from my machine to yours. The second great development was in the development of the Graphical User Interface, so that you and I can use a browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape / Firefox and not have to deal with line of computer code, but can easily input and read information.
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Dr. (Col.) V.K. Wadia, India (email): Don't you think that the idea of 'Filtering' is not a workable solution? As soon as new filtering techniques reach the masses, counter-filtering technology does as well. Can we not initiate a worldwide awareness campaign, like we are doing for the Green House Effect, to make uniformly stringent laws against both service and content providers?
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Ken: “Filtering” is truly a problem, since it fights the Internet’s ability to communicate across all barriers. Restrictive governments don’t want that. But, let’s be fair, even libraries and companies in the US use it so their customers or employees cannot gain access to sites such as porn or extremist sites. We in the BBG are really trying to make people aware of this political filtering and how it prevents users from getting truly unbiased information. The assumption is, of course, that if an educated user can get all the facts, he or she can make up his or her own mind. There will always be this “cat and mouse” game as the fighters of censorship battle against those trying to control content and the ideas and information people receive.
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Erin: Does the US government do any sort of Internet filtering?
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Ken: The US Government, per se, no, BUT, the Government consists of local, state and Federal. Federal agencies do filter content such as porn from their employees, just as companies do. The Internet in the US is essentially run by private industry: data carriers, phone companies, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) - and their is no Federal 'firewall' as there is in, say, China.
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Ibrahima, Senegal (email): How do websites like Youtube and Google make a profit?
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Ken: Well, Google is making money and its stock is near record levels. People are still scratching their head in understanding how Google selling ads on its search results can yield so much profit. Now that they have that profit, they are branching into many new technologies like mapping, cell phones, and video. YouTube has a similar model, selling ads.
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Erin: What is the Circumventor? Who created it and how does it work?
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Ken: Circumventor is a software program created by a clever man named Bennett Haselton, who runs . It offers the user the chance to help individuals in censored regimes get unfiltered information. You in say, the US, load Circumventor on your PC. It then acts as a relay or exit point, so that when a person in China seeks information, he connects to the volunteer's computer in the US and the info request goes from China (securely, using SSL encryption) and then exits into the public Internet from the machine running Circumventor. NOTE: it can be tricky to load and sometimes is slow, since a request for info from China or, say Taiwan, must be routed thru the volunteer’s machine in the US (if that is where the program is loaded).
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Jagdish: I access your site from proxy server and find many problems with pages. Is there anything being done to improve this.
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Ken: Thank you for using the proxies that we promote. Some countries like Iran have throttled Internet speed down to 128 kbs for everyone - and pages like VOA's that have images can take time to load. For China, we have purposefully re-designed the page to pass thru proxies; we are working on the same for Iran. The main problem with ALL proxies is that they strip out code such as JavaScript that allows sites to have cool functionality. Thus, the challenge in offering proxies is to make sure the user experience isn't so degraded that the user loses interest.
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Erin: What are the countries that censor or filter the Internet the most?
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Ken: China is the leader! They have devoted both technology and personnel to filter URLs, IP addresses, and key words at the local, regional, and national level. Iran filters, but is less successful, since the ISPs are more locally controlled. Burma, North Korea and Cuba filter - but they mainly do it by limiting people's access to hardware (PCs) and to international data circuits. Belarus and Uzbekistan are also noted for attempting to filter the Internet. For a full scorecard, go to Reporters Without Borders at for their worldwide report on Internet filtering.
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Compaore Tewende Michel, Burkino Faso: When did the information superhighway start and how has computer technology improved it?
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Ken: Just like a real highway, the 'road' has been improved for twenty years now. Computer technology and the Info superhighway are like fingers in a glove. They work together - and have evolved together. As user information needs have increased (we all want to see video now, rather than just text), computers, networks, and software have all improved step by step together.
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Erin: Why do some search engine companies (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo) opt to cooperate with governments wishing to censor the Internet?
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Ken: Very timely! Just yesterday the US House of Representative interviewed Yahoo management to try and understand better why Yahoo gave information to the Chinese security services on the dissident Shi Tao's email activity. In general, these are private companies and they can do whatever they want (as long as it is legal in their host country) to improve their market share and profitability. A piece of legislation pending in the US Congress would outlaw US companies from actively cooperating with foreign security services for the suppression of basic human rights. We'll see if it passes!
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Samual, Nigeria: Internet connections here are very poor. Does the United States have plans to improve these connections in places like Nigeria? Thank You
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Ken: The 'United States' is a large concept. Perhaps some US AID programs might be looking at this, but I don't know. There are plans to run high capacity fiber along both the East and West coasts of Africa to improve Africa's connections to the world. These are, however, funded by commercial companies.
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Erin: What kinds of punishments are given to people who bypass their government’s filtering system to access restricted sites?
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Ken: It really comes down to what the individuals are doing. To my knowledge, the folks who run their own dissident web sites, who blog regularly with ant-government content, and who attempt to form dissident groups are strongly attacked, followed, arrested, and prosecuted. BUT, people who simply access restricted content in more of a passive, read-only mode do not seem to be persecuted in any measurable way.
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Erin: How was VOA able to assist Chinese Internet users in bypassing their country’s Internet filtering?
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Ken: VOA sends daily emails (millions!) to China with daily news and several proxy addresses - that change daily. Our goal is to change the proxy address faster than the PRC can filter. The proxies also further our goals of freedom of inquiry and freedom of speech by letting the proxy users explore almost any subject they want: political, cultural, religious, historical, and even gossip sites. Our goal is to give the users the tools so they can get the information they want - info that explains ALL sides of an issue. We are also looking to get short videos to cell phone and portable devices, and perhaps even use direct broadcast satellite to get information in to China and other countries.
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Slibek: I love the voanews website. I find a great source of information on world events. I am concerned that my government (Russian) will soon be establishing an internal Internet and blocking outside connections. How can I find out more information on going around censorship?
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Ken: You are right to be concerned - journalists are being arrested and foreign radio and TV sites are being shut down. As of now, there is no noticeable Internet filtering, but President Putin has reportedly set up a team of bloggers and pro-government Internet activists to get 'his' message across. If you go to , they have a handbook on line for getting around Internet filtering.
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Erin: In countries that censor the Internet, how are individual Internet users affected?
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Ken: The sad thing is that self-censorship becomes the norm in countries that practice Internet filtering. China has its chatroom 'big mamas' that watch everything users want to post, and stop them upfront. People then start to say 'I better not post this because it will be blocked'. I am no journalist, but I understand that reporters in Hong Kong regularly censor THEMSELVES and now do the job for the Chinese government!
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Erin: That wraps T2A webchat. Our thanks to Ken Berman and to you for joining us. We hope you can join us next Wednesday, November 14th at 15 hours universal time. We will meet VOA Reporter Brian Padden as he travels to the Caspian Sea region and journalist Steve Levine who covered this oil story for 11 years. They discuss the high stakes international politics surrounding the Caspian Sea oil pipeline, with strategic implications for Washington, Moscow and Tehran. That’s 15 hours universal time on November 14th on voanews.com See you then!
Back to Past Chats
On November 7, 2007, at 1800 UTC, We met Ken Berman the Director of Information Technology at the International Broadcasting Bureau, as we discuss Internet filtering and circumventing roadblocks on the Information Superhighway.