[LINK] China Gleefully Uses UK Desire For Censorship To Validate Its Own Censorship (Link Digest, Vol 225, Issue 19)

[Phillip Musumeci]

>
> From: Kim Holburn <kim at holburn.net>
> Subject: [LINK] China Gleefully Uses UK Desire For Censorship To Validate
> Its Own Censorship
>


>
> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110812/10553415491/china-gleefully-uses-uk-desire-censorship-to-validate-its-own-censorship.shtml
>
> > China Gleefully Uses UK Desire For Censorship To Validate Its Own
> Censorship
> >
> > from the who-didn't-see-that-coming? dept


The ease of organising crowds for looting might be reduced without content
filtering of messages (which gives support to Chinese censorship).
 Supposing that group organising needs instant or almost instant messaging
from one-to-many, then it might be possible to disrupt these groups by
introducing *temporary* time delays into one-to-many messaging that enter or
leave boundaries around selected areas.

The necessary delay to disrupt two-communications might be smaller than
expected as the way people communicate in "conversations" is timing
dependent (5 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour, the time police need to get
somewhere ... who knows, but testing would help).

Mobile phone locations can be localised to cell boundaries which is enough
to delay flow of SMS (subject to buffer requirements), but localising mobile
IP nodes in order to delay chat type comms might require some extra
cooperation between ISPs and mobile carriers as some ISPs have virtual
networks inside 3G data networks.

This of course doesn't stop people accessing other web sites for directions
but people have been able to do that for quite some time.  It might possibly
affect arguments about freedom of speech in places like Syria but the way
the government operates there probably means any dissident can't operate
without at least tor-like anonymity (meaning IP dependency and no SMS, when
SMS is still turned on...).  Oh, and even Australian shock jocks might
understand how temporary time delays in specific regions does not equal
content filtering.

Phillip

-- 
https://sites.google.com/site/pmusumeci/