In Cuba, mystery shrouds fate of Internet cable

[Zorro]

It was all sunshine, smiles and celebratory speeches as officials marked the arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable they promised would end Cuba's Internet isolation and boost web capacity 3,000-fold. Even a retired Fidel Castro had hailed the dawn of a new cyber-age on the island.

More than a year after the February 2011 ceremony on Siboney Beach in eastern Cuba, and 10 months after the system was supposed to have gone online, the government never mentions the cable anymore, and Internet here remains the slowest in the hemisphere. People talk quietly about embezzlement torpedoing the project and the arrest of more than a half-dozen senior telecom officials.

Perhaps most maddening, nobody has explained what happened to the much-ballyhooed $70 million project.

"They did some photo-op ... and then that scandal came out, and then it just disappeared from human consciousness," said Larry Press, a professor of information systems at California State University, Dominguez Hills, who studies Cuba, referring to foreign media reports and whispers by diplomats that several executives at state phone company Etecsa and the two senior officials in the Telecommunications Ministry were arrested last year.

More at: http://news.yahoo.com/cuba-mystery-shrouds-fate-internet-cable-180553388--finance.html

[Bacchus4.0]

1. very interesting, I recall hearing that the embargo was the reason

for the restricted internet access in Cuba and this would "liberate" Cuba.

this is interesting in a sorry sort of way:

A senior French official told AP that Alcatel had upheld its part of the contract and whatever problems exist must be on land with the network it was meant to be attached to.

"The cable must be connected to something or it won't work," said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the politically sensitive project.



the article then postulates that the Cuban government is reassessing allowing their citizens to have greater and faster access to the net after the Arab Spring of last year. they don't want a Cuban spring.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. kick n/t

h

[joshcryer]

3. It's freedom of information preemption.

Cuba has an incarceration rate that rivals the US (the US gets crapped on, rightly so, for its high incarceration rate, but Cuba gets a pass, of course; jailing "counter-revolutionaries" is perfectly valid).

They're afraid of what will happen once the information is allowed to flow freely.

Already they're trying to trump up "cyber mercenaries" to slander anyone who speaks openly negatively about the government: http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/cuba

But the Cuban dissidents trot out Cuba's constitution which guarantees "Free Speech." Yes, in principle Cuba has "free speech" but in practice the cronyism denies it (try setting up a party for example or setting up a separate union).

They are afraid, very afraid, of what free information flow means.

[Zorro]

4. Or...

Maybe they contracted with Comcast for Internet services...

[Bacchus4.0]

5. they could also be working on how to censor the information

since perhaps the cable connection works too well for Cuba's tastes.

imagine the enormity of information on the net that is offensive to the Cuban regime.

[Mika]

6. Wouldn't be a lot of work. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, et al, all do it for China.

Another reason to open up trade with Cuba - good ol' American corporations could do the censoring for Cuba.




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[joshcryer]

7. The problem isn't censoring the internet at large, a Great Firewall isn't too hard.

The problem is monitoring activities. They want to be able to monitor activities like they do on the much easier to monitor sat link. They are trying their damnedest to roll it out but it's just not feasible. You can't track the activities of 10 million people so easily. Google isn't going to hand over daily emails to Cuba.

Cuba won't try to censor the internet, it simply wouldn't fly, and it would go against their pretense of freedom of expression. They just want to be able to monitor their people.

[joshcryer]

8. Censorship isn't their goal. The latest generation of Cubans are all about tech...

...pop music, fashion, and being chill. Censor them and they will get really upset.

Their goal is to monitor for "counter-revolutionary" behavior.

The problem is that once you have free information flow, "counter-revolutionary behavior" is basically done by everyone.