Cyber-skirmish at the top of the world

[bridgit]

'For the past decade or more, China has been engaged in a game of whack-a-mole to control the burgeoning channels of digital communication between Tibetan dissidents inside Tibet and in the Tibetan diaspora. Despite Beijing's resolve to define the Tibetan issue as a solely internal matter for the People's Republic of China, Tibetan Internet issues have been quietly internationalized, thanks to the efforts of Western activists to provide cyber-security services for Tibetan dissidents and emigres.

In March 2008, Canadian investigators achieved a cyber-security triumph: the exposure of a malicious data-gathering botnet, a large number of compromised computers used to create and send spam or viruses, targeting the Tibetan international community. The botnet's exposure could almost - but not quite - be construed as a counter-intelligence operation against a hacker network apparently operating out of China.

Domestically, China routinely monitors and blocks websites, chat rooms and plain-text e-mail nationwide on a host of sensitive subjects, including Tibet, using thousands of real and virtual cybercops and its US$700 million Golden Shield infrastructure - derisively called "The Great Firewall of China" (GFW). It also employs the technical assistance of local service providers (including the in-China operations of multi-nationals like Yahoo!) to gather information on domestic dissidents.

Efforts in the sensitive Tibetan regions of China are more direct and draconian, especially in the context of heightened tensions following the unrest in March 2008.

Landline, cell and Internet services in Tibetan areas were interrupted during the period of unrest. When the Chinese government became aware that Tibetan dissidents were using the video-sharing website YouTube as a text-free method to communicate, it shut it down. When image-sharing website Flickr emerged as a potential source of visual information, it was blocked. Tibetan radio broadcasts by Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Asia (RFA) and Voice of Tibet were jammed. A campaign against satellite dishes was intensified to limit the audience of VOA's direct-to-dish Tibet TV service. In order to cut off cell-phone based talk, text, and images, China reportedly limited service and tore down cell phone towers.'

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KD08Ad01.html