A little more than a year ago, the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) — a loosely-knit band of hackers — emerged, quickly gaining the support of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad who, in a speech, called the SEA a “virtual army in cyberspace.”  The “army” has continued its activities, hacking websites and spamming Facebook pages in an effort to win the information war.

But other methods have emerged from the pro-regime camp that make the SEA’s efforts look like child’s play.  For months, academic and rights groups have been documenting efforts by pro-regime hackers to distribute malware that installs surveillance tools on the recipient’s computer.  A recent example documented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation distributes malware via Skype; once a recipient’s machine is infected, their Skype account then sends a link out to contacts which, when clicked, installs the malware on their machines as well.

In an earlier incident, pro-government hackers set up a fake version of YouTube that attacked users in two different ways: first by requiring them to enter their YouTube login credentials, compromising their account; and second, by installing malware disguised as an Adobe Flash Player update.

This spate of attacks has left many Syrians seeking resources on how to stay safe online.  A number of organisations — the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Committee to Protect Journalists, to name just a couple — offer such information.

The regime continues to target journalists and citizen journalists (many of whom are staunchly in the opposition camp).  Just a few months ago, the offices of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression were raided, its staff arrested.  Only some have since been freed.  More devastating was the recent loss of a young determined activist and Fulbright scholar, Bassel Shehade, who had spent much of the previous year using his skills to train other activists on using cameras to document human rights abuses.

The cumulative effect of all these efforts against activists has not, fortunately, been silence.  Bloggers continue to blog, activists continue to upload YouTube videos and post to Twitter, and many do so using their real names. Humour — often a relief in the darkest times —has lent itself to campaigns, with powerful images dominating the Facebook groups of the Syrian revolution.

Nevertheless, the information war continues, with opposition factions, regime supporters, and even the regime itself vying for the role of truth bearer. Seeking truth through the chaos is difficult enough when framed through the lens of traditional media, but becomes far complex when contending with thousands of voices on social media, as well as sockpuppets and paid trolls.

Though it is important to remember that the Syrian conflict is primarily an offline one, and not lose sight of the limitations of the internet for political change, it is nonetheless clear that the internet plays an important role in allowing Syrians to communicate with the world.

Jillian C. York is Director for International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She tweets at @jilliancyork

The post The online war for Syria appeared first on Index on Censorship.

In his book, The Net Delusion, released in early 2011, Evgeny Morozov warned us of the dark side of the internet, its utility to authoritarian regimes, and the potential for dictators to use it against their citizens. Though online repression was no new thing, Morozov’s thesis took on so-called cyberutopians, whose overly optimistic view of the internet, he argued, ignored its perils.

The timing of the book’s release coincided, unfortunately, with the start of the Arab Spring in which Tunisian and Egyptian activists leveraged digital tools to their advantage, using them to assist with the organisation of protests and to amass international attention for their cause. Suddenly, cyberutopians had reason to celebrate, as their belief in the power of the internet for social change was confirmed.

But Morozov wasn’t wrong. In Syria, where demonstrations have been taking place since late February, the government has begun to catch up with activists, both offline and online. Though the Syrian internet has long been censored, citizens have for some time had the upper hand, using circumvention and anonymity technologies to get around censorship and protect themselves online.

In February, just as calls for protest in Damascus began to be answered, the government of Syria did a surprising thing, unblocking Facebook, Blogspot and YouTube, which had been banned since 2007. The decision was met with suspicion: the sites had been popular despite the ban, and some suspected that unblocking them would allow the government greater surveillance capabilities.

Within a month, their suspicions proved true. Stories of Syrians being detained, their Facebook passwords demanded, began to circulate, while not long after, several Syrian Facebook users reported being presented with a fake SSL certificate when trying to access the site.

Soon after, focus shifted from the use of technology to surveil and harass citizens toward the use of social media to manipulate the prevailing media narrative. First, on Twitter, a crop of spambots began to emerge, targeting popular hashtags like #Syria in order to draw attention toward benign images of Syria (such as photographs of beautiful Syrian landscapes) and away from news of the ongoing protests.

Next emerged a collective that has come to be known as the Syrian Electronic Army. As Helmi Noman, senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab recently documented, the Army has hacked scores of foreign websites deemed to have insulted Syria. They have also begun “spamming” the Facebook pages of popular figures and institutions, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy, American President Barack Obama, and the United Nations, leaving pro-regime comments and pleading for foreign support of the Assad regime.

As Noman reports, the Army has also leveraged Facebook to organise their attacks, even using the polling feature to learn what websites their constituents hope to target.

Syria is in many ways a tricky case — President Bashar Assad, who has been in power since 2000, has significantly more support than Tunisia’s Ben Ali or Egypt’s Mubarak did, as well as a powerful network of secret police and supporters. The emergence of online pro-regime forces herefore proves difficult for journalists, who must seek to distinguish between genuine support and organised (and possibly paid) propaganda efforts. The growing sophistication of such networks will continue to present difficulties for opposition, researchers, and journalists alike. A competing narrative had emerged and seeks to challenge — and stifle — the narrative of freedom.

Jillian C York is the director of international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

The post The dark side of the Syrian internet appeared first on Index on Censorship.

Then, on April 5 2010, Wikileaks released classified US military footage of 2007 airstrikes that killed two Iraqi Reuters journalists; dubbed “Collateral Murder,” the release captivated the media garnering a mixed bag of reactions. While some outlets reported on the airstrikes anew, others were quick to criticize Wikileaks and spokesman Julian Assange for the video’s heavy editorial slant.

Now, nearly four months later, Wikileaks has emerged as a citizen media superpower after releasing what Assange calls “the nearest analogue to the Pentagon Papers”: 91,731 internal US military logs of the War in Afghanistan, considered to be one of the largest leaks in US history. The logs reveal a huge amount of information: on civilian deaths, increased Taliban attacks, and alleged involvement by Pakistan and Iran in the Afghan insurgency.

Though the logs would have amassed attention on their own, it is perhaps not the logs themselves, but the manner in which they were released that has contributed to Wikileaks sudden gain in prominence, and credibility.  Rather than go it on their own and risk further accusations of slant, the organisation instead released the full logs to prominent newspapers in three countries — the New York Times, Germany’s Der Speigel, and the UK’s Guardian — essentially giving the outlets no choice but to report on the story: if they didn’t, Wikileaks would have released the logs regardless.

Wikileaks undoubtedly set out to change the game, but the question remains: has it?  With a slightly tarnished reputation in respect to its objectivity and the fact that Assange is allegedly being hunted by the Pentagon, the response to this latest leak suggests Wikileaks’ model is a success.

One reason for that might be the organisation’s “statelessness,” as NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen notes: Wikileaks is able to switch servers at any given time, putting it out of the reach of national legal systems.

Another is its objectivity on the Afghanistan logs. Though the White House criticised Wikileaks sharply for being “against the war in Afghanistan” and thus a non-objective source, the New York Times has stated that Wikileaks was not involved in research, reporting, analysis, and writing of their reports, therefore the White House claim applies only to the release of the documents, a seeming jab against transparency, which Assange has stated Wikileaks sees as “the way to justice.”

In a world where mainstream media seems to be increasingly under the thumb of corporate and political interests, Wikileaks is indeed a gamechanger, available at any moment to do the whisteblowing dirty work.  But Wikileaks still isn’t totally free: under pressure from the White House, the New York Times urged Wikileaks to withhold certain details from its website; Wikileaks had already admitted to withholding 15,000 documents until it could redact the names of individuals whose safety could be jeopardised.

Ultimately though, it is the internet that allows Wikileaks to hold the reigns. If the New York Times refused a story, thousands of other organisations and even bloggers would be there to pick up the slack. Thus, Wikileaks can’t lose; it knows that whatever comes its way, it will have a captive audience.

Jillian C York writes about free expression, politics, and the Internet, with particular focus on the Arab world.  She works at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

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