11-09-23 Fear of Repression Spurs Scholars and Activists to Build Alternate Internets // Miedo a la represión Spurs académicos y activistas para construir alternativas Internets // 担心受到压制马刺学者和活动家建立备用因特网

September 18, 2011

Fear of Repression Spurs Scholars and Activists to Build Alternate Internets

Yana Paskova for The Chronicle

Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia U., is developing the Freedom Box, a personal server that makes data harder to intercept. "The Net we have is increasingly monitored, measured, and surveilled everywhere by everybody all the time," he says. "Our Net has been turned against us."

By Jeffrey R. Young

Washington

Computer networks proved their organizing power during the recent uprisings in the Middle East, in which Facebook pages amplified street protests that toppled dictators. But those same networks showed their weaknesses as well, such as when the Egyptian government walled off most of its citizens from the Internet in an attempt to silence protesters.

That has led scholars and activists increasingly to consider the Internet's wiring as a disputed political frontier.

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http://chronicle.com/article/Fear-of-Repression-Spurs/129049/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en