censorship

On Vietnam banning chat apps

Submitted by tomo on August 28, 2013 - 5:30pm

Here are some random thoughts on the news of Vietnamese ISPs/ministries colluding to ban mobile chat apps like Line/KakaoTalk/Viber/Whatsapp. The story so far has been that Vietnam's mobile networks, losing more and more money from people using free chat apps instead of SMS (which senders pay a little money for in Vietnam) which is pure profit for them, would like to put a stop to this trend.

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Vietnam has been labeled an "enemy of the Internet" by Reporters Without Borders. There have been a lot of cases of bloggers being targeted, harrassed, and arrested. But RSF (Reporters Sans Frontieres - French for Reporters Without Borders) are possibly speculating heavily on many of their other arguments such as banning Internet (gaming) cafes near schools, the real origins of DDoS attacks, Considering Internet penetration in this rather populous country, with Internet usage continuing to rise rapidly each year, and an explosion of Vietnamese businesses operating on the web, it might be a bit of hyperbole to say that Vietnam and the Internet are enemies, just like people mistakenly still think that Vietnam and America are still enemies. But censorship of websites is an issue here in Vietnam. It's an issue in all of Vietnam's neighbors in Southeast Asia.

First, to the north of Vietnam lies the vast Middle Kingdom of China (China isn't properly part of Southeast Asia but it does border many Southeast Asian countries). China has been labeled #1 Enemy of the Internet for implementing a technologically advanced firewall (the Great Firewall of China). In China, hundreds of popular American websites are blocked including Google, YouTube, Facebok and Twitter. Search queries are also monitored for keywords and then stopped if a person is searching about a sensitive topic like the Tiananmen Square massacre. Chinese are forced to use local versions of social media (like Sino Weibo) which are more easily controlled by the Chinese government. You could try to draw parallels to Facebook versus Zing Me and other social networks in Vietnam but the huge difference is that Facebook is still accessible and the one and only social media platform in Vietnam. TOR (The Onion Router, used for anonymously browsing the Internet and TOR .onion sites) is also blocked in China.

Malaysia isn't your typical enemy of the Internet. Its government (like Vietnam) encourages a digital ("multimedia", a term from the 1990s) economy with various initiatives like Cyberjaya and the Multimedia Super Corridor and when those initiatives started, just as the Internet was blowing up around the world, the government declared that the Internet was to remain free and uncensored. But Convervative Muslims in charge do want to limit certain cultural shortcomings by censoring scenes in movies with nudity or even just cleavage and sex or even just kissing.

Singapore - the country where chewing gum is banned and could get you caned. It's also a country with a rather long blacklist of blocked websites, mostly porn sites like YouPorn or Pussy.com. In Vietnam, pornography is illegal and you won't find Playboy or other girly mags being sold at magazine stands. But online, while ostensibly the Internet censorship laws are for blocking online porn, no porn sites are actually blocked (I've checked some of them - for research purposes). In Singapore, to a lesser extent, bloggers have been shut down and so has a random website about traveling while infected with HIV due to unfavorable portrayal of Singapore's policies towards HIV carriers. But no reports of bloggers being jailed unless they were also jaywalking, chewing gum, dancing in public places without a proper permit, bringing durian onto busses, or being a graffiti artist.

Thailand demonstrates a tactic that has been used in Vietnam, Cambodia, and probably many countries. Websites are not strictly speaking made illegal by the government. Rather, the government makes secret requests to ISPs to make certain websites unavailable. ISPs can decide to comply or ignore the request but ignoring the request comes at a high cost and so ISPs will generally block any website upon request. This means now over 100,000 websites are blocked in Thailand, putting it in the same league as China! Out of the rest of the countries in the region Thailand and Cambodia are the only kingdoms. Thailand has lese majeste laws making it illegal to insult the monarchy. This has led to arrests of people saying potentially offensive things about the king on social media sites like Facebook or even for liking or retweeting such statements.

Cambodia follows Thailand and Vietnam's leads when it comes to Internet censorship (Cambodia also gets their Internet connection from those two countries). When the government "requests" that certain websites are blocked the ISPs generally comply making it unnecessary to outright criminalize the websites in Cambodia. At the same time, governments deny censoring any websites and ISPs also release confusing messages regarding any block or whether it's an official block or just "technical difficulties". Like in Vietnam, certain blogs hosted by massive blogging platforms like Blogger and Bloghost have caused both entire platforms to be blocked by ISPs, not just the offending blogs. A certain controversial artists has had his website blocked, as has the NGO Global Witness, who fights againgst natural resource exploitation, corruption, and human rights abuses, probably for writing stuff like Cambodia should not stand for UN Security Council until land grabs and repression stop. Strangely, the prime minister of Cambodia briefly banned smartphones and 3G due to the potential of being able to view sexy streaming videos on one's mobile phone.

In Burma, the problem isn't just that some websites are blocked. Rather, all websites are slow and access can be unbearably limited to the point where they are functionally blocked. In general, Internet access is hard to subscribe to and then expensive to use, unaffordable for most Burmese. They also apparently have the same networking gear used for censorship as in China. With recent changes in attitudes towards the West and to media, with promises of no longer censoring newspapers, this is one country to watch in the future from any angle.

Laos, on the other hand, appears to not censor anything on the Internet.

If you ask Vietnamese officials, you'll hear such hyperbole as "the Internet service development in Vietnam is in no way inferior to developed countries in the world" (Mai Liem Truc, former Deputy Minister of Post and Telematics). But when people say such things and thus denying the existence of any problems they are leaving no room for improvement.

Yes, we have high speed internet and even fiber to the home (FTTH), both at relatively low costs compared to developed countries, though also not as fast as connections from homes to ISPs in Korea or Japan. We have 3G (but not LTE or 4G) also at very cheap prices - prepaid packages from $2 a month, even cheaper for a week or a day (you have to get used to the idea of being able to buy a single use ketchup packet of shampoo, $1 worth of credit for a phone, and a day's worth of data). Satellite connections exist although general ISPs don't offer them. Vietnam even has an indigenous satellite program (but they transmit to Earth at pitiful data rates thus not being suitable for general consumers).

But all methods of accessing the Internet are limited by Vietnam's links to the outside Internet where most of the content lies, since homegrown content in Vietnam is lacking compared to the English-language Internet both in quantity and quality. We have limited terrestrial links to China, and otherwise we have to rely on undersea cables from stations in Vung Tau and Da Nang to major regional undersea cables that connect Vietnam to neighboring Hong Kong or Singapore and points beyond. Some of these cables start in Europe and go through the Middle East. Others simply connect us to Japan and then the US.

When the Internet isn't super slow due to undersea cable cuts, it could be broken locally for other reasons. Infrastructure is fragile. Wires often catch fire or get cut for other reasons (did I mention rats?). Power goes out. Having a laptop and 3G internet access is a backup plan you'll use often, but this isn't reasonable for companies of any size. Being able to say that there are fiber connections and 3G is just a show. The reality is that Vietnam's Internet is considerably inferior to developed countries qualitatively.

On Censorship. One thing I've learned from talking to many mainland Chinese people is that they don't realize Internet censorship is a problem or that it's a bad or undesirable thing. Although not exactly the same, Vietnamese people similarly don't take a tone of offense at the idea of the government or really anyone imposing their restrictions on them. Or people take a light view of it, considering the easy of circumventing previous Facebook blocks. But this also leads to the Vietnamese Internet's lack of local content (and thus overdependence on international links). Creative people are not encouraged to produce content. Writers are jailed. Musicians and film directors have no protection for their works, sometimes even less than foreign works in Vietnam. So anyone who wants to take full advantage of the Internet right now and into the foreseeable future must learn English.

Today, Wikipedia, Google, and many other high profile websites are protesting the MPAA's Protect IP Act (PIPA, in the Senate) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA, in the House), two anti-piracy acts that they're trying to push into legislation in the US, which also threaten internet freedom. Citizens of other countries should be concerned not just because much of the internet each of us uses runs in the US and so abides by US law, but because the wording that eventually passes will likely be copied by governments around the world.

Netizens in Vietnam have joined the cause or at least have spread word in support. Stepping back, doing so is an act of irony from multiple perspectives.

First, that we're protesting at all in a country where public protest is a privilege more than a right, that the Communist Party is seldom willing to confer. In this case, there's little concern for the Party, since the object of protest is in America, and it's specifically an industry (Hollywood) which clearly gets no respect here - it's more convenient to buy pirated DVDs, two for a dollar, publicly on the street at tax-paying (or whatever it is they're paying, to whoever) businesses, than it is to download them online anyways.

Next, we're protesting because we don't want arbitrary websites to be taken down by the law without any due process. If you're at all familiar with Vietnam's legal system, you'll already know that this is the case here. Nominally, pornography is banned and this is why the government can block websites but if there are any porn sites that are blocked I'm not aware. If IP laws were enforced here, Zing would not exist. But some websites are taken down occasionally.

And finally, we're using social media as our protest medium. Social media and web technology make it really easy to join a protest; it only takes two clicks to share something on Facebook. Except that Facebook itself is already "blacked out" in Vietnam. And Facebook is by far the most commonly used form of social media in Vietnam. And the protest is about internet censorship.

The point I want to make is that internet freedom is valuable and is a worthwhile cause for all people. For the people who are just now thinking about internet censorship issues, I hope they also become aware of it in a more immediate context, like a campaign to help starving Africans should also serve to bring about greater awareness of poverty closer to home.

Facebook in Vietnam 2012

Submitted by tomo on January 9, 2012 - 4:03pm

Happy 2012!

Despite one of FPT's divisions signing a contract with Facebook to be a Facebook developer partner in Vietnam, unlike what many folks here in Vietnam had hoped, it did not mean that FPT would keep access to Facebook flowing freely. Facebook isn't actually banned in Vietnam, it just suffers from "technical difficulties" from time to time that nobody seems to bother to investigate for the millions of users in Vietnam. So businesses still advertise and do business using Facebook as a platform. Even the State uses Facebook, with the Vietnam Administration of Tourism stating they will campaign on Facebook. I suppose they don't mind if only people outside of Vietnam can see the ads, even if most tourists in Vietnam come from Vietnam.

There are a number of theories as to why it's sometimes difficult to access Facebook in Vietnam. In China, it's outright banned. In Cambodia, it's just really slow, but otherwise doesn't suffer the same "technical difficulties" despite using the same Internet service providers as Vietnam (as Vietnamese telecoms serve as uplinks to Cambodian ISPs). Some of the conspiracy theories include pressure from rival social networks like Zing Me or the government's own Go.vn, or that Facebook is blocked due to not paying taxes.

As of right now, FPT has started making it "technically difficult" to access Facebook, whereas Viettel seems to be okay, and VNPT is hit or miss (currently it is working on this VNPT connection), Mobifone is a no go. The usual method of changing your /etc/hosts file or your DNS will no longer work. Using apps like HotSpot Shield, VPNs, proxies, and SSH tunnels will always work. You can also use various apps including Seesmic or Hootsuite to access both Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

So if you don't want to play musical chairs with your ISPs as each one opens/closes access to Facebook, be sure to have one of the above in your arsenal of freedom.

If your ISP is blocking Facebook then you must use a general workaround such as Hotspot Shield (spammy) or a VPN like StrongVPN.

[This is the third post about Accessing Facebook in Vietnam

Lately, ISPs in Vietnam has begun randomly blocking Facebook again after a period of openness.  When it's blocked, even accessing Facebook via their Lisp4 server (or using the Saigonist DNS server) doesn't work.

But there are a number of apps, both web-based and desktop apps, which integrate with Facebook to different extents.  These apps, once you login to them with your Facebook account, can basically get your Facebook updates for you without requiring access to Facebook.

One such app is Seesmic, which has both a web and a desktop client.  Seesmic connects to a numer of social networks and I use it for reading my Twitter feed, with a custom hack to fix a serious problem with disappearing Tweets.  But once you login to Seesmic and connect it to your Facebook account, you can see your Facebook feed as well as messages.  That's enough for most people, most of the time.

Other desktop apps that can connect to Facebook are Bubbles and Hootsuite, but I wasn't able to get Hootsuite to connect to my Facebook account.

Another less convenient way is to use Opera's online demo of their Opera Mini browser.  It's a Java app and you use it like you're using a phone, but it will connect to Facebook for you (unless your browser doesn't let Java make network connections).

When I saw that Diesel released a desktop app called Excellbook as part of a marketing campaign called Be Stupid At Work, I was hoping it would also work in bypassing the Facebook block.  It's an Adobe AIR app, which requires installing Adobe AIR, and is generally a piece of crap.  Even if you can get it to connect, it will require a connection to Facebook still and so it's not so useful.  Nice idea, terrible execution and yet another example of a bad Adobe AIR app.

For some time now, ISPs in Vietnam have been blocking a small number of websites, particularly Facebook. Fortunately, the number of blocked sites was really small (in China hundreds of sites are blocked) and the method of blocking traffic to Facebook was very weak. The Vietnamese ISPs simply stopped returning DNS queries for the Facebook domain. So everyone soon figured out they could simply change their computer's DNS settings to use a non-blocking DNS server, such as Google's (8.8.8.8).

I'm hearing rumors now, while I'm traveling in Europe, that Vietnamese ISPs have really cracked down on access to Facebook and that the DNS trick no longer works.

So here are some more foolproof ways to get around the Facebook block in Vietnam which will also work for any website that is blocked in any country. For example, the Great Firewall of China blocks access to an ever-changing list of sites by more than just DNS. But these methods should work there too.

An added advantage is that you may also be able to access US sites that block all non-US computers like Hulu and certain YouTube videos.

1. Pay for VPN access outside of Vietnam. This is essentially what I do by renting a server in the US, but I only tunnel my web traffic over an ssh connection. If anyone wants a shell on my server for tunneling purposes (and not downloading porn) contact me.

Setting up SSH is a bit quirky so most people are better off with a true VPN solution.

One that comes recommended is StrongVPN. By going with them you'll get full support and they show you how to set it all up.

2. Install free but ad-supported Hotspot Shield

From their site:

Secure your web session, data, online shopping, and personal information online with HTTPS encryption.
Protect yourself from identity theft online.
Hide your IP address for your privacy online.
Access all content privately without censorship; bypass firewalls.
Protect yourself from snoopers at Wi-Fi hotspots, hotels, airports, corporate offices.

You may want to install ad blockers if you go this route. They will also track information about you to sell to advertisers.

3. Proxy servers.

Pick a proxy server from http://www.xroxy.com/ and set your browser to use it without needing to buy or install anything. You don't need to use a proxy server in Vietnam, in fact it's probably better not to.

In a pinch you can browse through a "CGI proxy" like http://12345proxy.com/ without having to set up anything.

Using a proxy server could slow down access to some websites, especially ones in Vietnam. You can install some browser add-ons so that you only go through a proxy for the sites that are blocked, like Facebook.

For Google Chrome:
Proxy Switchy: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/caehdcpeofiiigpdhbabniblemipncjj

For FireFox:
FoxyProxy: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2464/

4. Just for watching videos on sites like Hulu, Amazon Video on Demand, Pandora, or YouTube, you can try http://www.usvideo.ca/ although it costs $5.25/month.

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