Is Internet censorship inevitable?

The growth of the Internet in the last decade was driven by its users and application creators, mostly from the private sector. Along with the benefits came the various threats and abuses such as pornography, terrorism, cybercrime, among others. Most of these crimes are done outside of one's country and most would strategically implement such route to ensure that they won't be captured.

Governments are getting concerned about this and efforts in creating a multi-government and multi-stakeholder body is being pushed to coordinate tracking and capture. It will be interesting to explore the idea Vince Cerf is pushing on international agreements on what is acceptable network behavior or not. I wonder what will be the penalties for those who are non-compliant.

While waiting for these efforts to happen, governments are moving forward. Australia released Internet censorship rules that compels ISPs to provide clean feeds that shall protect children from pornography and violent websites or often referred to as adult content. Of course, wives who don't want their husbands to access Internet pornography should be happy as well.

As children now frequent social networks and use chat tools to connect with their friends, where they also get exposed to adult content indirectly, it will be interesting to see on how can this be properly executed. The last thing you want is for innocent sites to be included in the list.

This is not mandatory though and parents who have control of their household Internet may want to opt out from this feature. Like in our home, computers are located in the living room area where access to undesirable content is less likely to happen. But as Duncan Riley noted, opting out may result or require questions to be answered, that in a sense is also like being monitored.

Whether this will affect Internet speed or increase access cost, is uncertain at this point. Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy mentioned that they will work constructively with the sector and engage in trials to get this done properly.

I believe that this move by a perceived progressive and democratic country like Australia will set the stage for more countries to explore the same move, especially if done well.

In the Philippines, there were push for Internet censorship in the past and was even suggested by the biggest Internet cafe chain in the Philippines, Netopia. Even if most Internet cafes in the Philippines have already prohibited access to pornographic materials in their facilities and installed filters to prevent such, some believe that government's participation on the matter can help in stepping up the pressure. Getting the Internet monitored may one way or another help in capturing cyber-criminals especially pedophiles who are good in masking their identities online.

With pervasive Internet use and cybercrime growing online, is Internet censorship inevitable? I guess it will depend on what matters most to us. Is it our privacy? Children's online safety? Freedom of information access? National security?

Penalizing child pornography

Former Lee County School District bus driver Donald Deverso, 60, was arrested in April 2005 after returning from the Philippines and customs officials found explicit photos of underage girls on his digital camera. Investigators later found more images on his computer and some computer discs. He took images of the girl, including shots of her lying nude on a rumpled bed.

U.S. District Judge John Steele sentenced him to 16 years and 3 months for receiving child pornography as well as owning and making child pornography. At least this is a positive news of some sort in fighting against cybercrime.

Cybercrime: a globally connected concern

As exposure to hacks and cracks never ceases, companies globally address it by hardening their policies and infrastructure within the organization. Authorities globally are communicating with the private sector to earn trust and seek collaboration in capturing organized cybercrime networks. For the Philippines, this is an issue as a lot of US companies admitted that some of the pings or attempts come from the country.

In fact because of high tech printing gadgets today, there are now fake or counterfeit US dollar bills circulating around the world. Oftentimes referred to as "supernotes," these fake bills was first found in the Philippines as a local cashier caught it by the feel of the paper.

One of the challenges in cybercrime enforcement is the extradition of suspects from one country to another. If two countries don't have the same or similar legislation for that matter, double criminality can't be established which is a requirement for extradition.

Another growing concern is the 1 billion pesos online pornography market in the country where vigilance of the community is needed in capturing these elements and bring them to court. A growing number of alleged traffickers are using the Internet as a medium to market.

Rebels and various cause groups are also using the Internet as a medium to express their grievances, propaganda, and introduce themselves. Although this may work in favor for the government in getting more information. It can also work otherwise.

The passage of the E-Commerce Law or Republic Act 8792 was crucial in demonstrating the Philippines' stability as an outsourcing destination of ICT related or enabled projects. As data privacy is a growing concern as well, the Department of Trade and Industry released a guideline (pdf) that can be shown to local and foreign prospective clients on our resiliency in protecting personal data. It is hoped as well that this guideline can be used in protecting ourselves from unsolicited business calls.

To continue this demanding task, law enforcement entities also face the dilemma of getting funding support and hire cybercrime fighters. Good thing there are entities giving equipment and training donations.

Still, there are global security software executives, despite having Philippine presence, still clueless on policy developments in the country and using old examples.