This is the public version of a presentation I gave at the public seminar on Digital media, civic engagement and political mobilization in repressive regimes
10-11 November 2008, Copenhagen, Denmark
Can authoritarianism survive the Internet? Yes it can...rmackinnon
Keynote lecture at the World Press Freedom Committee annual luncheon.
More details here:
http://www.i-times.org/interesting_times/2009/12/a-month-ago-many-of-us-celebrated-the-20th-anniversary-of-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-in-the-run-up-to-the-celebrations-a-ge.html
Can authoritarianism survive the Internet? Yes it can...rmackinnon
Keynote lecture at the World Press Freedom Committee annual luncheon.
More details here:
http://www.i-times.org/interesting_times/2009/12/a-month-ago-many-of-us-celebrated-the-20th-anniversary-of-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall-in-the-run-up-to-the-celebrations-a-ge.html
Yahoo!, the Shi Tao Case, and lessons for corporate social responsibilityrmackinnon
Slides from an academic paper presentation. Paper at: http://rconversation.blogs.com/YahooShiTaoLessons.pdf">Download YahooShiTaoLessons.pdf
ABSTRACT: In 2005, Chinese journalist Shi Tao was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison for leaking state secrets abroad. Key evidence cited in Chinese court documents included information about Shi’s account supplied by Yahoo! to the Chinese State Security Bureau. Condemnation by human rights groups and investors, U.S. congressional hearings, a Hong Kong government investigation, and a U.S. lawsuit followed. This paper documents the core facts, events, issues and debates involved. The Shi Tao case highlights the complex challenges of corporate social responsibility for Internet and telecommunications companies: They are caught between demands of governments on one hand and rights of users on the other – not only in authoritarian countries such as China but in virtually all countries around the world. While there are no simple or quick solutions, Internet and telecoms companies seeking to establish trustworthy reputations across a global customer base cannot afford to ignore the human rights implications of their business practices. Users and investors have a right to demand that user rights be respected. If companies fail to respect user rights, the need to develop non-commercial, grassroots alternatives will become increasingly important if privacy and free expression are to be possible anywhere.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Yahoo!, the Shi Tao Case, and lessons for corporate social responsibilityrmackinnon
Slides from an academic paper presentation. Paper at: http://rconversation.blogs.com/YahooShiTaoLessons.pdf">Download YahooShiTaoLessons.pdf
ABSTRACT: In 2005, Chinese journalist Shi Tao was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison for leaking state secrets abroad. Key evidence cited in Chinese court documents included information about Shi’s account supplied by Yahoo! to the Chinese State Security Bureau. Condemnation by human rights groups and investors, U.S. congressional hearings, a Hong Kong government investigation, and a U.S. lawsuit followed. This paper documents the core facts, events, issues and debates involved. The Shi Tao case highlights the complex challenges of corporate social responsibility for Internet and telecommunications companies: They are caught between demands of governments on one hand and rights of users on the other – not only in authoritarian countries such as China but in virtually all countries around the world. While there are no simple or quick solutions, Internet and telecoms companies seeking to establish trustworthy reputations across a global customer base cannot afford to ignore the human rights implications of their business practices. Users and investors have a right to demand that user rights be respected. If companies fail to respect user rights, the need to develop non-commercial, grassroots alternatives will become increasingly important if privacy and free expression are to be possible anywhere.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
Let's dive deeper into the world of ODC! Ricardo Alves (OutSystems) will join us to tell all about the new Data Fabric. After that, Sezen de Bruijn (OutSystems) will get into the details on how to best design a sturdy architecture within ODC.
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
3. 2 categories of Chinese
Internet censorship
• “Outside the great firewall”
• Filtering of websites outside of China
4. 2 categories of Chinese
Internet censorship
• “Outside the great firewall”
• Filtering of websites outside of China
• “Inside the great firewall”
• Deletion of content on domestic
commercial websites
• Takedown of domestically hosted
websites
• Shut-down of data centers
12. Lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan tried to sue
blog host for censoring posts
... his lawsuit inspired my project to test censorship by
Chinese blog-hosting companies
14. Your post “Tiananmen mothers organization publishes a
website” has been successfully submitted! Because it
contains sensitive words, please wait for the community
editors to approve it. Please donʼt re-post. Thank you.
15. Password protected blog
used to manage project:
posted and categorized
different kinds of content
for testing across 15
different blog-hosting
services.
16. Example of one piece of content
for testing: excerpt from a BBC
Chinese news story. Link to
original website and the full story
are included below the test item.
17. 50 subject categories
17. 3 gorges dam 34. discussion of polit reofrm
1. sudden incidents
18. Hong Kong politics 35. legal defence
2. overseas political events
19. Taiwan, general politics 36. human rights critiques
3. olympics
20. Taiwan, independence 37. political arrests
4. historical issues
21. Macau politics 38. independence movements
5. leftist critiques
22. AIDS 39. calls for regime change
6. military/security
23. health issues (non-AIDS) 40. FLG
7. foreign policy
24. crime & criminal cases 41. natural disaster
8. anti-japanese
25. city government policies 42. economic measures
9. anti-U.S.
26. provincial government policies 43. dissidents (unjailed)
10. North Korean refugees
27. national government policies 44. censorship/surveillance
11. foreign trade & investment
28. media/tech policy 45. opposition parties
12. financial and econ data/info
29. national leaders 46. NPC
13. probs. in govt. ministries
30. provincial and city leaders 47. labor issues
14. corruption
31. local leaders 48. migrant workers
15. relocation (due to
construction)
32. religious issues 49. economic disparity
16. environment
33. ethnic minorities 50. Tibet
18. Screenshots were taken at every
step of the testing process for
every blog post, and uploaded
into a database.
19. 15 blog hosts tested, 108 valid tests
Company A 60
B 44
C 34
D 31
NOTE: Company names have been replaced with
E 27 letters due to concerns that companies who censor
F 26
less will be subject to repercussions.
Blog services
G 24
NOTES:
H* 22
I 20 *H - 2 tests deleted the full post: 85 and 115 (both milk
powder related); 20 others replaced sensitive words with
J 19 “***”
K 17
**N - Connection reset when visiting blog from Chinese
L 13 ISP only. For: 66 (TAM mothers), 126 (milk powder); 117
(“Chinese people and religion” essay).
M 9
***O: 27 (“Why we are suing Yahoo” - by dissidents and
N** 3
human rights activists)
O*** 1
0 27 54 81 108
Number of blog posts tested
20. The percentages
A 55.6%
B 40.7%
C 31.5%
D 28.7%
E 25.0%
NOTES:
Blog services
F 24.1%
G 22.2% *H - 2 tests deleted the full post: 85 and 115 (both milk
powder related); 20 others replaced sensitive words with
H* 20.4% “***”
I 18.5%
**N - Connection reset when visiting blog from Chinese
J 17.6% ISP only. For: 66 (TAM mothers), 126 (milk powder); 117
(“Chinese people and religion” essay).
K 15.7%
L 12.0% ***O: 27 (“Why we are suing Yahoo” - by dissidents and
human rights activists)
M 8.3%
N** 2.8%
O*** 0.9%
0% 100%
Percentage of blog posts tested
22. Baidu: published, then removed after 24
hours. Also censored by: iFeng, MySpace,
Netease, Tianya, YahooCN, Qzone.
(Censored by 7 of 15 blog hosts)
23. Baidu: clash between protestors and police in
Yunnan province.
Error message: “Sorry, your article has failed to
publish. The articleʼs content contains
inappropriate content, please check.”
24. Netease: report about explosion in Xinjiang,
posted successfully in “private view” (can be
seen when author is logged in to system).
25. Netease: attempt to access same post from
“public view”: anybody who is not logged in to the
system as the author of that blog.
Error message: “This post is not public, you
presently cannot view it.”
26. Sina: Same report about explosion in Xinjiang,
published successfully for public view...
27. Sina: post is removed within 24 hours.
Error message at same URL: “Sorry, the blog address
you visited does not exist.”
8 OUT OF 15 BLOG SERVICES TESTED CENSORED
THIS CONTENT
28. “Letter to my son” wishing for multi-party
democracy in China: censored by nobody
29. Bao Tong essay blasting 1-party system (with
his name removed): censored by only 2 of 15
30. Xinhua: Hu Jintao pep talk to Olympic
athletes censored by Mop.com and Blogbus
31. Xinhua: Hu Jintao pep talk to Olympic
athletes censored by Mop.com and Blogbus
Mop: “Sorry, your article has been sent to the recycling
station, please revise it then publish again.”
32. Xinhua: Hu Jintao pep talk to Olympic
athletes censored by Mop.com and Blogbus
Mop: “Sorry, your article has been sent to the recycling
station, please revise it then publish again.”
33. Why so much variation?
• Instructions to companies from city or provincial State
Council Information Office Internet Section, interpreted
differently
• Different methods devised for implementation
• What province/city company is registered in
• Manager/editorʼs relationship with local State Council
• Background and priorities of individual web company
managers and editors
• Relationship between company management,
investors, and regulatory bodies
34. Conclusions
• Internet filtering (“the great firewall”) is only one part of
Chinese Internet censorship.
• Domestic censorship is not centralized.
• Domestic web censorship is outsourced by
government to the private sector.
• Censorship is inconsistent - itʼs usually possible to
post your content somewhere, for at least a while.
• The system of “managing” user-generated web
content in China follows similar logic and approach as
the system for controlling professional news media.
35. Implications for research
“inside the great firewall”
• Need larger-scale studies of domestic web
censorship (include chat rooms, social networking
sites, instant-messaging, mobile services)
• Unlike automated filtering tests, these tests require
manual testing and constant analysis by Chinese
speakers with contextual knowledge - it is tedious
work requiring attention to detail.
• Need surveys of web service company employees.
• Need surveys of users and bloggers about their
experiences.
36. Implications for activism
• Circumvention is important but itʼs not the
solution to the whole censorship problem.
• Educate bloggers and netizens about
strategies for successfully disseminating
information online about politically sensitive
subjects
• Global “user rights” movement demanding
greater transparency and accountability by
Internet companies on privacy and free
expression
37. Global questions
• Where else in the world is this kind of political
censorship by web service companies of user-
generated content happening? (Companies in the
West already censor for child porn, copyright
violations and sometimes hate speech.)
• Will the “Chinese model” - of demanding censorship
by companies - spread globally?
• What issues in this vein should the advocacy
community be preparing for?
• What further research needs to be done to better
understand global trends?