{"id":13392,"date":"2011-12-22T16:52:53","date_gmt":"2011-12-22T12:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=13392"},"modified":"2011-12-22T16:57:11","modified_gmt":"2011-12-22T12:57:11","slug":"syrias-e-revolution-a-constant-game-of-cat-and-mouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/technology-in-the-middle-east\/syrias-e-revolution-a-constant-game-of-cat-and-mouse\/","title":{"rendered":"ISyria’s ‘e-Revolution’: It’s A Constant Game of ‘Cat and Mouse’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Syrian uprising, more than any of this year\u2019s Arab revolutions, is being fought\u00a0online as well as on the ground. Supporters of both the revolution and the regime are\u00a0using increasingly vicious methods to embarrass and threaten their opponents online.<\/p>\n

The Syrian government\u2019s relationship with the internet has been an odd one. Until\u00a0President Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000, his only public role had been as\u00a0head of the Syrian Computer Society. Upon assuming office, he promised to open up\u00a0the country to the world. This was the Damascus Spring: satellite dishes proliferated,\u00a0and internet cafes opened in the major cities.<\/p>\n

Not long afterwards, the rollback began. Political dissidents started getting arrested,\u00a0and in the online world, restrictions came from nowhere. Hotmail was banned (which\u00a0was difficult to monitor at the time due to its encryption), and then access to Yahoo!\u00a0Mail was blocked. Hotmail was opened up again. In 2008 Facebook was blocked. Then\u00a0YouTube. This revolving door of restrictions continued for years, with most internet\u00a0users accessing these sites via proxies when banned by the state.<\/p>\n

Something strange happened last February. With the Arab Spring in full swing, and\u00a0rumblings of trouble in Damascus, Facebook and YouTube were suddenly unblocked.\u00a0It seemed like a sign that the regime was opening up, but in fact, it just made it easier\u00a0for the authorities to monitor what activists and civilians were up to.<\/p>\n

Although Syria has an extremely low internet penetration rate (fewer than one-in-five\u00a0Syrians is online),1 it has one of the world\u2019s largest exiled populations. Syrians\u00a0scattered across the world are helping their fellow citizens back home tell their story\u00a0to the world. These internet users have taken on the role normally filled by traditional\u00a0journalists.<\/p>\n

The Syrian regime has always been wary of the mainstream media, controlling their\u00a0every move within the country. When protests began in March, the restrictions became more pervasive. When Al Jazeera was accused of bias, its Syrian-born\u00a0journalists were reportedly harassed and threatened until they quit their jobs with the\u00a0broadcaster.<\/p>\n

Other journalists have been arrested and kicked out of the country.\u00a0Despite promises to open up to foreign reporters, the international media have had to\u00a0rely on an increasingly sophisticated activist-run network, feeding stories from Syria.\u00a0What started out as protestors filming demonstrations on their mobile phones and\u00a0uploading to YouTube has grown into something altogether more professional. After\u00a0the government began slowing down internet connections on Fridays (the weekly day\u00a0of protest), Syrian activists based abroad have resorted to smuggling satellite phones\u00a0into the country.The authorities reacted by threatening anyone caught in possession\u00a0of one of these devices to eleven years in jail.<\/p>\n

While the opposition has used new technology to fill the information gap, the\u00a0authorities used old methods \u2013 threats and internet shutdowns \u2013 to block them.\u00a0YouTube clips were still appearing on Al Jazeera and others, however, and the\u00a0authorities realised they were losing the online battle. The technophobic regime\u00a0realised it had to fight fire with fire.<\/p>\n

The authorities, and their supporters, began to flood Twitter with irrelevant,\u00a0automated messages, all tagged with #Syria.\u00a0 Anyone searching for news about Syria\u00a0would end up being presented with links to old football scores and photographs from\u00a0the country. Twitter reportedly responded by filtering out the Syrian spambots.<\/p>\n

Since then, government supporters have become more organised, forming the Syrian\u00a0Electronic Army. In a speech in June, they even received presidential backing. The\u00a0Army has targeted foreign politicians and celebrities who have criticised the Syrian\u00a0regime, hacking into their websites and putting up brazen messages of support for\u00a0Bashar al-Assad. Most recently, they targeted the site of US-based Syrian singer\u00a0Malek Jandali. In April, Jandali composed a song called Watani Ana <\/em>(I am my homeland)\u00a0and has been an outspoken supporter of human rights. His family was reportedly\u00a0attacked in retaliation,1 and more recently, his website was hacked. On it the SEA put\u00a0up a message accusing him of being ungrateful for the support the Syrian authorities\u00a0have given him.<\/p>\n

The activists hit back by hacking government websites. In the most high-profile attack,\u00a0the Ministry of Defence site was taken down, replaced by a message of support to the\u00a0Syrian people, and a warning that soldiers could face charges of treason. That attack\u00a0was claimed by the international hacking group, Anonymous.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnline, I would say the opposition is winning in that they\u2019ve received massive support\u00a0from the hacker community,\u201d says Jillian York, Director for International Freedom of\u00a0Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.\u00a0But do these electronic catfights actually achieve anything? \u201cAt this point, I\u2019d say no,\u201d\u00a0she says. \u201cA couple of months ago when Syria wasn\u2019t in the news constantly, I think it\u00a0helped in the sense that it kept the world \u2013 especially other activists whose attention\u00a0was on Egypt or Bahrain \u2013 tied to Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as their revenge attacks, activists also successfully pushed for alleged\u00a0members of the SEA to be sanctioned.\u00a0 And they encouraged the EU and US to\u00a0impose embargoes on the Syrian regime to limit its ability to buy spying technologies.\u00a0A number of Western companies have been accused of supplying equipment and\u00a0software to help authorities track the online work of activists.<\/p>\n

Citizen reporters have been forced into using anonymising tools, some of which can be\u00a0highly effective, but none is 100 per cent safe. It is a cat and mouse battle between the\u00a0latest spy technology bought by the regime, and the latest encryption software\u00a0downloaded by the activists.<\/p>\n

Perversely, the technology sanctions, which are meant to help the opposition work\u00a0more freely online, may be doing more harm than good. \u201cSanctions on technology\u00a0really do hurt activists,\u201d says York. \u201cRegimes can easily circumvent the rules, as we\u2019ve\u00a0seen, but activists have a hard time getting hold of certain tools, while other tasks,\u00a0like buying Skype credits, are virtually impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

What started out as a battle between revolutionary hackers and the Syrian Electronic\u00a0Army is now beginning to spread. Twitter users are reporting receiving hate mail and\u00a0threats because they are perceived to support the wrong side.\u00a0In one particularly nasty incident, Al Jazeera English journalist Dima Khatib, a\u00a0reporter who has been banned from entering Syria, was harassed online and accused\u00a0of being a regime lackey. The reason? She refused to back the #Nato4Syria Twitter\u00a0campaign that called for foreign military intervention in the country.<\/p>\n

In this electronic war, supporters of both sides have stopped listening to each other,\u00a0turning to accusations and online hate-campaigns. It is this polarisation that will make\u00a0post-conflict reconciliation challenging.<\/p>\n

Neither the activists, nor the government, is going to deal a decisive blow via the\u00a0internet. But they will make it harder for the other side to get their story out of what is\u00a0becoming one of the world\u2019s most isolated countries.<\/p>\n

This article first appeared in ‘Near East Quarterly’<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEWS FROM SYRIA: At first the authorities in Syria were caught unawares at how ‘new technology’ was used against them. But they caught on quickly. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":13402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,483,482,63,317,9],"tags":[982,18303,513,703,125,18300,10377,1104,39,4766,3534,10371,1879,2506,1625,1808,10364,7749,1559,143,4479,18330,10378,5693,166,18302,895,365],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13392"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}