Network Security in Africa = Cyber Redlining?

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Cyber security gained attention again last week as both the United States and the European Union put forth strategies for combating the growing threat of cyber attacks.  The European Commission released its new plan, An Open, Safe and Secure Cyberspace, which seeks to “ensure a secure and trustworthy digital environment throughout the EU” with three main strategies:

• Each member state must set up a computer emergency response team (Cert).

• Each member state must nominate a competent authority to deal with network and information security, to which companies would report breaches. These authorities need to have plans for dealing with major incidents.

• Specific sectors – such as banking, transport, energy, health, internet companies and public administrations – must adopt risk management practices and report major incidents.

During his State of the Union address, President Obama announced his new executive order on cyber security.  While many have already panned the order for either being anti-business or being weaker than what his administration had proposed two years ago, Obama stressed the importance of moving forward on securing the nation’s networks.

“Now, we know hackers steal people’s identities and infiltrate private emails,” Obama said.  ”We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets.  Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, our air traffic control systems.  We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy”

Just in the last two weeks alone, Facebook, The New York Times and the U.S. Federal Reserve have become the latest victims of hacking. While some of the efforts to address cyber attacks should be applauded, have strict cyber security strategies become another contributor to the digital divide?

I happened to attend a great talk last week where Jenna Burrell, UC Berkeley professor and author of Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafes of Urban Ghana, argues that the fear of online fraud and hacking in Western countries are possibly creating Internet access barriers in developing countries.  Burrell, an ethnographer by training, spent six years researching Internet cafe culture among young, middle-income Ghanaians.

She said that many websites that Westerners commonly use like Amazon, PayPal and Match.com have their IP addresses completely blocked in many African countries.  Burrell said she attempted to log into Amazon and PayPal accounts while in Ghana and her accounts were either suspended or detoured to another page to confirm that she really was who she said she was.  According to Burrell, the dating website Plenty of Fish blocks “all major traffic from Africa (yes, the whole continent of Africa!), Romania, Turkey, India and Russia.”

I have traveled to many countries throughout the developing world, and I have seen some of the issues Burrell has witnessed myself.  I remember traveling through South Africa and Botswana a few years ago, and noticing that when I looked up certain e-commerce websites, I was also detoured to another webpage.  The detoured page usually said that I was not allowed to look at that website.  At first I thought there was a random problem with my Internet connection, until a Tanzanian business partner I was traveling with told me that it was common for the IP addresses of major online companies to be blocked because of this fraud fear.  Interesting to note I have seen less blockage in countries where there is a high rate of Western tourists, like Thailand and Jamaica.

Mind you, online fraud and hacking is a big problem, and cyber criminals can be found in every corner around the world.  We have all received those annoying Nigerian emails seeking financial help for a family member who wants to go to school in America. But it seems a bit harsh and unfair to punish a whole continent, let alone a whole country, for the criminal actions of a few people.  Web address blocking also slows down the ability for many in the developing world to participate in the global economy, where so much about our way of life in general are more dependent on Internet access.  The New York Times was hacked by Chinese infiltrators, but there isn’t a movement to block IP addresses of Western companies in China?  In fact, since China is considered an “emerging market,” many major businesses have an online presence in the country, including Amazon and PayPal.

Redlining is the practice of denying access to services and products to a particular group of people.  In the United States, redlining is mostly associated with housing and credit discrimination against low-income African-Americans.  The severe IP blockage in Africa and other developing countries makes one wonder if this same level of discrimination is occurring.  Reginold A. Roylston, a UC Berkerley Ph.D candidate, first suggested to Burrell that cyber redlining might be happening here.

However, when is country-level IP address blocking justified?  There seems to be a fine line here between online censorship and free enterprise.  Legally, one can’t tell a private firm where they can and can not do business.  Companies such as Amazon likely do thorough market analysis of countries before they enter into a business relationship with them.  One analysis may look at “risks” and maybe Amazon feels that Ghana is too technologically risky not only because of the higher risk of online fraud, but it is also not commercially viable since Ghana is mostly a cash-based economy.

Over the last five years, many African governments have started to require new mobile phone users to register their SIM cards in the hope of reducing cyber attacks.  Nonetheless, more education is needed on this subject, especially in Western countries where Internet access can be taken for granted.  I want to do my part by bringing this issue up to the attention of my readers.   If you know of any IP address blocking going on anywhere in the world, you can report it to Herdict, a portal that “collects and disseminates real-­time, crowdsourced information about Internet filtering, denial of service attacks, and other blockages.”

Broadband Access and Human Rights

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Between attending the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Summit and hosting my own broadband webinar last week, I have a lot of ideas on the subject.  Broadband access is now viewed by many as the new digital divide.  In the United States, 19 million people don’t have high-speed Internet access, and 14 million of those without access live in rural areas.  While there have been many efforts by grassroots activists, tech firms and policy makers to close the digital gap, many are advocating that broadband is a human rights issue and that universal access is the only solution to the problem.

During a recent conversation on the subject, Susan Crawford, former Obama adviser and author of Captive Audience, said that one of the main barriers to access is the high price for broadband being charged by a monopoly of telecommunications firms. “A hundred years ago, many people thought that electricity was a luxury,” she said.  ”It took a decade to make sure everyone had electricity.  At the time there were special interest groups that wanted to make sure only rich people had it.  We succeeded as a nation because we realized that it was better for everyone’s quality of life to have electricity.” Universal broadband access improves everyone’s quality of life by leveling the playing field for marginalized communities.  Many things we do in our lives are now required to be done online, like applying for jobs and other resources or accessing health records.  Furthermore, the Internet is no longer dial-up friendly.  The vast majority of websites today are designed to be viewed using high-speed Internet. But what about mobile phones?  Yes, mobile technology has greatly helped to reduce the digital divide.  

As a matter of fact, it is expected that more people will access the Internet on their mobiles than on a PC by this year.  But there are limitations to using mobiles as well, such as slower connections based on what phone and/or carrier used and smaller screens.  It is also harder to type long-form documents like resumes and term papers on a mobile. But what about public libraries?  Yes, public libraries have led the path to more Internet access in marginalized communities.

However, most libraries have time limits on computer use, and because many times they are not well maintained, the computers may have viruses and break easily and often.  Also, some librarians are not digitally literate and are not the most useful in helping those seeking computer help, although this is changing in many communities. During the Broadband Summit, Rep. Doris Matsui said she was planning on reintroducing the Broadband Affordability Act in Congress in the next few weeks.  The original bill required “the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish a broadband lifeline program enabling qualifying low-income customers residing in urban and rural areas to purchase broadband service at reduced charges by reimbursing providers for each such customer served.”  The Act would also mandate that it “be similar in structure to the Lifeline program for basic telephone service, prevent awarding duplicate subsidies for an individual eligible household, and promote competition from broadband service providers by using neutral technology.”

But this is not just an issue of price.  There is also a good number of people who don’t have access because they are digitally illiterate, don’t understand why having broadband access is relevant in their lives and/or have a distrust for sensitive Internet activities, like online banking.  During both the summit and our webinar, I got many new ideas on how to convince more people to support better broadband access.  Some of these ideas are already being implemented by many government agencies and organizations, including Global Wire Associates.

  • making it easier to use electronics, i.e. instruction on how to use newly purchased gadgets
  • culturally sensitive trainings, i.e. instruction in different languages
  • community-specific trainings, i.e. senior citizens, veterans, entrepreneurs and ex-offenders – “meeting people where they are”
  • making technology more technically accessible, i.e. instructing visually and hearing impaired individuals with larger keyboards and IP Relay
  • offering free or discounted tablets to low-income students and residents, such as having a comparable tech program to the school lunch program
  • encourage multi-generational Internet trainings
  • using high schools and community colleges after hours for computer training
  • turning public libraries into fully functioning community media centers

Zadie Smith: Life After

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British author Zadie Smith became an instant literary success upon the publication of her first book White Teeth in 2000.  The novel is a semi-autobiographical tale about living in London’s new multicultural landscape.  Many of her subsequent books including her latest work NW examine the intersection of race, class and identity.  In the 13 years since White Teeth’s publication, racial politics and the publishing world have evolved tremendously.  Recently, she came to Boston to discuss life in Obama’s America and why writing online is the new normal.

Smith has been a tenured creative writing professor at New York University for the last three years.  It was announced last year that her third book On Beauty will be adapted into a film and the BBC film adaptation of White Teeth has finally been put out on DVD and online streaming formats.  The Internet and media have made seismic shifts in the way the written word is shared with readers.

Like many of her contemporaries, Smith contemplates why she should continue to write in the digital age.  Writers not only have to contend with book reviewers at major newspapers and magazines, but also with social media critics, as well as have to fight copyright infringement to protect their work online.  She says today there is no difference between fake and real writers, as anyone now can be considered a published writer with the click of a mouse.

“Some might say it is harder to write now than it was years ago,” Smith said.  “How will writers be paid online? I have no idea.”

Maybe a culture tax she suggested.

However, she also says that the Web can be a great place for writers too.  She spends a lot of time reading blogs, and not just literary blogs, but a lot of the “trashy blogs” the rest of us read.  Writing online has also created a new intimacy with her readers that has helped inform her writing.  But she is still a fan of the printed, written word.  Smith says she owns over 10,000 books by authors ranging from Vladimir Nabokov to Zora Neale Hurston to Jean-Paul Sartre.  While many of the books are used as teaching aides, she also enjoys casual reading.

Smith never expected to become a writer, but has been an avid reader since she was a child.  She seriously considered becoming an actress at one point, but writing eventually became her true calling while attending Cambridge.  The only real writing training she had came from reading other books and having her work critiqued by her classmates.  Smith only wrote three and a half essays while in university, but those essays became the impetus for White Teeth.

While a great deal of that book came out of many hours of research at libraries, White Teeth is based on many aspects of her own life.  Born in North London to a black Jamaican mother and white British father, identity politics is part of her everyday life.

Smith said before a crowd Wednesday night at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts that she has many identities including being a liberal, feminist, black woman and British.

She also identifies with President Barack Obama’s multicultural background and his gift of mimicry.  Smith wrote this about Obama in 2008:

“Obama can do young Jewish male, black old lady from the South Side, white woman from Kansas, Kenyan elders, white Harvard nerds, black Columbia nerds, activist women, churchmen, security guards, bank tellers, and even a British man called Mr. Wilkerson, who on a starry night on safari says credibly British things like: ‘I believe that’s the Milky Way.’ This new president doesn’t just speak for his people. He can speak them.”

Smith says that she didn’t watch Obama’s second inauguration, as she doesn’t own a television and she is not into the “pomp and circumstance” of such occasions.  But she was pleased Obama mentioned climate change in his inaugural speech, since she lives at the tip of Manhattan – ground zero for Hurricane Sandy.

As for her other identity as a writer, she will continue to do that, even as the Internet reinvents content distribution.

“Why I write? Because I am a writer,” she said.

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