Global hacking movement Anonymous called for protesters to take to the streets in 16 cities around India yesterday over what it considers growing government censorship of the Internet.
The call for demonstrations by the Indian arm of the group followed a March 29 court order issued in the southern city of Chennai demanding 15 Indian Internet providers block access to file-sharing Web sites such as Pirate Bay.
The order has resulted in access being denied to a host of Web sites that carry pirated films and music among other legal content, including www.isohunt.com and www.pastebin.com.
On Wednesday, the Anonymous forum fired an opening shot by attacking the Web site of state-run telecom provider MTNL, pasting the logo of the group — a mask of 17th-century revolutionary Guy Fawkes — on www.mtnl.net.in.
In an open letter the same day, the group accused the government of trying to create a “Great Indian Firewall” to establish control of the Web and issuing a “declaration of war from yourself ... to us.”
Internet users and supporters have been asked to join peaceful rallies in cities including the capital New Delhi and the tech hub of Bangalore, with detailed instructions issued online to participants.
Tech Web site www.pluggd.in reported the demonstrators have been asked to wear Guy Fawkes masks, download a recorded message to play to police, and are to chant: “United as one! Divided as zero! We are Anonymous! We are legion!”
Concerns about Internet freedom in India go beyond the court order in Chennai, however, and stem from an update to India’s Information Technology Act that was given by the IT and communications ministry in April last year.
The new rules regulating Internet companies — providers, Web sites and search engines — instruct them that they must remove “disparaging” or “blasphemous” content within 36 hours if they receive a complaint by an “affected person.”
Groups such as the Center for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based research and advocacy group, have waged a year-long campaign for amendments to the rules, which were quietly released in April.
Industry groups have also objected, saying they are unclear on the changes, which are in any case impossible to implement when it comes to acting on individual complaints about specific content.
“A lot of education is required in this field,” Internet Service Providers Association of India secretary S.P. Jairath said.
The government has also become embroiled in a row with social networks after Telecoms Minister Kapil Sibal held a series of meetings with IT giants Google, Yahoo and Facebook last year to discuss the prescreening of content.
The minister was said to have shown Internet executives examples of obscene images found online that risked offending Muslims or defamed politicians, including his boss, the head of the ruling Congress party, Sonia Gandhi.
Since these meetings, 19 Internet firms including Google, Yahoo and Facebook have been targeted in criminal and civil cases lodged in lower courts, holding them responsible for content posted by users of their platforms.
Anonymous is a secretive “hacker-activist” network and is thought to be a loosely knit collective with no clearly defined leadership structure.
It has claimed dozens of online attacks on sites ranging from the Vatican to Los Angeles Police Canine Association, but is increasingly the target of law enforcement agencies who have arrested dozens of members.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS