In The News

Iraq Video Brings Notice to a Web Site

Noam Cohen, Brian Stelter April 8, 2010
The recent release of a video showing the killing of two Reuters' employees in Iraq by the web site Wikileaks shows how power is shifting to new sources in the age of global interconnectedness. Reuters had tried for several years to obtain the video from the Pentagon through Freedom of Information request without success. Wikileaks, which is a voluntary organization with a political agenda...

China: Defending its Core Interest in the World – Part II

Guobin Yang April 7, 2010
Media reports on Google’s redirecting internet searches by Chinese authorities to its uncensored site in Hong Kong have largely presented it as a conflict between two global titans. But the narrow focus of such reporting overlooks that Google’s pull-out was limited, leaving many services in place, and that Chinese authorities have not acted to shut down the company’s Hong Kong detour, notes...

Google Has Censorship Balancing Act Outside China

Michael Liedtke April 6, 2010
Google has expanded rapidly in recent years to take advantage of profits available in other countries around the world. As it does so, it is encountering resistance from governments that ask it to restrict access to certain content. China, from which Google recently withdrew its main search operation, is but the most notable example. Germany asks Google to restrict access to Nazi propaganda, for...

Freedom Is Not Found Online

Aditya Chakrabortty April 1, 2010
The growth of the internet has long been perceived as a key to globalizing the notion of a free society as championed by the West. But world leaders like Bill Clinton and dot-com boomers alike now sound naïve to have thought the web's spread could seamlessly produce a "borderless" world of free expression. These "cyber-utopians" failed to realize that the Internet, like...

Iran’s Opposition Seeks More Help in Cyberwar With Government

Nazila Fathi March 23, 2010
The ongoing battle in Iran following last year's disputed election is increasingly moving online and that means more countries are involved, whether they want to be or not. Iranian opposition activists are applauding a recent decision by the US to lift sanctions on various online services, which will allow them to combat the government's suppression of Internet activity. The Iranian...

Google’s Lesson: Innovation Has to Be Accompanied by Reliability

Rob Knake and Adam Segal February 22, 2010
The most important lesson of the Google vs. China may not be about Internet censorship, but rather the importance of security and the reliability of products. As Council of Foreign Relations fellows Rob Knake and Adam Segal write, two tensions highlight the main obstacles in maintaining security and reliability amid the globalized model of innovation spanning geography and time. Shifting research...

Broad New Hacking Attack Detected

Siobhan Gorman February 22, 2010
A spate of cyber attacks over the last year and a half has affected around 75,000 computers belonging to 2,500 companies in 196 countries. NetWitness, the firm that discovered the security breaches, revealed that the attacks were directed at both companies – such as Cardinal Health and Merck – and government agencies to steal contact databases, passwords, credit-card data and other sensitive...