For about two weeks now, a warning flashes consistently when I open my Gmail account. It warns me that – for no reason apparent to me at least – “state-sponsored” attackers could be targeting my computer or my email account and that I should take steps to protect them.
My first thought was to email Edward Snowden and get his opinion on this serious issue. Then I realised, he was hiding somewhere in Hong Kong and that I was among the select-few reporters to have no clue about his whereabouts.
Anyway, it is certain that the alleged hackers of my precious Dell computer cannot not be from the country of my residence. After all, the rulers of this country are the ones who have given refuge to Snowden and allowed its citizens to hail him as a hero, and in no less a space than on the internet. Hong Kong citizens have even been allowed to march around in his defence, carrying placards in his support.
Sombre state media outlets have opened their tightly-controlled hearts for Snowden.
In a particularly moving piece displayed prominently in a government portal, Snowden was hailed as a “bright idealistic young man” who “almost single-handedly opened the lid on the US National Security Agency’s PRISM programme, a programme which marks the bleakest moment yet in the history of the Internet due to its scope, exact country of origin and implications”.
An online survey said Snowden was a “freedom fighter” protecting civil liberties.
“While human rights activists from developing countries (defined by Western apparatus for sure) are often blessed with a choice of hiding places, we are now seeing the dilemma of Western dissidents. For this reason China, despite the fact that it does not have a good reputation as far as internet governance is concerned, should move boldly and grant Snowden asylum,” the opinion piece said.
The opinion piece did not waste a chance to criticise the US on an issue the Communist Party of China (CPC) ruled China is often condemned – wide-ranging censorship and cyber surveillance.
“First of all, Snowden’s case offers us a rare chance to re-examine the integrity of American politicians and the management of American-dominant internet companies, and it appears that while many of these individuals verbally attack other nations and people in the name of freedom and democracy, they ignore America’s worsening internal situation,” the opinion piece said.
Snowden’s decision to flee to Hong Kong has proved quite convenient for China in returning to the US some of the criticism that Washington often levels against Beijing about hacking. And the media here lost no time or space in making the most of it.
After reading pieces on Snowden that tugged at my heart, I went online – with the warning till flashing on my Gmail – to find out the meanings of two words – censorship and surveillance.
The meanings aside, I realised that censorship cannot happen without surveillance. Especially of a medium like the internet. I mean, can the Chinese government so tightly censor the information on the internet without keeping a 24/7, multi-level watch on what its citizens writing and sharing on the net? The simple answer is, no.
Last year, a study by Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science said social media is censored in China in at least three ways: “The Great Firewall of China,” which disallows certain entire web sites from operating in the country, second is “keyword blocking” which stops a user from posting text that contain banned words or phrases and the third is manual censoring.
The question, of course, is how much access the government here has to the personal data of individuals. But the kind of cyber apparatus the government here is known to have, it will probably only be a matter of time if they want to access any data.