From: IN%"educom@educom.unc.edu" 9-JUL-1996 18:15:10.81 ***************************************************************** Edupage, 9 July 1996. Edupage, a summary of news items on information technology, is provided three times each week as a service by Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. *****************************************************************
ISLAM AND THE INTERNET Seven private Internet providers are now offering their services in Egypt, and in Jordan an online service offers a forum where local residents can talk to senior government officials; however, a number of government officials, religious conservatives, and intellectuals in those countries do not wish to the public to be exposed by the Internet to pornographic materials or subjected to an invasion of ideas that could threaten political stability and undermine Islamic culture. "If you have certain values you don't want them to be neglected," says the secretary-general of Egypt's Labor Party. "Our society is Islamic, and we have our own values, which may not be the same as the West." (Christian Science Monitor 9 Jul 96) The Monitor's new web site is at < http://www.csmonitor.com >.
Like China, various other countries are trying to get the Internet's benefits (such as technical information) without its other consequences (extension of civil liberties into countries that want to deny them). One idea that I've had for preventing such problems is to look for addresses from such countries that are posting to technical newsgroups, to technical mailing lists, or that are attempting to get access to web pages on technical subjects (which access they will hopefully be denied, although an alternate possibility). Then mail information to those addresses that those countries don't want getting into their countries, such as on human rights abuses (or well-written pornography...). One interesting (and somewhat cypherpunk) matter in this is making sure that the email in question can't be blocked by simple means such as who it appears to be from; faked email addresses, which wouldn't need to be unbreakable in this country - a definite advantage - would be necessary. One difficulty is that they might start searching on keywords for text. An extension of this for web sites, which I understand as possible but difficult, would be to swap anyone from such a country trying to get access to a technical web site to instead receive "subversive" information or pictures. (The pornography mentioned above would probably be more effective in picture format; other pictures might include information on human rights abuses). One attractive matter on the above is that it can be pretty easily done by individuals. TCMay, for instance, might want to set up a bot that would mail people in Sudan information on female castration/"circumcision". -Allen
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