[liberationtech] Why Bluecoat?

Sat Apr 6 10:53:59 PDT 2013

Hi LibTech

Citizen Lab is undertaking research on the commercial market for censorship, surveillance, and computer network attack
capabilities -- hence the interest in Blue Coat, but among many other reports we have done either alone or collaboratively
with others on the topic.  That would include reports going back to the mid 2000s on the use commercial filtering products,
published under the auspices of the ONI, and including reports on Fortinet in Burma, Smart Filter in Iran, Websense in a variety
of MENA / Gulf countries, and more recently Netsweeper.  We have also published several reports on Gamma Group, and
one on Hacking Team.  Additionally, we are working collaboratively with Privacy International and Agentura.Ru on the commercial
surveillance market in Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Our interest is to document what's going on in the first instance, typically employing a mixed methods approach that we are refining -- and a lot 
of that can be opportunistic depending on the modalities of deployment.  A second, growing concern of ours is around the question
of what can be done about this market.  

Specifically on Blue Coat, readers of lib tech might be interested in an oped that Sarah McKune and I wrote that talks
about the issue of shareholder pressure on Blue Coat as one approach short of regulation, after we determined that the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan is a majority
owner of Blue Coat systems.  You can read that oped here:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2013/02/06/teachers_pension_plan_invests_in_internet_surveillance_firm.html

I should mention that we posted questions directly to Blue Coat in our report here:
https://citizenlab.org/2013/01/planet-blue-coat-mapping-global-censorship-and-surveillance-tools/
...and sent a letter directly to Blue Coat systems and the OTPP reiterating those questions.
To date we have not received any reply.

Our various publications on this topic can be found here:
http://citizenlab.org/publications/

Regards
Ron

On 2013-04-06, at 12:14 PM, Kate Krauss wrote:

> To me, the real question is, *If* Bluecoat, why are things going so well
> for them when they are a 45 minute drive from activists in San Francisco?
> Happy to explain--off this list--what this means in terms of political
> strategy and offline, nonviolent direct action.
> 
> This is definitely not an indictment of any group--there's amazing activism
> going on an a zillion fires to put out.
> 
> But there are great opportunities to be explored.
> 
> Kate Krauss
> (formerly of ACT UP Golden Gate, a group that successfully targeted major
> companies on the peninsula, from SF)
> 
> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Jillian C. York <jilliancyork at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> Honestly?  Because there is ample evidence to support it at the moment.  I
>> would also suggest that it's only "singled out" in the US - in Europe, the
>> focus right now is on Gamma (FinFisher) and Amesys, largely.
>> 
>> Activists have been accused in the past of "singling out" Cisco as well.
>> Attention has now turned to Bluecoat.  When there is evidence of another
>> company's misdeeds, attention will surely turn there.
>> 
>> Is that sufficient logic for you?
>> 
>> On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 11:50 AM, Bernard Tyers - ei8fdb <ei8fdb at ei8fdb.org
>>> wrote:
>> 
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA1
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> I've been thinking about this for a while, and can't find a logical
>>> reason. Possibly I'm not thinking about it hard enough.
>>> 
>>> I'm curious as to why Bluecoat seem to be singled out for all this
>>> attention regarding use in countries where the governments are "not nice"?
>>> Is it because they are a public, well known company? A lot the same stories
>>> repeat the same stories of Bluecoat equipment being used in the same
>>> oppressive regimes.
>>> 
>>> As someone who worked in ISP level infrastructure for a while (thankfully
>>> no longer), I've seen the equipment used "for neutral uses" - network
>>> management, etc.
>>> 
>>> However, there are a lot more sinister and disgusting companies who's
>>> products *sole-purpose* is surveillance and censorship, and sole market is
>>> those oppressive countries we talk about on this list.
>>> 
>>> My point of view is not to defend Bluecoat, quite the opposite, but there
>>> are nastier and uglier fish out there.
>>> 
>>> Can anyone set me right, or give an opinion? On or off list is fine.
>>> 
>>> thanks,
>>> Bernard
>>> 
>>> - --------------------------------------
>>> Bernard / bluboxthief / ei8fdb
>>> 
>>> IO91XM / www.ei8fdb.org
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> US: +1-857-891-4244 | NL: +31-657086088
>> site:  jilliancyork.com <http://jilliancyork.com/>* | *
>> twitter: @jilliancyork* *
>> 
>> "We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the
>> seemingly impossible to become a reality" - *Vaclav Havel*
>> 
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Ronald Deibert
Director, the Citizen Lab 
and the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies
Munk School of Global Affairs
University of Toronto
(416) 946-8916
PGP: http://deibert.citizenlab.org/pubkey.txt
http://deibert.citizenlab.org/
twitter.com/citizenlab
r.deibert at utoronto.ca

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