[Full-disclosure] infosec and human rights

[Mark Carey-Smith <m.careysmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I've just started a PhD looking at how information security effects human 
rights. My interest was sparked by the issue of the Chinese journalist Shi Tao, 
who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "providing state secrets to foreign 
entities". His crime was to send an email message detailing a censorship order 
by the Chinese authorities from a supposedly anonymous Yahoo! Hong Kong 
account. There are many other similar cases.

Human rights such as freedom of expression, freedom of opinion and privacy are 
obviously degraded by Internet censorship and surveillance such as China's 
regime. There are plenty of other nation states engaging in similar censorship 
regimes, though not as well organised or funded.

Human rights can also be aided by hacktivism and infosec mechanisms such as the 
use of anonymizing proxies like Tor & The Circumventor (some of which are being 
specifically used to help citizens inside China etc.), the training of human 
rights activists in infosec skills (e.g Privaterra) and crypto software 
developed specifically for human rights activists/workers (e.g CryptoRights & 
Martus).

I think DRM could be used in the future as a very effective mechanism to stop 
censorship circumvention techniques such as client-side anonymizing proxies or 
to force the use of client-side content filtering mechanisms.

My reason for posting to the list is to ask if anyone has any brilliant ideas 
they'd like to share with me on this topic?

Thanks,

Mark. 

Mark Carey-Smith
PhD Candidate
Faculty of Information Technology
Queensland University of Technology

--------------------------------------
The ideals which have lighted my way, 
and time after time given me new courage
to face life cheerfully, have been 
kindness, beauty, and truth. The trite 
subjects of life - possessions, outward 
success, luxury - have always seemed 
contemptible. 

Albert Einstein
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