And Dialing Back On Kony 2012 And Virality

Doug Bernard | Washington DC

Periodically we like to share a few of the stories and posts from across the web that caught our eye.  There are no editorial threads implied connecting these items together, other than being interesting.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and wife Asma, on another shopping spree?

#1: What’s Playing On Bashar’s iPod? Over the last few weeks, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been dogged by several high-profile and embarrassing leaks of personal information and secret files. First, London’s Guardian newspaper began publishing what is says are a large cache of personal emails sent to and from the Syrian autocrat. Then this week, Al Jazeera obtained a separate set of what it says are top-secret documents prepared for Assad and allegedly spirited out of the country by Abdel Majid Barakat, who was until recently said to be a trusted aide.

The secret files, dubbed “The Damascus Documents” by Al Jazeera, contain alleged intelligence briefs and plans to maintain control of the Syrian capital and suppress protests in Homs and Aleppo, with violence if necessary. The emails deal with far less weighty matters, but are at least as embarrassing; if not for the entire regime than for President Assad himself. As VOA’s Cecily Hilleary notes over at “Middle East Voices,” among those emails are one containing a photo of a mostly-nude woman (unidentified,) details of his wife Asma’s latest shopping excursions – $6,000 for crystal-encrusted Christian Louboutin shoes in Paris par exemple, purchased while Syria’s military shelled civilians in Homs – or Bashar’s taste in downloaded music. Among his recent purchases: Blake Shelton’s “God Gave Me You,” New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” (an oldie but a goodie) and “Don’t Talk Just Kiss” by forgotten one-hit wonder Right Said Fred.

We leave it to you to read in whatever these downloads may say about the man trying to hold onto power in Damascus.

#2: Kony Video and Viral Rumors. Also over just the last few weeks, an old nemesis, and a new video, have burst onto the international stage. The man is Joseph Kony, the brutal Ugandan leader of the rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army. The video is “Kony 2012“, created by human rights campaigner Jason Russell with the goal of finding Kony and bringing him to justice at the International Criminal Court.

Produced by the non-profit group “International Children”, Kony 2012 quickly went viral – as did, it seems, some of the press accounts. News reports suddenly started calling it “the most viral video ever” and social media consultants breathlessly extolled it as a model for any future marketing campaign. Yet as with many things at first blush, things weren’t quite always as they seem.

Film maker Jason Russell in better days

With 84 million views on YouTube, there’s no denying Kony 2012 is very popular. But even now it has a long way to go to match truly viral videos such as  “Charlie Bit My Finger” which clocks in with 433, 284, 296 views (and still counting.) And while Kony2012 did, in fact, spread quickly once released on YouTube, weeks earlier International Children had released the video online on other sites like Vimeo, priming the viral pump and extending the time line for its distribution.

Finally we were reminded, yet again, that “going viral” is a sword that cuts many ways. Just a week after grabbing headlines for his film, Jason Russell himself went viral after several people filmed him  in a naked, obscenity-laced rant on a southern California street corner. Not only did those videos go viral, so too did rumors in Africa of just what lead to the film maker’s breakdown: African blogs and message boards quickly filled with the rumor that Joseph Kony “put a hex” on Russell as retaliation. for the record, his family says Russell is suffering from “brief reactive psychosis,” a short-term psychotic break spurred by excessive stress.

#3: Iran’s “Electronic Curtain.” Last week, President Obama released a video online in an effort to reach out to Iranian citizens directly. Billed as a Nowruz message, Mr. Obama said his administration wanted to engage with the Iranian public, but that an “electronic curtain” had fallen around that nation, isolating it from the rest of the world. His hope, he said, was to help lift that curtain.

This is familiar territory for VOA. Iran has long tried to keep us behind that curtain, jamming our radio and TV broadcasts, interfering with satellite transmissions (in violation of international covenants) and doing their best to block our websites from curious eyes. And for just as long, we’ve been working on finding new ways to talk with Iranian nationals. To help, the White House recently relaxed export limits on a variety of online communication tools to Iran, such as Skype, GoogleTalk, Flash and others.

It’s a good start. Wrote VOA Director David Ensor about President Obama’s outreach: “During this season of Nowruz, we call on the Iranian government to end these dishonorable practices, and to draw back its “electronic curtain,” restoring the freedom of information to the Iranian people.”

Bonus #4: Enemies of the Internet, 2011. Each year the non-profit free-speech organization Reporters Without Borders releases a comprehensive survey of online freedoms and restrictions of expression in a report dubbed “Enemies of the Internet.” Recently they released their overview report for the year 2011, and the results, much like they are each year, present a mixed bag.

We could give you the thumbnails, but VOA’s Suzanne Presto does a much better  job in her feature report, so here’s our encouragement to check it out.

Old Questions About Truthfulness in the Internet Era

Her name was Amina Abdallah Arraf al-Omani, Amina for short, and for several days she was headline news.   As author of the blog “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” Araf wrote about the conflicts of living as a U.S.-born lesbian in Syria.  But now she was part of a different conflict – one possibly fatal.

Arraf’s frank discussions of sexuality and politics in Syria made her a popular read – and a target.  After all, she was living in a nation where homosexuality is illegal and criticisms of the government are not welcome.

And then last Monday, a scare.  In a post titled simply “Amina,” Raina Ismail – Arraf’s cousin – wrote:

“Amina was seized by three men in their early 20’s.  According to the witness (who does not want her identity known), the men were armed…One of the men then put his hand over Amina’s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad.  The witness did not get the tag number.  She promptly went and found Amina’s father. The men are assumed to be members of one of the security services or the Baath Party militia.  Amina’s present location is unknown and it is unclear if she is in a jail or being held elsewhere in Damascus.”

Another short update followed, detailing Raina’s frantic efforts to make contact with her cousin, to no avail.  Human rights activists, bloggers and journalists picked up the search for Arraf; very soon a Facebook group formed advocating for her release.  Her online girlfriend in Montreal, Sandra Bagaria, was desparate for news.  But to all the world it just seemed as though Amina Arraf disappeared.

The truth was worse: Amina Arraf never existed.  She was made up.  She was a lie. Read the rest of this entry »

Why Nations Block The Web, And What May Follow

UPDATE: 1500 hours UTC Friday: Earlier we posted about the near flat-lining of Internet traffic within Syria, wondering whether Damascus was adopting a tactic tried earlier this year by Egypt.  As detailed earlier this year, Egyptian authorities squeezed the Border Gateway Protocols – the road maps of the Internet into Egypt, if you will – essentially erasing Egypt from the web.  (One Egyptian ISP, Noor, was not affected, mostly like as the government’s last life-life to the Internet.)  It was a neat disappearing trick that, for several days, made nearly every Egyptian web address invisible to the rest of the world.

One of the key early indicators was the complete elimination of any data traffic coming out of Egypt. While data traffic has slowed to a near trickle in Syria, there still is some small amount of traffic, suggesting the BGPs are still in place.  More forensic data analysis will be forth-coming, but it’s possible at this point that Syria isn’t copying Egypt, but rather Libya.

Recall that in early March, as detailed by the Internet analysis firm Renesis, Internet traffic into and out of Libya came to a near halt.  This was likely in response to a “Day of Rage” protest that organizers had been planning there, similar to what was planned in Syria for Friday.  But as James Cowie makes clear, a near-halt isn’t a complete halt, and had Syria erased it’s BGP pathways, like Egypt, all web traffic would have been impossible.  Although it’s still early, there are signs now that the Syrian Internet, while crippled, is still alive. Read the rest of this entry »

Using a “Man-in-the-Middle” to Target Activists

Given the civil unrest roiling the Middle East, Syria’s recent decision to unblock Facebook seemed…well, puzzling.  After all that’s been made of the social network’s role in helping organize the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings, why would Damascus choose this moment to open it up?

Perhaps now we have the answer.

Illustration: German Ariel Berra

Peter Eckersley with the Electronic Frontier Foundation reports it appears Syrian authorities have launched a cyber-attack against Facebook aimed at intercepting messages and targeting activists inside Syria.  Calling it “very much an amateur attempt,” Eckersley says forensic data analysis makes clear that an unknown culprit – but one with Syrian fingerprints – has compromised Facebook’s security by using one of the oldest tricks in the spy-book: a “man-in-the-middle”, or MITM, attack.

In essence, an MITM hack is an electronic form of code-breaking between two people online who have been tricked into believing they’re communicating over a secure connection – such as https – but are actually passing messages through a third hidden party, where they can be recorded, blocked or altered.   That may seem like a mouthful, but it’s actually a lot less complicated than it sounds.  Let’s unpack it a bit. Read the rest of this entry »