HYPOCRISY IN CS WORLD
‘Saying something and doing otherwise might be a simple way to describe ‘hypocrisy’. By extension, it also means having dual standards. We come to see examples of such behavior in abundance. Everywhere. And there seems to be no prejudice with respect to race, creed or citizenship.
US Under Microscope.
Some years back, Hillary Clinton, the then Secretary of State in Obama’s administration, criticized the firewall approach—an oblique reference to Chinese attempts to gain control over the technology that is considered as a paradigm of independence, freedom of expression and democratizing. She said, “countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century”.
The world did not have to wait long to see the US government’s own strong arm tactics. Only thirteen months after Clinton’s moralizing sermon, the WikiLeaks revealed the hidden realities. Reports were rife that the government organizations were watching and ‘snooping on private ‘twitter’ accounts.’ This was an open breach of privacy. And civil rights organizations were in court to raise their voice and anger at the government’s unilateral decision to intervene in private lives. Ever since, the cyber world has echoed with criticism about double standards in the US.
The situation went to a new low when the US domain name of WikiLeaks was denied any access. And to top it, Julian Assange’s site was also denied the facility to raise money by employing PayPal, Visa and MasterCard services. This speaks a lot about how hollow the oft repeated phrase ‘freedom of speech’ really is.
Chinese Stance.
In the initial stages, the Chinese response to the disclosures was relatively mellow and was channeled through the Foreign Ministry which used soft words to comment on latest revelations. Edward J Snowden, a former CIA employee, alleged that the US government clandestinely monitored Chinese internet sites and several installations of sensitive nature. He has also spoken about ‘Prism’, a national security agency geared toward mining internet information from around the world, especially from regions which have some conflict of interest with the US.
But the recent remarks by Chinese Ministry of National Defense, to say the least, are upfront and aggressive. The officials of the ministry accused United States of hypocrisy over cyber surveillance activities and clandestine operations that are akin to interference. The officials further asserted that the WikiLeaks affair has vindicated Chinese stance and efforts to provide security on the internet.
Low Levels of Confidence.
The Pew Research Center, based in the US, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan and non-advocacy group. They inform the public about issues, attitudes, trends and behaviors that are defining the world. Their scope of work also includes studies on the behavior of people when they are online. The aim is to generate ‘a foundation of facts that enriches public dialogue and supports sound decision making.’ The methodology is largely based on regular polling to determine facts. In one of the reports, the Pew researchers published common perceptions related to privacy and security soon after Edward Snowden made the startling revelations.
The New York Times neatly summarized the findings as, “Americans say they want privacy, but act as if they don’t.” In other words, the people of US harbor concerns about privacy on the internet and trust no one online. Yet, they keep using the facility and whenever asked, they unwittingly share their personal information.
The Pew Research findings are sobering, to say the least. They speak of an increased distrust of online and phone communications after Snowden’s revelations. Around 80% of those surveyed feel insecure while sharing private information on social media. Nearly 70% feel the same about chats, 60% about text messages, 58% about emails and 47% about cellphone voice communications. Users do not even trust landlines. Over 31% of the respondents felt uneasy about such communications.
A large number of survey respondents spoke of their suspicion when interacting with government companies or big online businesses. Yet, in spite of the distrust, more than half of those polled were ready to share their personal information for various reasons. A third of them believed that sharing information with the companies allows them to be efficient and provide quick service.
Almost 80% of the people, active on social networking sites, were wary of advertisers and third party businesses that had access to personal information shared on these sites. The survey brought to fore the grim reality that there isn’t a single communications channel which can claim to have the confidence of its users.
The survey establishes without a shade of doubt that there is a widespread lack of confidence on communications channels. A vast majority of users thinks of online sites and phone communications as insecure. It is a paradox, however, that the same majority tends to use the channels. This points to the fact that internet users are caught in a psychological problem referred to as “cognitive dissonance.” This state of mind is characterized by inconsistent thoughts and attitudes pertaining to attitude change and certain behavioral aspects..
There is a paradox here. People continue to use communication channels that they do not really trust. One answer could be the fact that there is no other alternative. And there might also be another reason. Most people are trapped into herd mentality. They would make choices that most others are making. The Greek philosophers of ancient times may have had a technical name for this fallacy: argumentum ad populum. In a nutshell, hypocrisy appears to abound when we observe people’s behavior concerning the internet and its related technology.
Hypocrisy US-style.
Think tanks and government functionaries in the US constantly build a narrative that paints the country as the guardian and savior of internet freedom. They want the country to be seen as a defender and fighter against countries like Russia, China, Iran and Syria that are battling to bring the internet under some control. US leaders often speak out about US principles in a narcissist tone like Hillary Clinton did when she was the Secretary of state in the Obama administration:
“We are convinced that an open internet fosters long-term peace, progress and prosperity. The reverse is also true. An internet that is closed and fractured, where different governments can block activity or change the rules on a whim – where speech is censored or punished, and privacy does not exist – that … is an internet that can cut off opportunities for peace and progress and discourage innovation and entrepreneurship.”
Had the United States practiced what it preached, these words could easily have been considered as divine but that is not the case. The harsh and punitive actions against the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Edward Snowden are a testimony to US’s attempts to gain control over the internet. The conclusion is immediate: when US interests are under threat, the country’s machinery will employ all means to alleviate the threat and do everything to make sure that it never happens again.
More than a decade earlier, the United States formed Cyber Command, at Fort Meade, Maryland. It is one of the key units of Department of Defense and works closely with National Security Agency sharing the same leader. According to its official website, ‘the Command has three main focus areas: Defending the DoDIN, providing support to combatant commanders for execution of their missions around the world, and strengthening our nation’s ability to withstand and respond to cyber attack.’ The About page further adds, ‘The Command unifies the direction of cyber space operations, strengthens DoD cyber space capabilities, and integrates and bolsters DoD’s cyber expertise.’
But the US government and its intelligence agencies have gone far beyond their stated goals. In just over a decade, the Cyber Command has developed capabilities to deploy cyber warfare against nations it unilaterally labels as ‘rogue states.’ To give credence to the unstated truth, we have an example. It is widely known that United States and Israel worked closely to launch a cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities through a virus called Stuxnet. These occasional cases of misconduct might be the tip of an iceberg. The full extent of subversive activities are still unknown or hidden. But the few cases that have come to light provide enough reason to believe that the US is committing actions that if countries like China or Russia are found to indulge in then they would be conveniently labeled as espionage.
Hypocrisy Euro-style.
Soon after the revelations on US government’s NSA and UK’s Government Communications Head Quarters, GCHQ, European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was formed to standardize principles and provide guidelines for personal privacy protection. Now, it is regarded as the gold standard for personal privacy protection.
Documents released by whistleblower, Edward Snowden, the GCHQ mass surveillance activities were on scale few can even imagine. They collected information from ‘every visible user on the internet.’ The Cheltenham –based agency was gathering data from all sources including search engines, social media, online radio, news and a plethora of other websites. They built profiles by observing web browsing habits and stored data related to people’s e-mails, texts and phone calls.
Last May, The Guardian, carried a lead story about a court ruling which observed that GCHQ’s interception was an outright violation of right to privacy. The European Court of Human Rights has also ruled that the mass data interception was a breach of right to freedom of expression and that the regime for collection of data was unlawful. To sum up the whole affair, The Guardian put it in this way:
“While Europol lags behind the US in terms of technological capacity, it is on the same path as the NSA.”
Bottom Line.
The conduct of powerful states, who claim to follow democratic principles and a ‘world order’ that rests on freedom of expression, is unacceptable. They have themselves indulged in subversive activities. As a result, they have lost moral ground to ask for compliance from nations who attempt to bring the internet under their control.
Apparently, hypocrisy reigns supreme when it comes to the internet technology and cyber world. If this behavior is not corrected, the wonderful technology may eventually disintegrate and the world will lose the merits of having a single free internet.