[governance] Assistance to an authoritarian regime to monitor Internet trafic

Sat Jun 30 15:40:54 EDT 2012

When France Telecom Helps To Monitor Citizens Of An Authoritarian Regime 

inShare6 

The regime of Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia has undertaken to control 
the online activity of citizens. It is now fitted with the general 
surveillance technology called Deep Packet Inspection, thanks to the 
help of France Telecom, of which the French state is the main 
shareholder. In a country where dissidents are imprisonned over 
accusations of terrorism, this news could undermine current efforts of 
freedom of expression activists. 

"Internet Cafe in Addis Ababa" by Yigal Chamish - Flickr / Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) 

The online anonymity project Tor reported on its Blog  on May 31 that the Ethiopian Government, via the Ethiopian 
Telecommunication Corporation, has begun using the Deep Packet 
Inspection technology, which allows the general surveillance of the 
internet trafic in a country. Such monitoring has prevented Tor from 
working in the country, although the website is still accessible. 

This information sparked concern among freedom of expression 
activists, cyber-dissidents, journalists,  who use the Internet to 
disseminate reports on Human rights abuses in the regime of Meles 
Zenawi, where dissent activities can lead to jail, under accusation of terrorism.  

The shadow of a Western company? 

According to French daily newspaper La Croix  (fr), France Telecom has helped the Government implement the Deep Packet Inspection technology. Indeed, the French company created in 2010 Ethio Telecom, the monopolistic telecommunication company of the Eastern African 
country. The system is likely to monitor 2,5 million mobile internet 
user and 200,000 internet subscribers. Jean-Michel Latute, CEO of the 
Ethiopian telecommunication company explained to la Croix's Journalist: 

« We will use part of this service to control our bandwidth. 
It will help us prevent abuse of clients, downloading full movies, for 
example. This is a very useful tool. » 

A justification that fails to convince Ethiopian journalist and blogger Endalkachew HaileMichael, joined by Internet Sans Frontières: 

« This is one of those ridiculous reasons that can be given by an outdated and France Telecom backed Ethiopian Telecom company. The 
internet connection has been a colossal source of frustration for many 
internet users in Ethiopia. The majority of internet users rely on 
cybercafés to access the web through slow and unreliable connections. 
Many independent studies have confirmed that accessing an online e-mail 
account and opening one message took six minutes in a typical Addis 
Ababa cybercafé with a broadband connection. Hence to give such a reason to apply DPI in such Ethiopian circumstance is a travesty. Besides the 
restrictions on accessing political and nonaligned websites, accessing 
individual’s blogs activists’ websites has been incredibly strict. To my disappointment, I sometimes cannot even access my own websites. For 
instance Abe Tokichaw an exiled Amharic satirist was forced to open new 
blogs for more than 15 times by changing domain names of his blogs. He 
looks like playing hide and seek with Ethio-Telecom. Finding ways to 
circumvent this unfortunate circumstance has been difficult, though 
still possible to say the least, and I think the main reason why 
Ethio-Telecom forced to apply DPI is to muffle even more every possible 
openings. » 

Although arrestations haven' been made yet following the 
implementation of the DPI, he believes it is just a question of time: 

« One thing is sure laws are being readied to make arrests. 
Recently they have ratified a law which the legislators argued that it 
will help in fighting threats which would use internet telephony to 
disrupt national security. I would definitely guess that such kind of 
cases will be reported sooner rather than later. » 

Deep Packet Inspection was used under Gaddafi's Lybia, to monitor activists who were organising the uprising. A judicial probe  was recently opened in France against Amesys, the French company 
which provided the tool to the then Lybian dictator, over complicity in 
torture. 

Lundi 11 Juin 2012
Julie Owono 
Head of Africa Desk @ Internet Sans Frontières En savoir plus sur cet auteur  

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