Stephanie Parker

Center on Liberation Technology Summer Research

Advisors: Vivek Srinivasan & Professor Larry Diamond

August 24, 2011

Anonymity in the Middle East: DRAFT

We are currently witnessing a high level of violence and unrest throughout the Middle

Eastern region, with protests occurring against national regimes and those same regimes

exercising repressive measures to stop the protests. Some protesters have been organizing using

the Internet, but their actions can be traced by the government they are fighting against as long as

they are not “encrypted” again surveillance. In other words, political activists in the Middle East

need to communicate anonymously in order to avoid being tracked or captured by the

government. A small percentage of protesters currently use encryption technology to hide their

online activity, but the vast majority does not. There is a strong connection between online

anonymity and protest activity in a number of different contexts around the world, but this paper

will look exclusively at the Arab Spring and the use of Internet Communication Technologies

(ICT) for circumventing government surveillance and spreading political speech. In the paper, I

will examine the different dimensions of online anonymity and the actors that participate in

preserving or taking it away.

I. What is anonymity? (This section and others listed below in roman numeral form will

be completed last, as they are very similar to work I have already written)

a. How does it function online?

II. Why is anonymity important in general?

 a. In a political context

Mark Andrejevic examines the concept of “digital enclosure,” or the

transformation of the Internet from an open frontier for expression into a tight collection of

privately-owned spaces in his 2007 book, I-SPY: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era.

Through digital enclosure, Andrejevic argues that the space for civil society and political identity

formation has been taken over by market forces in the form of large Internet companies. Mark

Poster looks at the issue of privatization of speech on the Internet in Reading digital culture:

“The issue of commodification also affords a narrow focus, often restricting the discussion of the

politics of the Internet to the question of which corporation will be able to obtain what amount of

income from which configuration of the Internet…the Internet is being understood as an

extension of our substitution for existing institutions.” (Trend, 260) Political discussion now

takes place on the platform of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and this

transportation has a number of different implications, particularly for anonymous speech.

Facebook, for example, does not allow anonymous speech but encourages political speech –

revealing political opinions serves as another layer of data that can be used for behaviorally-

targeted advertisements within the SNS environment. The public sphere, Andrejevic points out,

has been subverted by public relations, a system supported by the code of the websites citizens

use every day and further enabled by social and political norms. In this environment, “freedom

of choice” and of speech are no longer truly available – our options online have become limited

to an almost unrecognizable degree, compared to the Internet of 10 years ago. In the Middle

Eastern context, the introduction of global social networking sites has opened up new

possibilities for global communication on the one hand, but has still limited the avenues for

speech without government surveillance on the other.

III. Why is it important to the Arab Spring? (Next section to complete: still trying to pull

together information on social and religious pressure, outside Egypt?)

a. No freedom of speech

b. Unlawful detainment for online activity

c. Social and cultural pressures

d. Religious minorities?

IV. How to achieve anonymity

a. Keep in mind: there are 4 different levels

i. Unidentifiable to one’s peers

ii. To website administrators/owners

iii. To online tracking agencies/advertisers (deep-packet inspection)

iv. To the government/law enforcement

b. How to achieve the 4 levels technologically?

i. Site design (user experience), level 1

ii. Log-in design – verification not required, level 2

iii. Encryption tech like Tor, level 3

1. Telex - a new approach to circumventing state-level Internet

censorship. Telex focuses on *avoiding detection* by the censor.

That is, it allows a user to circumvent a censor without alerting the

censor to the act of circumvention. It complements anonymizing

services like Tor (which focus on hiding *with whom*the user is

attempting to communicate instead of *that* that the user is

 attempting to have an anonymous conversation) rather than

replacing them.

iv. VPN, Proxy servers, distributed networks

1. Syrian example: Though the Syrian internet has long been

censored, citizens have for some time had the upper hand, using

circumvention and anonymity technologies to get around

censorship and protect themselves online.

Another concept that experienced Internet users come to understand is the

existence of many “levels” of anonymity, the degrees with which a person’s identity can be

hidden (or how easily it can be uncovered) online. (Daza, 194) What most inexperienced

users do not realize about anonymous speech online is that, in many circumstances, it is

relatively easy for website administrators to gain access to an author’s identity information,

such as name, e-mail address, or physical location. In other words, the anonymity that most

online commenters have is not absolute – it is only effective insofar as it hides their identity

from peers in the online discussion space. Website administrators, the people who provide

the space for communication, often have the technical ability to view and track the IP address,

or computer location of an anonymous poster – this allows them to enforce rules on or even

ban individual members from participating in the future. (Lampe, 543) In these settings,

community behavior is regulated by a team of moderators, who determine when certain

comments violate a website’s rules and take disciplinary action in the form of warnings,

suspensions, or bans. Anonymity in this case is not absolute in that violators of website

policies can be caught and held accountable for their actions; website administrators retain

the ability to check a person’s location or search for their other online profiles to help them
 determine how to approach a situation. This can be considered the first level of anonymity,

because a person’s actions online can still be traced back to their real life presence by an

administrator.

A slight variation on this type of anonymity, or the second level, is when a

website automatically records information about its users such as IP address, but the identifiable

location information is rendered unreadable to the website operator (changed into a series of

random numbers) or logs of such information might even be deleted on a regular basis. (“Who

are the moderators?”) This practice was established in order to respect the privacy of users if

they choose to be anonymous. One of the largest and most well-known online communities,

4chan.org operates completely anonymously in this way. What the previous two kinds of

anonymity have in common is that they are “provided” to an individual Internet user by the

technology built into the website they choose to use. The web administrator or ISP is in full

control of who can see a user’s information, as the user has probably entered into a terms of

service agreement with that provider to abide by the rules.

Anonymity is provided to an individual either by the owner of the website they are

visiting at the time, or by self-installed encryption software, which represents the third level of

anonymity. Encryption offers a special kind of anonymity that not only hides identifiable

information from other people in the discussion forum with you, but from site administrators and

sometimes even law enforcement. It is the technology used to protect private data like e-mail and

credit card numbers from retrieval by third parties online as they travel through the Internet;

government agencies encrypt their information using particularly strong and always-changing

software. There are an abundance of more common software options available for Internet users

who wish to remain anonymous in their online activities. One of these programs is called Tor,
which is free and open source; this means that anyone can download, use, and edit the code of

the software to make their own adjustments. The brief description of the software on Tor’s

homepage says that it “helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens

personal freedom and privacy known as traffic analysis.” (“About Tor”) The basic idea of Tor is

that instead of connecting your computer’s unique address to every site you visit or every

comment you write, the communication signals you send to that website are bounced across a

distributed global network of volunteers, whose own computers relay that signal to the desired

website from a different location for every message. This idea is not new, as it was developed by

people from the first distributed network and message board, UseNet in the 1980’s. This network

was designed as a distributed news-sharing bulletin board, where anyone could post articles and

read what others had posted. More important than what was being shared on UseNet was the fact

that it required no personal registration to participate, and did not collect information about its

users. Anonymity is only effective insofar as certain groups of people are unable to connect an

individual’s real life and online identities, and open source encryption software like Tor make it

possible to communicate online without leaving a trace. This is where tensions can arise

between citizens and the government, because the process of law enforcement is made more

difficult when criminal suspects use encryption technology to hide their activities. On Tor’s

website, one can find deep concern about the direction of the courts concerning anonymous

speech and privacy: “Ongoing trends in law, policy, and technology threaten anonymity as never

before, undermining our ability to speak and read freely online.” (“About Tor”) This concern

will be addressed in the next chapter, which focuses on the courts and their approach to dealing

with anonymous speech.

How Outside Actors Are Helping Today

The U.S. State Department is starting to fund encryption work in the creation of informal

offline intranets through the New America Foundation, in the amount of 2 million dollars so far.

(McDuffee) According to a report by the Washington Post in June 2011, the Open Technology

Initiative is responsible for a product called, “Internet in a briefcase,” which allows political

activists to literally transport networks across national borders and set them up anywhere. The

package contains “small wireless antennas, which could increase the area of coverage; a laptop

to administer the system; thumb drives and CDs to spread the software to more devices and

encrypt the communications; and other components like Ethernet cables.” The same group has

been developing applications for “mesh networking,” a new way for people to connect to one

another directly, as opposed to sending Internet signals to a centralized server that records

identifiable information such as location before forwarding the signals along to the recipient. The

New York Times also reported in June

about “shadow” Internet and cell phone

networks that run independently from

central government servers. These

networks allow activists in Middle

Eastern countries to not only

communicate secretly with one another

under the radar of the government, but to

send messages to the outside world. A

similar project focusing on encrypting

cell phone networks in Afghanistan has been funded a full $50 million by the State Department.
These and similar kinds of private networks have already proven instrumental in encrypting

activist speech during times when authoritarian regimes have shut down the Internet or phone

lines. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supports these initiatives, saying that the U.S.

Government is “focused on helping [activists effect positive change], on helping them talk to

each other, to their communities to their governments and to the world.” (Glanz) Enabling

political activists in the Middle East to communicate is an important way to “bring down

autocratic regimes,” says New Media Professor Clay Shirky of New York University. He

cautions that the United States government is entering a conflict of interests situation by

supporting certain authoritarian leaders through diplomacy and funding the efforts of

revolutionaries at the same time. Rhetoric about the promotion of free speech and human rights

cannot be easily separated from the circumvention applications of technologies being currently

funded.

New strategies have been developed by activists in the region. They share their

passwords with friends, so if a Facebook user is arrested and his account misused, they can log in

and remove personal information or delete content the government has posted. Activists also

create multiple Facebook accounts so that when threatened, they reveal an innocent account,

instead of the one they use for dangerous activities.

How Outside Actors Are Not Helping

A recent example of a trusted system in conflict with values of anonymity and free

speech is the case of Facebook and the anti-Mubarak protesters in Egypt. (McCarthy, CNET:

“Amid Unrest, a Hard New Look at Online Anonymity”) Facebook and other social media have

proven to be an essential tool for those in Egypt who wanted to bring awareness to the situation
in their country and organize in protest against the dictator, Mubarak. But Facebook’s emphasis

on “real name identity” made it easier than ever for the Egyptian government or counter-protest

forces to track the protesters’ movements and online activities. A nonprofit organization called

Access Now has started a petition online to “encourage Facebook to rethink its policy” towards

anonymous accounts. Currently, if Facebook suspects that a user is not who they are claiming to

be, they can restrict or even ban the profile from using the site’s capabilities, such as creating

events or adding friends. Access Now hopes to change this policy, by arguing that political

activists under risk of some kind of retaliation should be allowed to run anonymous Facebook

accounts under a more secure HTTPS protocol; Facebook offers the more unsecure HTTP

service to these users, which is easy to track or hack into for the Egyptian government.

Online Security from a Blogger’s Perspective

With the number of obstacles preventing Internet users in the Middle East from writing

blogs or visiting websites anonymously, from government filtering to surveillance, it might be

surprising to discover that most do not take the necessary measures to encrypt their online

activity. According to a recent report by the Berkman Center at Harvard, online security is not

one of the top priorities for bloggers in the Middle Eastern region. Berkman Center conducted a

survey of bloggers in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) and 98 responded.

Questions in the survey ranged from website preferences to quiz-like questions about encryption

technology. When asked to rank the importance of different factors for choosing a platform to

blog with, most respondents answered that the “design and ease of use” of the website were the

most important considerations. This choice was compared with the customizability of privacy

settings, likelihood of the website tool in question to share the user’s data with the government,
and mobile capability. Across the different types of bloggers in different countries, design and

mobile capability led the poll – privacy settings and discoverability by law enforcement were not

taken into as much consideration. An important thing to note is that most of the survey

respondents turned to Western websites like Facebook and Google to express themselves, as

opposed to Middle Eastern or other alternatives. Researchers at Berkman, including online

security expert Ronald Deibert, proposed that it is possible the bloggers who answered the

survey believed it was safer to use Western blogging services because they would not be as

susceptible to influence (or interception) by authoritarian government surveillance. Trusting in

American blogging platforms to protect the online anonymity of their users may not be wisest or

most well-informed decision, given the number of times these companies have been reported to

give up the identities of users for criminal investigation. But, it might be the safest choice of the

ones available in their country. Finally, the Berkman Center survey found that there is a

significant gap between the self-perceived (reported) level of knowledge about online security

and actual scores on a security quiz offered at the end of the survey. Bloggers were particularly

uninformed about different types of encryption technology, which might help them to escape law

enforcement online.

Only 16% of the bloggers surveyed do so anonymously – this means that 84% provide

information about themselves such as their real name or photo on their website. The choice to

use a real identity for blogging makes it much easier for the government to locate and apprehend

an activist – so why would so many of them do it? As ___ argues in ____, to use a real name is

to make a political statement, to openly defy government repression while also adding credibility

to opinionated posts.
How to Preserve Online Anonymity in the Middle East

Authoritarian governments in the Middle East and North Africa have no interest in

preserving the online public sphere or in allowing anonymous speech – so it is left to outside

actors, such as corporations, democratic governments, and civil society organizations to help.

Each one of these actors has a different set of interests, but it is still possible to align these

interests with the side of greater liberation of political activists and normal citizens alike in the

Middle East.

Internet corporations, and new social networking sites that function as discussion spaces

in particular can play a significant role in promoting free anonymous speech. By enabling users

to post anonymously, and by developing innovative strategies for moderating and resolving

conflicts, these websites have a unique opportunity to not only invite the participation of a wider

range of writers around the world, but can provide a safe space for political activists to connect

with others outside their country. Quora.com, a question & answer website that was launched

almost two years ago, is an example of a new online community that has found ways to maintain

a strict set of community guidelines but still experience the benefits of anonymous speech. On

their site, a user can post a question about any topic, or answer a question that someone else has

asked; they always have the option of attaching their real name or posting anonymously. The

community selects the best answers by voting them up or down; a post that does not fit

community standards could be “collapsed” or removed from view. Quora encourages people to

post responses to the questions that they know the answer to; some questions about what it is like

to work at a certain company, for example, might be best and most honestly answered by a
current employee who chooses not to reveal her name. More sensitive questions, such as “How

do I know if my significant other is an alcoholic?” are asked anonymously as well.

In the context of the Middle East, questions about the reality of aspects of the Arab

Spring could be answered truthfully by someone who is involved in the situation but who wishes

to remain anonymous. Through Quora and sites like it, readers around the world can gain access

to news and opinions from even authoritarian countries in the Middle East; and activists can tell

the outside world about events happening in their country that the mainstream media might not

be covering. As with all accounts like this, information in posts by anonymous users is often

scrutinized more closely and other users might suggest edits for a factually inaccurate answer.

Another example of innovative strategies for handling anonymous speech online is Slashdot, a

technology news website and community. (Lampe, 543) According to University of Michigan

Professors Cliff Lampe and Paul Resnick, who conducted research on the Slashdot community in

2004, “Part of the ethos of Slashdot is that posts are not deleted from the database; the site

creators mandated that anonymous posting be allowed.” When certain behavioral problems arose,

Slashdot handed over moderation to its userbase for a more “democratic solution.” (543) Like on

Quora, Slashdot users can vote on other users’ posts and through this rating convey to other

readers how valuable they believe the posts are. These solutions take much of the burden off of

website owners and administrators, and avoid the problems of censorship and prior restraint from

government interference. The next generation of online entrepreneurs will have the chance to

design tools for expression that put more control in the hands of both individual users and the

larger community, instead of authoritarian government actors.

Ryan Calo, cyber-law expert at Stanford University, has thoroughly examined the

intersection of privacy and innovation in ways that are extremely relevant to any debate about
privacy, anonymity and online security for Middle Eastern activists. According to Calo’s

research, “Web companies have begun in recent years to compete with one another over privacy,

including by building better tools of access, choice, and portability.” (Calo, 2) This healthy

competition will provide more options for activists and normal Web users alike. An entire

industry has sprung up around privacy, with services like Reputation Defender and TrustE

promising to protect personal information from online collection. These services exist because

most mainstream websites thrive off of a steady stream of data from user characteristics and

behavior – privacy is commonly viewed as an interest separate from profit for social networking

sites that run on advertising. But Calo observes that increased empirical research on the

integration of privacy controls into user experience design have “profound repercussions for

consumer and citizen privacy.” (3) He and human-computer interaction expert Victoria Groom

are currently conducting an experiment that compares effects of various interfaces on online user

behavior; their findings would bring young Internet companies even closer to being able to offer

more control over privacy to users.

CONCLUSION: Anonymity is key to enabling free(r) speech in the Middle East online.

Autocratic regimes are continuously working to disable anonymous communication by their

citizens, and this has a deep impact on the ability of protesters to organize and the political

identity formation of individual citizens. Outside actors, like new Internet companies, large

online social platforms, governments, and civil society organizations can play a role in providing

an anonymous space for political discussion, and there is evidence of this already happening.

Obstacles to these actors participating in the preservation of the online anonymous public sphere

include government pressure and regulation, and profit-driven motives for encouraging real

names instead of anonymity.