Cubans Evade Censorship By Exchanging Flash Drives 171
concealment sends this quote from an article about evading internet censorship with the sneakernet: "Dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez on Saturday told newspaper publishers from around the Western Hemisphere that 'nothing is changing' in Cuba’s ossified political system and that 'the situation of press freedom in my country is calamitous.' But Sanchez said underground blogs, digital portals and illicit e-magazines proliferate, passed around on removable computer drives known as memory sticks. The small computer memories, also known as flash drives or thumb drives, are dropped into friendly hands on buses and along street corners, offering a surprising number of Cubans access to information. 'Information circulates hand to hand through this wonderful gadget known as the memory stick,' Sanchez said, 'and it is difficult for the government to intercept them. I can't imagine that they can put a police officer on every corner to see who has a flash drive and who doesn't.'"
A Subversive Library at their Fingertips... (Score:5, Interesting)
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... the KJV Bible ... it used to take the scribes a year to make a single copy. It would also cost a centurion's annual salary.
Eh? Wasn't the KJV Bible published in 1611? There were still Roman Centurion's then? Or are ye refering to the Byzantine (East Roman Empire)?
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A bit silly, in a way... I've seen people devote huge effort to arguing over exactly what it was Jesus said or meant, analysing small details of phrasing in the greek, but they seem almost ashamed to admit that the greek text they have is itsself a translation. Jesus would have spoken in hebrew, but the words he said are long lost now.
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Which one?
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I don't know, but I'd guess he meant Michael S. Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg.
Re:A Subversive Library at their Fingertips... (Score:5, Informative)
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Good, it would be a shame if the information was lost. It doesn't matter if all of it is bullshit, the historical value is what matters. And that's the reason I hate religions so much, because one of their main actions is to destroy their oppositor's written records (even nowadays).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries [wikipedia.org]
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Hebrew wasn't the common language in Jesus' time. It was essentially only involved in religious ceremony. Aramaic was the local dialect.
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Noted. But it still wasn't greek, so the point remains.
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I wasn't trying to contravene your point, just inform.
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It's a mistake I won't make in future. I gather that hebrew and aramaic are somewhat similar - I'm sure a little wiki-checking after work will tell me exactly how they relate.
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Jesus would have spoken in hebrew
ObLinguisticPedant: Jesus, and most Judeans of His day, would have spoken Aramaic [wikipedia.org]; in His case, a Galilean (North Judean) dialect. Hebrew wouldn't have been a colloquial language, but more of a religious and scholarly one, like Latin in Medieval Europe. Most of the New Testament was written in Koine Greek [wikipedia.org], but probably based on spoken Aramaic.
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... the KJV Bible ... it used to take the scribes a year to make a single copy. It would also cost a centurion's annual salary.
Eh? Wasn't the KJV Bible published in 1611? There were still Roman Centurion's then? Or are ye refering to the Byzantine (East Roman Empire)?
Obligatory local fundy quote:
If the King James Bible was good enough for Moses, it's good enough for me!
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Now, look, I went after someone in a recent thread for attacking others' beliefs without a hint of self-awareness regarding their own, but quoting someone verbatim isn't mocking their beliefs. Their beliefs would have to be a mockery to begin with for that to work.
Re:A Subversive Library at their Fingertips... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A Subversive Library at their Fingertips... (Score:5, Informative)
At least check your facts pal... You know Google is your friend...
Yoani was born in Cuba in 1975 and left the island in 2002; how's that for never lived in Cuba?
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Maybe he stayed in his mum's basement?
Thesaurus game (Score:3, Insightful)
How many word phrases do you know for a removable storage device?
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Re:Thesaurus game (Score:5, Funny)
Message from Cuba (Score:5, Funny)
I got this flash drive from a Cuban and was instructed to relay this message here.
Hello my friends,
I would have gotten first post if the stupid messenger got to the computer on time.
Regards
Anonymous Cuban
Re:Message from Cuba (Score:4, Funny)
Dear Anonymous Cuban,
We have your friend. He didn't want to give up your name at first, but after we broke a few of his fingers, he was able to provide us with a description and your whereabouts. We've decided not to pursue the matter, as trying to get first post on an imperialist dog's website isn't a problem for us. However, your friend would appreciate it if next time you didn't use his "no questions asked" courier service for such a trifling matter. When he gets out of jail in three years, you may wish to discuss this with him further.
Thank you Comrade,
The Cuban Government
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Dear Lisa,
As I write this, I am very sad. Our president has been overthrown and replaced by the benevolent general Krull. All hail Krull and his glorious new regime!
Sincerely,
Little Girl.
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I got this flash drive from a Cuban and was instructed to relay this message here.
Hello my friends,
I would have gotten first post if the stupid messenger got to the computer on time.
Regards
Anonymous Cuban
Did he run Linux?
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got this flash drive from a Cuban and was instructed to relay this message here.
Well, mine said : "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope..." but then it glitched out.
Spreading situation (Score:3, Interesting)
With Venezuela's only remaining independent tv station stated to be sold to a government sympathizer next month, the country is going in the same direction as Cuba.
TrueCrypt? (Score:2)
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If a popular OS/distro encrypts a container file by default, that interrogation method becomes less effective.
Hence the bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/148440 [launchpad.net]
It could be layered - for instance the entire drive can be optionally encrypted. But the container file is always created and encrypted by default (unless you specifically deselect it).
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Re:TrueCrypt? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cuban here (though I'm no longer in Cuba).
Be aware that Yoani is not real. Yes, the person exists, but her "opinions" are all paid for (or at least seeking a reward). She does not represent the views or the reality of the Cubans. She is not interested in giving Cubans access to information, she - just like the Cuban government - is at most interested in giving them access to propaganda. It is very hard to get access to information, because everyone wants to pick and chose what to give you. If you read her blog, you will probably notice this... almost poetic posts full of half truths in which any "good" thing is left unsaid.
This is one of the examples. It is true that sneakernet is a major way of exchanging data. It is even encouraged. One time, a government official, in a sickening display of ignorance, stated something along the lines of "everyone can access the internet, they just have to go to a library, ask what they want to know, and the librarian will download the webpage to a floppy". I used to carry not only usb drives, sometimes even up to 3 hard disks, in my pockets. Bringing a hard disk to a university, looking for an IT person and getting him to open one of the computers to insert the hard disk and copy everything they had was a regular occurrence. I was one of those IT persons... my desktop computer was permanently open, until we got an external enclosure just for that purpose. I tried once to set up a couple of "sneakernet stations" so people could come in, explore the ftp servers and download everything they wanted. You don't need encryption, unless what you are transporting is really illegal (a foreign news article is not illegal, child porn is) and you are high profile enough that the police may want to go through the effort of checking your data (unlikely, most don't even know what "data" is).
That said, encryption is illegal[1]. So one could argue that using encryption is more risky than not using it: a news article critical of the government is not illegal, the same news article encrypted is. This is moot, however... it is very unlikely that your data will be checked either way. I carried some data encrypted, mostly password lists or ssh private keys - it would have been highly irresponsible to carry my employer's data in plaintext. Of course, if you are carrying around your accounting book detailing how the CIA is paying you... you probably want to encrypt that, or even better, don't carry it around.
Regarding the export controls: probably the only area in which they are completely ineffective is in software and data. No one in Cuba cares about that. Copyright is ignored to the point that movies and TV shows shown in national television were torrented + "sneakerneted" to the TV station[2]. Same happens with software (to the despair of f/oss advocates). This is the main content of the underground networks: software, music, music videos, movies and tv shows. My hard disks used to contain a mirror of Debian and Ubuntu... and a copy of 1984 and Animal Farm that I was reading at the time, downloaded from the university's ftp server.
(I'm not defending the illegality of encryption, or the export controls, or that the police and the prosecution have too much power and that they can use their ignorance against you... Nor am I saying that it is ok because some of it is also a problem in the US. I am also not defending censorship. I'm just pointing out how deceitful Yoani is, and using the post to explain that the reasons encryption is not wildly used have nothing to do with the US export ban.)
[1] In very silly ways. For instance, to renew the "networking license" for the university, I had to state that no encryption was used, even though using https and ssh instead of telnet was mandatory to get that license. I know, I once stated "Yes, we use encryption, e.g: ssh, https,..." and the license was denied until I submitted the same form without that sentence.
[2] Funny anecdote, when The Fellowship of the Ring first arrived at the university network about 2 weeks after the release, I added a tiny mark during the opening credits, just to check how far it would spread... When it was shown on TV, I looked for that mark... and there it was.
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/me laughs
You'll probably not like it. TCP over Hard Disks has a very high latency!
yoani... (Score:1)
What about her? She has lots of money (way more than any cuban can have), and lots of help by the CIA & friends (various "pro-USA" NGOs), she doesn't care about "censorship", she only cares about money. She's just a troll. But she won't say that, of course.
Poor Yoani! She can't talk! Except that that is bullshit, you can read her blog, her articles in international, US govt.-backed or associated, right wing media, she manages to get out of the country when she wants, etc. And she GETS PAID for doing tha
Solutions (Score:3)
QOTD (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't imagine that they can put a police officer on every corner to see who has a flash drive and who doesn't.'"
Why not? The United States does [aclu.org]. We already have given the police broad authority to stop and search people for flash drives, mobile phones, or other electronic gear without warrant or cause. If a "free" country like the United States can do this, what makes people think Cuba can't (or won't)?
Not comparable (Score:1, Insightful)
Every time someone posts about some awful dictatorship like Cuba, someone on Slashdot invariably equates them to the US. I like putting freedom in "scare quotes," that was a nice touch, but also really lazy. You basically did not have to substantiate or prove your point at all, yet you still got 3 points, phenomenal. I am sorry, but having to swap forbidden books using flash drives dwarfs whatever first-world problem crawled up your posterior and made you feel like you could ever possibly understand what it
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but having to swap forbidden books using flash drives dwarfs whatever first-world problem crawled up your posterior and made you feel like you could ever possibly understand what it is like to live in a mind-controlling, life-or-death, blighted country like Cuba.
forbidden books [sjgames.com], mind-controlling [wikipedia.org], life-or-death [cnn.com], blighted [freep.com]...
whatever first-world problem crawled up your posterior [blogspot.com]
I rest my case, your honor.
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It might be worse in cuba, but that doesn't make what he said about the USA incorrect. Hell, I wish he wasn't correct.
Re:Not comparable (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be worse in cuba, but that doesn't make what he said about the USA incorrect. Hell, I wish he wasn't correct.
No, the fact that there are not police on every corner makes the original statement incorrect. If you are seeing this, I'd like to know your zipcode. Hell, my apartment complex alone has at least a half dozen law enforcement officers living there, yet I never see them patrolling the sidewalk in front of my dwelling (and my car got broken into once). Hyperbole is one thing; pretending the exaggeration is fact is quite another.
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Every corner is a very large exaggeration. In tourist areas there are a large number of street cops, but even there it's often only every 6 - 10 blocks or so. It's not as intimidating as with cops in the US because the Cuban cops are generally not bad guys. They are not just hoping for an excuse to bash your head in with their nightstick, taze you, and then bring you up on charges for assaulting them. As a rule Cuban cops are definitely better human beings than American cops. That doesn't mean I recommend g
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You cannot be that stupid. I refuse to believe that you can learn to operate a computer and still be that stupid.
You really must be new here.
Re:Not comparable (Score:4, Interesting)
So, you're an expert on Cuba and have been there? Or are you mostly extrapolating on what you've been told like most people here?
I've been to Cuba, several times in fact -- for the most part, the people are awesome, friendly people, who are in the economic state they're in because of the US embargo. A people who don't want Guantanamo base on their soil, but the US injected an amendment [wikipedia.org] to the Cuban constitution unilaterally guaranteeing them that right. So a little left over colonialism for you.
Cuba isn't perfect, not by a long shot. But they do educate their citizens, and give them health care, and do they best they can manage. In parts of the US, the life and death is just as bad, because the poor are mostly left to fend for themselves and the state has no interest in looking out for them.
Yes, Cuba is a military dictatorship -- but you know what, they were before Castro when it was Batista [wikipedia.org], it's just that the previous dictatorship was friendly to the US.
He mostly got rich while the rest of the country starved and were treated like slave labor.
America has only ever disliked dictators who dislike them, but they've been happy to put in a few over the years. If you really think Castro overthrew a benign, democratic government, you're wrong by a long shot.
Unfortunately, 50 odd years on, and people still think "ZOMG, teh Communists" instead of having any actual historical context for how Cuba got where she is now.
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Cuba isn't perfect, not by a long shot. But they do educate their citizens, and give them health care
You obviously didn't spend much time there. The education is mediocre at best. My girlfriend spent 4 years studying to be a waitress. She wasn't exactly what I would consider a walking encyclopedia. Of course it's difficult when you don't have the money to buy real textbooks. As a general rule I'd say Americans and Europeans and most Asians and the countries in South America where I have spent time are all far better educated then Cubans. Laos is probably comparable though.
As for the Cubans themselves, they
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Mind controlling? Life or death? Dude, you've obviously never been to Cuba. Cuba is about as laid back as it gets. And most of the cops are actually relatively nice, normal people just looking for a well paid job as opposed to police in the US who are literally cruising for a bruising, drooling over the idea of their own little slice of torture porn.
It has been a while since I've been there, but I lived there for about a year. Someday I'd very much like to go back. Whenever I return it still feels a bit lik
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... its a great country to live in as long as you follow the rules.....
The Devil is in the details, or in this case, the rules.
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If you break the rules in the US you also go to jail. The solution is just not to break the rules or if you do don't get caught.
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As it is in every country. The issue isn't the consequences, it is the rules.
And the (D) and (R) parties in the US have been increasing the amount of "rules" and making the consequences even more harsh for petty non-crimes, to the point we are slowly becoming just like those we hate. The worst part is, we don't have a critical press for 1/2 the political spectrum. and the other side is supported by Faux News.
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Poverty yes, but what oppression did you notice?
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please note you just freely criticized the us govt, from within the usa, and no one stopped you, no one watch listed you, no one knocked on your door, no one cares understand the difference?
Well first, I'm behind 14 proxies. Good luck, assholes. Second, how do you know I didn't get watch listed? It's not like they're published. And I have gotten knocks on my door for criticizing my government... usually for campaign contributions. I know, ha ha, but more seriously, yes I've been visited by the police for criticism of the government. Oh I'm sorry, did that not fit with your worldview?
in your whiny clueless post you have exercised a luxury many people in this world wish they had. and you don't even fucking notice. what does that say about your level of awareness and knowledge about the world?
I think it says that I'm not above suspecting my own government of engaging in the same activities that every ot
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I couldn't help but notice that you criticized your government again without any apparent fear of repercussions from said government. 14 proxies? That's cute.
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"I'm behind 14 proxies"
Your latency must suck.
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Parent got rightfully modded down not only for calling everyone assholes but then continuing to spew lies.
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You are correct in your main point. A Cuban would or damn well should be afraid to post something, anything, critical of the government online. And the phones are known to be tapped so you can't even say something critical of the government on the phone. Although I've never personally heard of anyone getting in trouble for that.
the difference between them and you is they are petrified with fear to say a damn thing about their governments
Naw. The Cubans aren't afraid. Not at all. They just don't publish stuff online or anywhere else critical of the government. Other than that they aren't worried about what you seem t
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What they are really worried about is having enough food to eat and other financial issues. Communism doesn't work very well for stuff like that.
Cuba's economic situation would be a lot better if they hadn't been economically blockaded by the US for the last fifty years.
Sneakernet Lives! (Score:2)
I'm from the era in which 8" floppy diskettes were used and passed around. So here we are almost 4 decades later and Cuba's Sneakernet is saving the day. Glad to see it.
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Yeah, but they may not have the uSD drives in Cuba yet. Tech tends to lag a bit there.
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Sneakernet is still alive in the US. Check your kid's ipod. Where did he get the content? Most of it is likely from the Sneakernet. Many kids don't have the money to blow in iTunes.
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I'm a school IT tech. We had to ban USB sticks because of the amount of illegal mp3s and games that were appearing in user folders. I'm sure they still run the school pirate network (good for them!), but it's no longer on our server now and thus Not My Problem.
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We had to pass around a stack of punched cards! And they were not easy to disguise from the police either...
Bah! Modern children, so spoliled... Floppy disks... Jesus! Get off my lawn!
(Note for the humor impaired: HTML does not recognize the <humorous> tag.
Okay hang on, (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still not quite sure what this new-fangled device is they use in Cuba to pass along information. A "memory stick"? "thumb drive"? "Flash drive"? "removable" or "small" "computer memories"? This is all just too much, please explain using a car analogy.
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It's like a cabriolet covetable convertible spider topless targa car.
Re:Okay hang on, (Score:4, Funny)
This is all just too much, please explain using a car analogy.
Well, imagine a car driven by an angry man. That's cuba. Now imagine a semi truck. That's me. Now imagine you're standing in the middle of the road. You're the flash drive. Cuba tries to take the flash drive, but it's no match for my semi truck, so I run it over. Then I run you over, for asking for a car analogy. And everyone is satisfied, the end.
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Say you had a VW Microbus, and the insides of the windows are permanently fogged with antifreeze from a leaky heater core. You lend your friend Eddie the Microbus for a few days, but before he picks it up you write "frist psot" on the front passenger window. After a day of driving it, Eddie loans it to his pal Joe to move a couch, but before he gives it up he writes "hot grits" on the back window. Joe adds "STFU noob" to the windshield, but before he has a chance to move the couch, his grandma needs to b
The practice of samizdat is alive and well (Score:5, Interesting)
Similar techniques were used in the old Soviet Union and former eastern bloc countries, called samizdat [wikipedia.org], except that with today's technology it's even easier. A US$40 64 GB flash drive can hold a lot of data, more text than a person could read in their lifetime, and to copy data from one to another would take only minutes. With a program like Truecrypt it even becomes possible to hide such incriminating data on it without anyone being the wiser. The only way to restrict this practice would be to ban or regulate all computers and computer equipment the way printers were, and I doubt that this is in any way feasible for Cuba.
In B 4 "How long before we have to do that here?" (Score:2, Interesting)
But, seriously, with freedom of expression being attacked or chilled to silence, and government and corporate snooping on who says what and who looks at what, and insane laws for information sharing and consumption crimes...
INFORMATION IS THE NEW ILLICIT DRUGS!
We will need "mules" to carry information that should be legal across borders.
I forecast that porn will be the new marijuana -- where a few over-enthusiastic politicians might manage to make it illegal to possess or distribute, and a society convinced
Yoani Sanchez is not next door blogger (Score:2, Troll)
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What? Never heard of volunteer translators?
I do translations for free, for people like Joel Spolsky and TED, neither of which is precisely poor.
Whatever it is you're smoking, please share.
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Re:more likely, private business (Score:4, Informative)
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As a friend of mine once said, "There are two types of information available on Cuba: pro-Castro propaganda and anti-Castro propaganda."
Plus the first hand experience you can have as a tourist...
Evade censorship or crapy network workaround? (Score:3)
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Network coverage? Unless things have changed drastically in the past 7 years or so there are probably only a handful of Cubans in the entire city of Havana that even own a computer of any kind. There are internet cafes. Although not many and they aren't cheap for a Cuban. Which is probably intentional.
Last time I was there actually owning a computer was against the law. Only foreigners were allowed to own one. I think Raul changed that policy though, but an income of $10 per month isn't going to buy you muc
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Network coverage? Unless things have changed drastically in the past 7 years or so there are probably only a handful of Cubans in the entire city of Havana that even own a computer of any kind.
If people have no access to computers, then the whole flash drive story is a nonsense
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Well, there are some internet cafes. Not many and they cost 1/4 to 1/2 a month's wages to access, but they do at least exist. Also some people work at places with computers. So they could use those. But home computers? No way. Not unless things have changed very, very dramatically there recently.
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But home computers? No way. Not unless things have changed very, very dramatically there recently.
I see no way they could have changed, the country still being on embargo
JumpShot (Score:4, Informative)
JumpShot [github.com]
Not that hard (Score:3)
I can't imagine that they can put a police officer on every corner to see who has a flash drive and who doesn't.
Bah. If the regime truly can't crack down on this in an effective way, it only indicates that they have grown spineless and unable to contemplate drastic measures. Here's how you deal with "flash drive samizdat":
1. Ban possession of flash drives, with very stiff penalties (e.g. capital punishment).
2. Do random spot pat-downs and dwelling searches. Also follow up on any tips.
The idea is to make getting caught a possibility - not likely, but not outlandish, either - and making it hurt really bad, so that most people would think twice before participating. It won't completely shut the network down, but it'll make it very small, and will exclude the majority of the population from having day-to-day access to it, which is good enough.
Alternatively, if you want people using computers, and need them to be able to own flash drives, require them to be registered, and make the possession of a drive not registered to you a crime with a very stiff penalty.
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If I were in charge of surpressing dissent, I'd add 3. Mandate all computers be sold with a government-approved antivirus program. As well as being a functioning (though hardly world-leading) antivirus, it also has a hash index of known subversive content. Upon detecting this, it immediately informs the government. Obviously this only works on internet-connected computers so it can download updates and report back violators, but those are also the ones you want to catch the most - people who can not only ta
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Pat downs are basically useless for this.
The smallest available form factor for flash memory is the MicroSD card ; which comes in capacities up to 64GB in a device the size of your fingernail, and can be concealed in any number of places - a roll of body fat, beside the gum in the mouth, taped to virtually any location on the body, inside a body cavity, tucked between any of the layers of a pair of sneakers, tucked into the hem of your coat, etc, etc.
Even the full sized USB thumbs are incredibly easy to con
Never underestimate the bandwidth (Score:3)
TOR?! (Score:2)
67 posts and no one has mentioned TOR yet? Everyone above has geek credentials suspended for a week.
On top of doing this, I suggest creating a TOR site mirroring all this material. The USB sticks can include the Tor Browser Bundle for all platforms and a txt file (or better yet, bookmarks) with the urls. Maybe also a note saying "Be patient, anonymous browsing is *slower*"
Anybody taking up a collection? (Score:2)
"known as memory sticks" (Score:2)
Thanks for explaining that, grandpa...
UUCP (Score:2)
i wonder whats on the drives. Is it folders of content organized by subject? ... to other flash users and to the public internet.
Would be cool if they had a way for people forwarding messages
Like UUCP.
Tanenbaum quote (Score:3)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
Tanenbaum, Andrew S. (1996). Computer Networks. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. p. 83. ISBN 0-13-349945-6. [wikipedia.org]
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s/"tapes"/"CDs"/
s/"hurtling down the highway"/"flying across the Atlantic"/
Anon, CIS 75643:235675, 1993.
Get up to date, Prof Tanenbaum!
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Same place where he would plug a thumb drive or a removable memory or a small memory or a USB stick or memory stick or a memory drive.