Reporter’s Without Border’s "Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents"
"Each of us experienced a moment of political
awakening, a trigger that made us understand a kind of injustice that
needed to be fixed…. Let that realization guide you. I hope you can
convey enough of your conviction to remind and inspire others to fight
for change."(Read my article "I kept my promise to those who died")
Reporters Without Borders today publishes a Handbook for Bloggers and
Cyber-Dissidents (in English, French, Chinese, Arabic and Persian), in
which experts and bloggers from all over the world advise Internet
users, especially those in repressive countries, how to set up their
own blogs and get them known, while preserving their personal anonymity.
Download the Chinese Version Here.
Reporter’s Without Border’s "Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents"
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
I wonder whether this is such a good idea. Any handbook of this sort will surely be used by the powers-that-be as a guide to combat cyber-dissidents.
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Knowledge is power.
This will give access to many people who previously did not have this kind of information to protect themselves. Currently the majority of people do not have this information at all. They will not be able to even use the simpliest step to hide their identity if need be, nor even be able to work a CMS.
I don’t know why you have to be cynical. A lot of people put a lot of work into this, and I would assume RSF and the Berkman Center of Internet and Society (who is holding the online forum) would have thought it through somewhat.
yan
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I agree that the information is something that should be available to the blogging community. I just don’t think that producing it in book form is the best way to disseminate it. After all, every blogger will have to get their own copy, while a government internet censor only has to get a single copy to begin working on countermeasures which will affect the entire country.
Blogging is a technology race, where new countermeasures are continually developed. Once governments know how bloggers are circumventing their jamming techniques, they can design countermeasures to block the bloggers’ techniques. Publishing the techniques in book form means they will be ineffective that much sooner.
Please don’t misunderstand my view as cynicism. I feel it is important that bloggers share their knowledge, but perhaps new ways must be found to prevent the opposition getting their hands on it, too.
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Well it’s always an arms race in a situation like this. One side invents an attack, the other counters, the other reverses the counter, the other reverses the reverse.
As the opposing force to centralized power, dissident bloggers have an advantage, in that they have a shorter decision cycle. To take full advantage of that, requires us to distribute the information as widely as possible, as quickly as possible.
Sure, repressive governments are going to come up with fancy schemes to beat this, and we’ll keep coming up with things to beat those schemes.
There is no utopian end, only the ongoing process it takes to keep freedom alive.
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Hmm.
I always feel people who say someone else’s idea which they have put a lot of work into is not good. Should give a counter idea and then make it happen.
It’s really easy to critize and say things aren’t as good idea as we all would like. Your answers are sorta valid, except like all “races” it’s a constant battle, and this booklet is not the be all and ends all of this topic.
As well this booklet’s gotten 116 news mentions around the world as we speak. And even if it doesn’t always hit the hands of the people who need it most, it made “Cyberdissidents” an international issue.
Since you have such doubts about it’s usefulness. I urge you to come out with a really good idea and implement it. As this is all the people who are most knowledgeable and work full time on it could come up with. Doesn’t mean it’s perfect.
Seriously, asking if this is a good idea, and being cynical doesn’t help anyone. This is at least a step forward. Sitting around critizing isn’t moving at all.
serious…
I have a lot of say about cynical people… if people switch their energies in feeling cynical and despair, superior to activists and those who are trying because they don’t think our ideas are that good, if you guys all just added all the genius brain power on our side. We would be a hell of a lot further than we are now.
It’s not even particulary directed at B, it’s my general observation.
Yan
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Seriously, I have some really cool ideas of how to help people subvert censors. They would work too if only I had another 18 hours a day, a team of 15 voleenteers, and preferbly a billion dollar grant.
Activsm is non-paying to being badly paid, lacking in voleenteers, have no funding, we do the best we can with the most minimum resources we have, against the richest corporations and the never ending power and money of governments.
So any step is a forward even if it doesn’t reach the perfect goal.
hell the perfect goal is that there is free speech for everyone.
Some of us just do what we can because we don’t really feel like giving up a fight.
Honestly, this is what I have been thinking later… it took a hell of a lot of work on my behalf in the last few years to even warrant an invitation to be asked to contribute. And i am starting to realize, it’s no longer a question of “Who are you?” (as in me) because I earned my little stars to have an opinion.
And having a say on these things, and being part of it or actually having an impact is something you had to prove along the way…. Mainly, it’s what I am saying is. It’s one thing to have an opinion and say other people didn’t think it through, but outside of writing it in a blog, if one’s opinion want to be counted and taken into consideration, one has to do a lot of work so that their opinion has weight and therefore part of the process, and the people who were part of it, isn’t so cynical because you realize that’s really the best anyone can do.
Yan
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Hi,
I just wanted to let You know that just as I created an all-in-one-file version of this handbook at http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf, I just completed my own personal account. I did this without being asked by Reporters Without Borders, because I thought it was apropos, and needed to be done. I wrote the article “Personal Account – Earth: Blogging and the Emergence of DotCommunism” partly because it intersected with the topics, but mostly because I needed to tell this story… I have held it back for too long, and writing it was good therapy. This longish article I have also linked from the html version, again, without explicit request or permission from RSF.
It may be found at http://thewall.civiblog.org/rsf/pa_earth.html .
There is a mirror at democracywall.org/rsf/ .
I hope it is useful.
Cheers,
-dcm
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