Page 15 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL9

It is like th“e government is riding an elephant just to catch grasshoppers. Cyber crime can be countered withmethods that do not violate human rights andstifle trade”new laws enabling the authorities to access online evidence to prosecute political dissidents and circumvent steps such as the need for a court order to access data.And if the aim of a single gateway is for political censorship, Mr Prinya wonders if the government’s hope for better censorship might even be achieved. In China, foreigners or citizens can still access blocked websites such as Facebook and Twitter by using a virtual private network (VPN) – a portal that enables them to use proxies in foreign countries. The world of hackers is too advanced for a single gateway to cope with. Hackers can use Tor, a well known underground network. In reality, huge amounts of data are transferred through these underground portals.“We need someone to educate the government that it is not possible,” Mr Prinya said. If the governmentcompetitionwants to control or monitor data, there are more advanced systems to do so. Countries like the US, Singapore and Indonesia have a system to monitor data flow which is not a single gateway.Ms Supinya believes the govern- ment is sacrificing the telecom industry and digital economy in order to exert more control over information, a policy that would cripple new investment in online content. Foreign companies might worry about privacy and trade data protection, not to mention possible bottlenecks and limited bandwidth.“It is like the government is riding an elephant just to catch grasshoppers,” she said. Cyber crime, she says, can be countered with methods that do not violate human rights and stifle trade competition.There are many free countries in the world that are trying to regulate theinternet without bypassing human rights. A recent example is Germany. In late July, the German government reportedly passed a law ordering over 2,000 essential service providers to implement new minimum information security standards within two years. The law was passed after it was revealed that hackers had used Chancellor Angela Merkel’s computer to spread Trojan malware during a cyber-attack on the German parliament. The rule, however, also requires service providers to warn and notify customers if their connection is abused and when traffic data will be stored for investigation process.For Ms Supinya, what is really needed is “digital literacy”, or an education process that helps citizens use the internet in a constructive and informed way.Elite+ 13