More of the
Same?
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Domain name |
Date created |
Expiry date |
Last update |
Server name |
IP address |
IP location |
Domain registered to |
setimes.com | 1 Oct 2002 | 1 Oct 2009 | 2008-08-05 | dns1.carpathiahost.com dns2.carpathiahost.com | 66.117.39.197 | Unknown server, Virginia, USA |
Domains by Proxy, Inc. GODADDY.COM, INC |
magharebia.com | 2004-10-13 | 2010-10-13 | 2006-07-17 |
dns1.carpathiahost.com dns2.carpathiahost.com |
66.117.39.197 | Unknown server, Virginia, USA |
Domains by Proxy, Inc. GODADDY.COM, INC |
mawtani.com | 2007-08-16 | 2010-08-16 | 2008-07-28 |
ns53.domaincontrol.com ns54.domaincontrol.com |
193.179.58.35 | U-turn A.s Ustecky Kraj, Czech Republic |
Domains by Proxy, Inc. GODADDY.COM, INC |
pornopararicardo.com | 2003-09-8 | 2009-09-8 | 2008-7-4 |
ns1.bluehost.com ns2.bluehost.com |
69.89.26.116 | Orem,
Utah (USA) Bluehost Inc. |
Domains by Proxy, Inc. GODADDY.COM, INC |
Although not mentioned by USA Today, another common element is that their domains are registered with the corporation GoDaddy, which provides for anonymous registrations. The corporation charges a premium for this, of course. The owner and only shareholder of this corporation is Bob Parsons, ex-Marine and Vietnam veteran. Parsons is wealthy and known to have an appetite for advocating extreme methods of interrogation for prisoners at Guantanamo .
GoDaddy has an extensive track record of closing down its clients’ sites without notification, and like other north American companies dedicated to the registry of domains, it may not offer its services to individuals or companies linked to countries blacklisted by the Department of Treasury’s OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control). Cuba is a sanctioned country, according to OFAC.
The United States government forbids electronic commerce with any of the countries or entities on the blacklist. In fact, in March 2007, the United States’ Government, ordered through OFAC the shutdown of 80 websites, belonging to a tourism operator who lives in Spain and does business in the United Kingdom. Without prior notice, the program Enom blocked 80 domain names belonging to him, including some websites exclusively dedicated to cultural exchanges, such as www.cuba-hemingway.com.
Despite OFAC’s clear prohibitions relating to Cuba linked domains, GoDaddy maintains an allegedly Cuban website. It belongs to a rock group called ‘Porno para Ricardo’, an openly anti-government website, that encourages users to send money to its musicians, so that they can “purchase musical instruments.” Porno para Ricardo calls itself a Cuban website. But much like many other websites set up to spread propaganda against the Cuban government on the Internet, it is not administered on the island, its servers are not in Cuban territory, it does not use national domains, its owners do not seem to be anywhere in the Caribbean, and the sophisticated administrative tools of the web -like a paying Gateway, or the provision of an electronic system of money transfer made by credit cards- could not possibly be administered by a truly independent Cuban journalist without the support and financing of the United States government.
Add to this the overwhelming publicity campaign made on behalf of this and other Cuban “dissident” sites, especially through the Internet’s search engines. Such a campaign could not be launched and managed from Cuba, since the United States blockade against the island prevents Google from allowing it. In other words, if the United States prevents Cubans on the island from using credit cards to pay for a marketing campaign through Google’s Adwords, will the directors of the famous search engine help track the money trail that circulates through the Internet, promoting these websites and the sudden stars of global cyber dissidence?
Cyber dissidents
Military academicians are another important variable in the information war waged through the Internet. In order to try to turn fiction into fact, information is personalized, with images and other ‘evidence’ that proves that the person who makes the statement is effectively where she says she is.
Military Review , the Pentagon’s official journal, has extensively analyzed the strategic importance of blogs and cyber dissidents. They put a human face on the political rhetoric designed by the U.S. military, particularly aimed at areas where the use of Internet is on the rise.
As they create websites, they also create a la carte cyber dissidents. A controversial case was that of Iraqi blogger Salam Pax, who mysteriously kept writing on his anti Saddam and anti Bush blog during the U.S. invasion or Irak. There is also evidence of suspicious cyber dissidents in Yugoslavia, China, Vietnam, Iran, and Syria…
With regards to Cuba, it is worth mentioning the meteoric stardom of blogger Yoani Sanchez, who meets all the conditions required by Pentagon experts. The design of her blog is based upon several falsehoods: the name of the hosting website www.desdecuba.com suggests that her Internet connection originates in Cuba. Yet, the server is in Germany and registered to somebody named Josef Biechele. Who is this man and why does the blogger never mention this generous sponsor? The website itself enjoys resources that are not available to the average blogger, let alone to a Cuban blogger, who does not have the local administrative tools necessary to host a blog and also has to battle with an extremely slow network to connect to international sites like www.blogger.com and others.
The technical support provided by this particular website, which works almost exclusively for her blog, is custom-made and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The marketing strategy, through Google and other digital and traditional media, is also top of the line.
The blog´s content is manipulative. The blogger tries to organize mass mobilizations through www.twitter.com, social forums, and versions of the web 2.0 which are almost unknown in Cuba, a country with a severely limited bandwidth and extremely weak Internet facilities, since Internet connection on the island is via satellite. The United States blockade prohibits has prohibited Cuba from installing a much-needed underwater telecommunications cable, and Washington has banned for years electronic commerce and access to digital technology. Consequently, those who connect to the Internet in Cuba, at the average speed of 30-40 Kbps, can barely manage to check email, and other priorities that are light years away from Yantis negativism.
Who is this woman addressing then? It is obviously not a Cuban audience. Is she speaking to those outside Cuba, who are often bombarded with the type of biased discourse she favors? Is her objectivity guaranteed by the fact that she is in Cuba?
She also claims to be apolitical, not committed to any system, yet the tags used to identify her blog on the Internet say that www.desdecuba.com is a “political and independent review. It offers a different view than the one given by the Cuban government”. In her writings there are abundant references to the outdated political discourse used by the Department of State to justify including Cuba in its blacklist. Her notes are peppered with allusions to a 1950’s aesthetics, thus strengthening the stereotype of a ‘Havana in ruins’, a way to show Cuba in the worst possible light.
Lately, the blogger does not even seem to hide her ultra-right wing excesses, something that must certainly bother her handlers, as this is not the role she has been asked to play. Her comments now are more akin to what a digital Luis Posada Carriles would say, than those of a pacifist blogger and likely candidate to the Nobel Peace Prize. For example, in a note about “the night of the long knives that will befall on the island”, she explicitly adheres to the ‘license to kill’ attitude often invoked from Miami:
People waiting, with a stick or a knife under the bed for a day they can use them. Entrenched hatred against those who betrayed them, denied them a better job, or made sure their youngest child couldn’t study at the university. There are so many waiting for possible chaos to give them the time necessary for revenge, that one would wish not to have been born in this age, when one can only be a victim or victimizer, when so many yearn for the night of the long knives. (Yoani Sanchez, 25th April 2009)
If we follow the logic of U.S. strategists, the face of today’s anti-Cuban discourse is the least important issue. Yoani and those will come afterwards are paving the way for the promotion of their point of view on the billion people who get their information through the Internet, including the thousands of Cuban youths and children who, thanks to the efforts to educate them in the latest digital technology, will enjoy increasing access to the Internet.
The strategy of using the Internet as a tool of political intervention has been developing for at least five years, experiencing a crescendo during the past months, culminating with the recent announcement made by the Obama administration. He inherited from Bush the idea of directing funds to subversive activities against Cuba through the telecommunications arena. The fact that this is nothing new is confirmed by the note published by Paul Ritcher on 7th May 2008 in Los Angeles Times:
The U.S. Agency for International Development, which oversees the program, is trying to persuade Central European and Latin American nongovernmental groups to join U.S. organizations in applying for its grants. A chief goal, officials say, is to spend most of the $45-million budget on communications equipment, such as cell phones and Internet gear, that possibly could be smuggled into Cuba to increase its people's exposure to the outside world.
Could part of these funds have been allocated to financing the disproportionate campaign of Cuban cyber dissidence? Which European institutions are receiving funding from the United States? Do the 15,000 euros given the Cuban blogger by the Spanish group Prisa come from there? Is it a coincidence that Prisa, Yoani’s main marketing agency in Europe, also owns Noticias 24, one of the most aggressive anti-Chávez blogs in Venezuela?
Whichever the answer, it will be more of the same. The cyber command is not new, neither are the prefabricated cyber-dissidents and their webs, nor their political collaboration designed to try and destroy our government.
Rosa Miriam Elizalde is a Cuban journalist who lives and works in Cuba. She edits a Cuban publication called Cubadebate, writes frequently for the newspaper Juventud Rebelde, and is the author of several books, including Chávez Nuestro. She has twice won the Juan Gualberto Gómez Prize, Cuba's most prestigious journalism award.
Notes.
http://www.cubadebate.cu/index.php?tpl=design/opiniones.tpl.html&newsid_obj_id=14980
2009-05-06
LA HABANA.- La noticia le ha dado la vuelta al mundo: la administración Obama está ultimando la puesta en escena de un nuevo ejército ciberespacial. Primero The Wall Street Journal, luego The New York Times, afirmaron que el objetivo de este cibercomando era garantizar la seguridad de las redes de computadoras militares de Estados Unidos, amenazadas por la intrusión de “hackers” vinculados especialmente a países como China y Rusia.
QUITATE TÚ PARA PONERME YO
Esa misma publicación daría cuenta unos meses después, en mayo de 2008, que el Pentágono “está creando una red mundial de sitios web noticiosos en lengua extranjera, incluido un sitio en árabe para los iraquíes, y contrata periodistas locales para escribir historias de acontecimientos de actualidad y otros contenidos que promuevan los intereses de EE.UU. y mensaje contra insurgentes” [5].
¿Cuál era el denominador común de estas publicaciones, según USA Today? · Ser escrito por periodistas locales contratados para elaborar historias que se ajusten a los objetivos del Pentágono. · Personal militar o sus contratistas revisan las historias para asegurarse de que sean compatibles con esos objetivos. · A los periodistas se les paga por lo que publican.
Un sencillo ejercicio de comparación de los registros de dominio de estas web reveladas por el USA Today, y algunas que en esos primeros meses del 2008 gozaban de una súbita publicidad, revelaba el siguiente resultado:
CIBERDISIDENTES
La USAID, a cargo de supervisar el programa para promover la democracia en Cuba, está tratando de convencer a grupos no gubernamentales en Europa Central y América Latina de que se unan a organizaciones estadounidenses para solicitar subvenciones… El objetivo es utilizar mayor parte del presupuesto de 45 millones de dólares para comprar equipos de telecomunicaciones como teléfonos celulares y medios para acceder a la Internet.
[1]
BURGHARDT, Tom (2009): “The Pentagon's Cyber Command:
Formidable Infrastructure arrayed against the American
People”. En Global Research, April 26,
2009. Se puede descargar en la web
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13354
[2]
RUMSFELD, Donald (2003):
Information Operations Roadmap, United-States
National Security Archive, October 30, 2003.
Se puede descargar en la web
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB177/info_ops_roadmap.pdf
(PDF 2,3 Mb) [3] WOOD, Sara (2006) "New Air Force Command to Fight in Cyberspace". En: American Forces Press Service. U.S. Department of Defense, November 3, 2006.
[4]
MICHAELS, Jim (2007): “U.S. Military Beefs Up Internet
Arsenal”. En: USA Today, Mach, 28, 2007.
[5]
EISLER, Peter (2008): "Pentagon launches foreign news
websites". En USA Today, May 1, 2008. [6]En junio de 2005, Parsons generó una gran controversia cuando afirmó en su blog que los métodos de interrogatorio que los Estados Unidos utilizaban en Guantánamo "son increíblemente suaves. Todos los presos reciben atención médica regular”. PARSONS, Bob (2005): "Close Gitmo? No Way", 19 de junio de 2005. En la web http://www.bobparsons.com/CloseGitmoNowayThinkourinterrogationmethodsaretoughPrisonersintheMiddleEasttalkquickHereswhyt.html
[7]
La llamada Ley Torricelli o Ley de
autorización y de defensa nacional para el año fiscal
1992, que autorizó la conexión de la Isla a la Red,
por vía satelital, con el condicionamiento de que cada
megabyte (rango de velocidad de conexión) debía ser
contratado a empresas norteamericanas o sus subsidiarias
y aprobado por el Departamento del Tesoro. Estableció
limitar esa contratación y decidió sanciones
extraordinarias —multas de 50 000 dólares por cada
violación— para quienes favorezcan, dentro o fuera de
EE.UU., el negocio electrónico o el más mínimo beneficio
económico de la Isla. Esto se ha estado aplicando
rigurosamente y poco a poco la OFAC ha ido ampliando su
lista negra hasta el delirio. En abril de 2004, la OFAC
informó al Congreso que de sus 120 empleados, cuatro
fueron asignados para seguir la pista de las finanzas de
Osama Bin Laden y Saddam Hussein, mientras que casi dos
docenas se ocupaban de reforzar el bloqueo contra Cuba.
Admitieron que utilizaban la Internet como fuente
fundamental para seguir las pistas del dinero. Por
cierto en las medidas anunciadas recientemente por
Obama, ni siquiera se menciona el tema de las
transacciones de dinero vía electrónica. Es decir, aquí
también el bloqueo se mantiene intacto.
[8]
Google AdWords es el método que utiliza Google para
hacer publicidad bajo su patrocinio. Son anuncios que se
muestran de forma relevante en los resultados de la
búsqueda del usuario (por ej., si el usuario buscó “cuba",
a la derecha o arriba de las páginas indexadas por
PageRank aparecerán anuncios referentes a “cuba”).
Google cobra al dueño de la publicidad por cada clic
hecho sobre su anuncio.
[9]
Hay numerosos trabajos en esta revista que teorizan
sobre la guerra de información y el uso de las llamadas
nuevas tecnologías. Les recomiendo, por ejemplo, el
artículo "Partnering with the Iraqi media" En:
Military Review, julio-agosto 2008. Se puede
descargar en la web
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/JulAug08/DeCarvalhoEngJulAug08.pdf
[10]
Luis Posada Carriles, ciudadano venezolano de origen
cubano. Es un terrorista confeso, responsable de la
voladura de un avión civil en el que murieron sus 73
pasajeros y de la serie de bombas que estallaron en
hoteles cubanos, en la década del 90, y que le costó la
vida a un turista italiano. Posada Carriles vive en
Miami. [11]RICHTER, Paul (2008): “Cuba USAID Program Gets Overhaul” En: Los Angeles Times. May 7, 2008. Se puede descargar en la web http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/07/world/fg-uscuba7
Otros artículos de la autora en Cubadebate:
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