SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT CUBA AND THE INTERNET
by Walter Lippmann, CubaNews list
moderator
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
A few notes and facts to put Cuba and the Internet into
some context.
Not exhaustive. Just what one student was able to
quickly assemble.
December 2007, and being updated regularly, now as of June 2009
It's been said that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is
getting its boots on. Please stay with what will be an unusually detailed
message. Internet issues are complicated in any event, and issues related to
Cuba make this more so. People who are living in the United States or other
so-called "advanced" capitalist countries have so little idea of what life is
like in Third World countries. This will take some time to review basic facts
and then see them in some historical context (not a lot, but some).
Back in Los Angeles, I signed up for a high-speed connection to the internet (called "Digital Subscriber Line" or "broadband") four years ago when it first came out. Movement between pages and sending data up and back through the internet happens so quickly one rarely gives it much thought. The old dialup system which had preceded it is, for someone like myself, forgotten, until we come back to Cuba, where dialup access at a supposed speed of 56 kbps is what there is. And at times it can be way, way slower than this. It can be as low as 12 kpbs at a bad time, and that is an agonizingly slow speed to get and send information. If you are at home reading this on your personal commuter, you might want to consider what goes with that but which we don't often think about, or might not be conscious of. If you're at home you:
1-Have a telephone.
2-Have a computer.
3-Have internet access.
4-Have electricity.
5-Have the ability to read and write.
6-And the income to pay for these.
7-Other things I cannot think of right now.
Did you know that 90% of the people of the WORLD do not have internet access?
Most of those who have it live in a very small handful of countries centered in
the US, Europe and Canada. Last weekend's Sunday Juventud Rebelde provided us
with a detailed portrait of internet access world-wide, and here on the island.
It's been circulated elsewhere in Spanish and Ana Portela, a very gifted Cuban
translator made it available for us to use for CubaNews in English. Please read
it carefully to help see the details of the internet issue as related to Cuba.
----------------------------------------------
Notes by Nelson Valdes, June 25, 2009
Providing some context to this Reuters report
Cuba lags region in telecoms, Internet access
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/102811
Telephone as well as Internet access is defined in this case as per household.
That is th way that access is defined in capitalist societies. However, in many
Third World countries access does not coincide with the location where the phone
or the Internet service is located. Community phone service might be accessible
to a lot of people although they do not have a phone line at home; same with
email. In other words, the data mght say: the city of Artemisa has 40
telephones. But that does not mean that only 40 persons have access to phone
service. The same is true as far as email or Internet access. One account, many
users. Then there is socialized/community oriented acess in specific locations,
as it is done in US public libraries. In Cuba it is done through the Joven Club
in each municipality.
For example, most Cubans do not own a musical instrument. But, Cuba has
locations were musical instruments can be borrowed by the general population.
In per capita terms, more people have taken computer classes in Cuba than in the
majority of the Third World. For example, as of January 30, 2009 two million
people have taken computer classes as the Joven Clubs. The figure refers to the
general public and not to people whoprofessionally take such courses. Cuba has
begun a very unique program for an underdeveloped country: the GeroClub - which
teaches how to use a computer top people over the age of 65.
On another matter: The US offer of having US Telecom service available to the
the island, should be understood within the context of Helms-Burton as well as
the US promoted "Twitter revolution" going on in Iran now. How come the US
government refuses to sell transponders and other equipment to Cuba but offesr
Cuba the opportunity of having "access" to US based transponders in south
Florida? The answer is obvious.
Marc Frank’s article FAILS to note that more than 50% of the population in 47
countries account for 68.7% of the Internet connectivity. That is 717 million
people. The percentage of the entire world population that has Internet
connectivity is 21.9%. Out of a total population of 6.6 billion inhabitants, the
total Internet users number 1.4 billion. [1]
Approximately 28% of Americans do not have connectivity. In Australia, "one
fifth of Australians have never used the net."[2] In neither of those two
countries the population confronts a systematic economic and technological
blockade.
[1]
http://www.internetworldstats.com/top25.htm
[2]
http://cci.edu.au/post/world-internet-project-finds-australia-still-a-nation-digitally-divided
Nelson Valdes
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND
INTERNET ACCESS ON THE INCREASE
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/23061
but you may wish to read this through to the end and then read this.
(It's reposted below now.)
This is even more difficult, I think, for those of us who aren't well-versed in the technical aspects of the internet, servers and so on. I'm no expert in these matters and have been working hard to compile enough information to make understandable sense of the things which are happening.
Here's as much of the story as I've been able to assemble, from several sources. I'm putting together for you and article from Sunday's Cuban newspaper Juventud, translated into English, and comments by Kathleen Kelly of the NY Transfer News Collective, I'm hopeful this will make much of this story understandable.
Telephone service in Cuba was a private monopoly prior to the Revolution. Since that time, when telephone service on the island became a public utility through nationalization, phone service has been maintained, but with difficulty. Steady efforts have been made to upgrade the island's telephone service. I can tell you from experience that it has improved significantly since I began to come here in 1999. Residential telephone service, which has reached many Cuban homes, but by no means all, is being steadily expanded.
Telephone service in Cuba for the residential customer is quite, inexpensive. It is considered a public utility and for the residential customer monthly phone service costs 6.5 Cuban pesos. Remember, the Cuban peso is considered equal to 5 CENTS in the US. So a monthly basic service charge in Cuba is under 25 US CENTS.
Late last year the Cuban government, seeing the growing numbers of individuals who had found ways to access internet service without paying for it. Internet access is particularly expensive for Cuba because Washington has prevented the island from making links for service through fiber-optic cables which could enable such links.
As a result, Cuba is compelled to pay for internet access through the expensive and slower form of a satellite server, for which it must pay in US dollars. The United States government has denied Cuba the ability to purchase internet access directly through the US via fiber optic cables which would be much cheaper and much faster.
In the United States, an individual telephone line costs somewhere between $20 and $30 per month. Internet access, for the cheapest dialup connection would run an addition $20 for a very cheap kind of service. And this doesn't include things like electricity, the ownership of a computer and so many other things.
In the United States, if someone hooks up an illegal connection to the telephone line, that's considered a crime. When someone gets a satellite dish or cable television and doesn't pay for it, that's considered theft. No one in the US would consider having internet access or cable or dish television to be a RIGHT. They're services for which the customer must pay.
Many voices have been raised criticizing the Cuban authorities for its decision to stop the illegal and unpaid access to the internet by Cubans who either haven't paid for it, or who have found ways to illegally purchase or access internet service. But this is just something which has been done to guarantee that the system as a whole can continue to operate. Cuba is at numerous disadvantages due to Washington's blockade of the island, a constant factor that must be understood as underlying nearly everything which happens in this country.
I have a regular commercial internet account with the Cuban phone company for which I'm paying $100.00 per month for 150 hours of internet access. While this seems very high to me, compared to the cost of a $21 dialup account in the US with unlimited access, it's a bargain in Cuba where most people who have access to the internet as foreigners pay for phone cards or go to internet cafés where they pay $6.00 per hour for the service. (And for time over 150 hours, I pay $1.00 per hour). Cuba's high price for the internet isn't gouging, but flows from the fact that it has to get this from the slower and more expensive satellite connection, paid for in US dollars to a US company, and THIS is because the US won't allow Cuba to have a fiber-optical connection through a simple cable to Florida as other countries can have.
By the way, I'm pretty much in agreement with those who say that the recently announced plans to limit internet access really do not have much to do with political ideas being restricted since there's but one political party in Cuba, and a small number of foreign political websites are evidently blocked here, such as the Cuban-American National Foundation and Cubanet, the CIA- funded website based in Florida which pays many of the so-called "dissidents" for the reports sent out via Radio Marti and via CubaNet. I normally check these when in Los Angeles, but cannot access them here in Cuba. That's nothing new. But opponents of the Cuban government don't have a problem with internet access anyway, since they can go to the US Interests Section and get whatever internet access they might want there.
Enough from me for the moment.
Originally posted: January 23, 2004
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/23064
A few additional reference articles:
U.S. Army on the offensive over the Internet:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs999.html
War of the Worlds, Internet
by Rosa Miriam Elizalde
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs470.html
Cuba, the Internet and Reporters
without Borders
Salim Lamrani
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1177.html
Wall Street Journal on
Joani Sanchez and the Cuban Revolution
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1702.html
Internet for all, a chimera?
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs638.html
Cuban Ministry of Information Technology and Communications:
Digital technology and
Internet access on the rise.
Heriberto Rosabal
2004-01-18
Special for Juventud Rebelde and Cubadebate
Telephone digital technology finally arrived, this weekend, to the easternmost Cuban province, Guantánamo, 910 kilometers from the capital. Shortly before, the national network of optical fibers reached that point also. All this is an important event for Cuba, allowing for a fast and efficient communication, as in any other part of the world, which is a basic requirement and highly valuable from all points of view.
"In truth - the Minister of Information Technology and Communications (MIC), Ignacio González Planas commented in an exclusive to Juventud Rebelde - today, Guantanamo counts on digital technology. It was once the most backward province in the country in information technology and communications (ITCs), in a short time period made possible an increase of telephone density, from 2,4 to 3,1 telephones for every hundred inhabitants in that region, notably improving the quality of the telephone service".
The arrival of the National Optical Fiber system to Guantanamo, González Planas pointed out that, in addition to improving telephone traffic, it makes possible the optimal reception of the educational channels that will also be felt with other transmissions in the future.
"Now only Las Tunas and Granma are still lacking digital technology - both with very low capacity of connection yet - and that is foreseen this year, or at the most, during the early months of the next".
Taking advantage of this dialogue with the head of MIC, we broadened the scope of this subject and others analyzed only a week ago in the yearly balance of the Ministry.
In relation to these last steps … where does Cuba stand exactly in the development of the telecommunications infrastructure and what benefit do the Cubans derive from what has been done up to now?
- We have to continue moving forward in the infrastructure of our telecommunications system. There are 6,37 telephones for every one hundred inhabitants throughout the country, with a distribution that is not fairly distributed. For example, in Havana there are 14 for every hundred inhabitants; but there are provinces with less than three and areas and regions with less than two. In Havana, itself, there are municipalities with about two also, mostly those in the southern part of the city and, however, Playa, Plaza de la Revolucion and Centro Habana have much more than 14.
"The situation becomes more complex with the addition of telephone networks, even the most developed, that are very old, including in the capital; copper networks in an out of date technical stage that cannot be modified as quickly as a telephone central, that has just happened in Guantánamo.
"With a telephone network each house has to be visited and this requires an investment and time allowed for the organizations responsible for these investments - telephone posts, cables - to achieve an adequate distribution."
- However, growth will continue to move forward. According to the yearly balance of the MIC, 80 000 new telephone lines will be installed.
- Our aim is to continue to grow until we achieve, in four or five years, about 20 telephones for every hundred inhabitants in Havana and 12 to 14 in the rest of the country.
"For this we have the incomes of the branch of telecommunications, part of which have been systematically dedicated to the investments that promote this infrastructure at a rhythm that has led to the creation of ETECSA in1994 and, today, adding about two telephones per hundred inhabitants to reach 6,37; and from a 4 percent of digital technology in 1995 to 80 percent at present.
"Communications are very important for the Cubans. In the first place, today there is quite a bit of stress over telephone communications. The great majority of the population want a telephone today and there are a relatively few people who have access to telephone traffic.
"There are still some isolated localities that lack a minimum system of communication and villages of about 500 or more inhabitants with no communication whatsoever. That is what we want to achieve more rapidly now, when we are going to integrate investments to hook up telephones and wireless telephones to connect these isolated places. If we depended on the cable it would take too long and would be very costly.
"Consequently, we have foreseen increasing these 80 000 lines this year, one part with wireless telephone systems and another part with hooked up telephones. This important increase (20 000 more than in 2003) that permits a growth rhythm that doubled the number of lines available in the country in five years.
"It is still not enough, but the infrastructure is getting stronger. Transmission has improved much since the use of the optic fibers in the national network that has created a capacity of adequate traffic.
"The digital technology set up in all the provincial capitals is resulting in a telephone system of quality and in quantity as well as a greater possibility of increase in the numbers. And we have to continue work to reach those regions of difficult access".
- In other words … to spin off from the provincial capitals to the rest of the regions?
- That is the most urgent task. Now we even have cases in which we have the telephone capacity in a plant and we lack the possibility of getting it out. I repeat, the change of a telephone central is a relatively short investment but setting up the network in each neighborhood, each block, each home with a number hook-up line (par) for each home, and that requires time and is very costly.
- In this context, access to data transmission, Internet and e-mail, very much related to the constantly growing use of computers is another matter completely. What is happening there? What is the policy on these subjects?
- In our meeting to sum up the results of the year 2003 and the discussion of the most important tasks for 2004, we explained that the country has an estimated 270 000 computers, 65 percent on the network and that there are 1 100 dominion cu points, more than 750 web sites on the Internet and more than 480 000 e-mail accounts. All the press, national and local is on the Internet. Several radio station broadcasts are on the Internet in real time and Cubavision International is also available on Internet.
"These figures - achieved in spite of our limitations in our communications infrastructure - demonstrate an important growth; but they are still not enough. The 6,37 telephones per hundred inhabitants and the old and worn networks limit a totally efficient access to Internet.
"What has been achieved has been possible applying a policy in accord of our economic situation and our development plans. We have given priority to the use of Internet in the social fields, in Public Health, Education, Science and Technology, national and local Press and Television, culture, banking, the most important branches of the economy and, more recently, to the services for the population.
"This policy has made possible an intense use of the technical connection possibilities and a broad and increasing access that should continue to grow systematically. Hundreds of thousands of people in Cuba travel on the Internet and each day there will be more. Only through INFOMED, the Public Health Internet, about 30 000 professionals, doctors and paramedical personnel click in. In Higher Education almost all the professors and a great number of students navigate on the Internet with the only restriction of computer time available and the speed of our networks.
"The workers of scientific centers and of research and development have conditions that insure access to Internet, for a constant scientific and technical up dating and an efficient interchange with their counterparts in other countries. Many journalists use Internet on a daily basis in their work.
"In the 300 Computer Youth Clubs that are located in all the municipalities of the country thousands of young people click on to TINORED. The culture municipal centers permit a constant access to writers, artists and other workers of Culture, and through the e-mails, a service that is just beginning, direct and progressive access will be available to the population, on the whole.
"In addition, conditions are being created to multiply the use of computer science in the country. In the first place with the effort to teach computer use to the pre-schooler; all the schools in the country have computers that are also used in the teaching-education process, including 2 368 schools with solar panels and 93 with only one student. In Higher Education there is a computer for every 12 students who massively make use of this technology. The University of Information Sciences (UCI), recently created, has today 4 000 students and will graduate 2 000 professionals a year as of the period of 2006 - 2007 added to the existence of computer science faculties in all the universities of the country. A total of 30 000 students are taking courses for programmers and in other computer science specialties at the mid level of education.
"There is a great effort employed to promote the Cuban industry of software with a strong emphasis in health, education, banking, telecommunications, tourism, culture. In the near future the use of Cuban software in tele-medicine and tele-education will be a daily occurrence.
"Means are studied and solutions implemented to improve and make more efficient the services to the citizenry and to develop electronic commerce.
"These are only a few examples since you have asked, and considering that - by the way - there are a few news cables affirming that we are repressing Internet".
- Those press cables refer to a resolution of the MIC that, allegedly, prevents access of the Cubans to Internet. Is that so?
- Nothing is farther from the present reality. In a world where access to Internet is only possible by the elite, in which millions of persons have never seen a telephone, nor have any hope of access, because, in addition, the great majority do not know how to read or write, the possible road for the underdeveloped nations and more democratic and massive nations is the one we are following. We have no doubt.
"The speculations of these news dispatches and reports of the international press these days manipulate a basic measure of protection of the networks and Internet clients.
"The world is full of hackers, virus, Trojan horses, illegal uses of networks, pornography in the Internet. Everywhere and every day, measures are taken to prevent this mess, essential for the networks to function properly. When we take some basic legal measures of control, criticisms are at the fore, concerned about the "liberties" of the Cubans, who can doubt that we are, even if they object, the freest people of the World.
"I can categorically say that there is no new change in the policy established for Internet, complying with the present regulations, access will continue, that the access of Cubans to the Internet will grow according to the availability of connections and that we are going to be firm against illegalities, in defense of the Network. In the recent World Summit of the Information Society, we presented the report, Cuba: the ITCs for all, clearly explaining our present situation and our policy on the subject.
"It became obvious in the Summit that our practice could be very useful for the countries of the Third World whose economic and social situation demands special solutions that have nothing to do with those used and proposed by the rich countries.
"We will continue to work in this direction, convinced that the use of Internet and the new information and communication technologies, if done creatively and from the specific situation of our countries can help us significantly in development and the defense of our ideas and rights, as our Commander in Chief has said".
a - In the case of Cuba … how has the United States blockade influenced access of the ITCs proclaiming itself as the most democratic in the World and declared in the Geneva Summit that it should be the same for all?
- The blockade makes everything extraordinarily difficult. In the document we prepared for the Summit in Geneva we clearly explained the significance of the blockade. The United States, owner of the highest technology, produces very efficient and modern equipment and is also largely the owner of the software industry and its transnational corporations have this control in many other countries.
"We, on the other hand, because of the blockade, have had to resort to complex mechanisms to acquire, sometimes, some technologies and at times we are unable to do so. We have to accept solutions that we would not want at certain times. Equipment is much more expensive, often transported over long distances.
"Luckily we have important collaboration with countries that have a significant technological development, such as China, that supplied the digital centrals of Guantanamo, Sancti Spiritus, and the Isle of Youth and grants facilities to increase this high quality technology in the country".
From the Summit on the Society of Information, Ignacio González Planas has a story referring to the other blockade, the one on a universal scale from the so-called "digital breach" that exists among the rich poor:
"In the Round Table where I represented Cuba, a delegate of an African nation said, in the middle of the debate about the access of our countries to the ITCs … What are we talking about here, if there are only 0,16 telephones in our country for every hundred inhabitants?
"I ask myself if this is the possibility of 'free' and 'democratic' access to Internet and, in general, to the new technologies that many think about".
.................
THE ITCs AND THE BLOCKADE
The blockade of the United States against Cuba is a serious obstacle for our country to access the new information and communications technologies:
- Since 1962, Cuba has been forbidden access to telecommunications and computer equipment from any U.S. company or subsidiary.
- Because of the blockade, the Cuban sector of telecommunications has suffered millionaire losses in the basic and wireless telephone activity, alarm systems, electronic trade and mail communications. Just in the telephone system, losses rose to 21,7 million dollars in 2002.
- If it weren't for the blockade, with only 0,1 percent of the electronic trade market of the United States, that is well over 500 000 million dollars yearly (figure for 2000), Cuba could have an income of 500 million dollars a year.
- Due to the impossibility of purchasing in the United States market, the Cuban company, CITMATEL, supplier of computer equipment to scientific centers in the Island, has often had to acquire these through third countries and pay up to 30 percent more in relation to prices in the U.S.
- On April 10, 2003, the U.S. Commerce Department denied a USA/Cuba-Infomed export license, a humanitarian non governmental organization based in California, with the purpose, as in other cases before, of donating 423 computers to Cuban hospitals and policlinics to support the diagnostic and medical information network. It claimed that "This export would seriously injure the interests of foreign policy of the United States".
- When the U.S. army developed the electronic mail, Cuba did not have access to this service, nor to the technical know-how or equipment. Until May of 1994 Cuba was, consequently, unable to join the Internet at the beginning.
- The Torricelli law of 1992, that strengthened the blockade, identified communications with Cuba as a means of weakening the revolutionary regime.
- It does not depend on Cuba to connect on Internet at the speed it wishes to, or with as many channels and independent suppliers it could chose. Every time Cuba attempts to add a new channel on the Internet, the U.S. counterpart must obtain the proper license from the Treasury Department. In the same vein, if a U.S. company wants to open a new channel for Cuba or decides to increase the connection speed it needs a license.
- The present Cuban connection to what has become known as the network of networks does not offer an adequate band width to satisfy the demands of the country. The blockade forces Cuba to use a satellite band width and connection that is costly and slow. The problem could be solved if there were a fibre optic cable between Cuba and Florida, but the United States authorities have not permitted this. .................
MIRAGES OF THE INTERNET
Access to Internet is far from being a benefit for the great majority:
90 percent of the world population does not have access to Internet.
More than 70 percent of those connected live in developed countries.
In Africa less than one percent of the population has access to Internet. More than half of these are South Africans. The lack of telephone lines are linked to electricity. In Ghana, only 20 percent of the homes have electricity; in Namibia, 5 percent; in Senegal, 2,3 percent and in Mozambique, 0,04 percent, according to data from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
In Central America, access to Internet is a luxury. In Guatemala 0,6 percent of the population have access; in El Salvador, 0,7; in Nicaragua, 0,04 and in Honduras, 0,03 percent.
Even in great and populous nations of the Third World, very few inhabitants can have access to Internet: in Mexico, 4,6 percent of the population; in India, 1,6 percent and in Indonesia, 1,8 percent.
In Russia, that was once a great power, only 4,2 percent of the citizens have access to Internet.
International statistics point out that the most visited sites of the Internet are the pornographic and on line games. In 2003, according to INTEPOL, 170 000 web sites registered were dedicated to pedophilia.
Here's a message from Kathleen L. Kelly of NY Transfer News written to David McReynolds on these issues. She's co-owner and operator of Blythe Communications, an independent ISP in New York City, a friend of Cuba and a very knowledgeable person on internet issues as related to Cuba. She wrote:
[Original Message]
From: Kathleen L Kelly <kelly@blythe.org>
To: <david.mcr@earthlink.net>
Date: 1/13/04 11:12:48 AM
Subject: Regarding internet restrictions in Cuba
David --
The Anita Snow AP piece does not give the full story. In recent years, Cuban internet access has expanded considerably (despite the mainstream press's tendency to keep writing that "the internet is 'illegal' in Cuba"). They have also upgraded thousands of phone systems all over the island, at a cost of millions of dollars. The new phone service has meant that many more home phones can access the net. Accounts are bought and sold on the black market, often shared by several purchasers, at a rate of $40 or $50 a month per account [thanks to corruption among the young technically advantaged who have access and can provide passwords and login IDs to existing accounts -- it's been happening for years and the price has been going up]. So, for example, people who have accounts at Cuban tourism companies or foreign companies or domestic Cuban companies often find their accounts have been hijacked late at night and used by unknown interlopers.
There is now a new regulation that aims to stop this. It requires etecsa, the phone company, to block internet access to phone lines that people pay for in Cuban pesos (the non-convertible national currency). These phones cost literally pennies a month to any Cuban citizen. Internet access, which requires expensive satellite connectivity, has been available right along to any telephone number, as long as you had an ID and password. But legally, you are supposed to pay for it in US dollars. People without accounts often use the etecsa-sold internet cards, which provide access at $100 for 125 hours. Of course, these are sold for US dollars only.
The new law was to take effect on Saturday, but they have extended the deadline to Jan 24th to give people time to make other arrangements if they have been using their perso-paid phone numbers to access the net.
I believe that the regulation is also aimed at corruption at all levels of this loop -- the phone company itself, the system administrators who sell "night-time" access to these legitimate accounts, and their corrupt supervisors. There are many people turning a blind eye, at all levels, to this theft of expensive service, and it's been this way for years. Just like Americans, Cubans seem to believe that the "internet wants to be free..." not politically, but in terms of having to pay for it. In Cuba, selling access to someone else's account is even profitable.
It is apparently NOT aimed at Gusanos, who of course have access to dollars and people who can buy them legitimate internet cards for dollars, to use for counter-revolutionary purposes.
I don't believe, either, that it's really aimed at the average Cuban who uses the net via illegal or semi-legal accounts for e-mail, web-surfing, etc. (Even though these people, too, are stealing services from dollar- paying customers with accounts that are really quite expensive in Cuba). Instead, it seems to be aimed at people who are using these hijacked accounts to do things like exchange and download pornography, bandwidth-intensive files like music and games and -- alas, a relatively new development -- send Spam, worms, and viruses around the network. This last is potentially extremely serious, because if hijacked accounts are used during the night to send viruses from the Cuban network, the whole Cuban internet structure could easily end up "banned" and blocked by national spam-blocking lists and software, making it impossible for the tourism industry, the national news agencies, and commercial internet customers to communicate at all. We have seen, and reported, several instances of these destructive messages in the last few months. Despite intensive efforts to catch incoming and outgoing viruses and worms and block them, some are still getting through.
From what I can tell, people who have been using the net legally, at home, for freelance work, journalism, research, etc. for pesos per month are managing to get alternate access by being listed as "legal" users of commercial and government accounts held by the agencies they work for.
It isn't the great way to solve the problem, because the regulation just adds fuel to the mainstream media claims that Cuba is an internet gulag where no one is allowed to surf the web or get e-mail, ignoring free access at universities, youth clubs, and internet cafes that the govt has set up at post offices, etc. However, the press is going to say those things anyway, so I suppose they decided they had to do something to stop the illegal theft of services, which really pisses off the paying foreign customers, and most recently the destructive sending of forged spam, worms and viruses from legitimate accounts that then get blocked outside the country by ISPs.
However, if they could, it would be better if they simply made it easier for people to access the net using some kind of subsidized service for a limited number of hours that is more widely available. It wouldn't stop the corruption, or the illegal access, but it would give the anti-Cuba propaganda mill less raw material.
Kelly
************************************************************
"The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it." --Abbie Hoffman
ASSOCIATED PRESS: CUBA TIGHTENS WEB ACCESS:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/23062
And here's the Cuban explanation of these issues:
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNET ACCESS ON THE INCREASE
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/23061
FOR MORE NEWS, VIEWS AND INFORMATION ON CUBA:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/messages
Despite US Blockade, Cuba Opening Doors To Internet
By: Angel Rodríguez
June 08, 2006
Havana, (AIN).- If someone in any part of the world is told that in Cuba one cannot have free access to the Internet, one would think that it was simply a violation of individual freedom - unless they were offered a full explanation.
What is important is to understand is the digital disparity between the First and Third Worlds, a situation greatly worsened on the island due to Washington´s economic blockade. In addition to financial restraints increasingly being placed on Cuba by Washington, the island is not allowed to connect to underwater optic fiber cables through which the overwhelming bulk of worldwide information flows.
Internet reception and transmission on the island is therefore reduced to satellite communication. This substantially limits the country´s connectivity capacity, causes the transmission of information to slow down and makes the process much more expensive.
For these reasons, the country set out to a development strategy to forge ahead in the ¨informatization¨ of society. This is seen as the only way to have technology reach the broadest sectors of the nation and a larger number of people worldwide.
The informatization of society is defined in Havana as ¨the process of orderly and massive use of information and communication technology to satisfy the information and knowledge needs of all people and spheres of society.¨ The issue has been touched upon on various occasions in speeches by Cuban President Fidel Castro, who recently expressed the official objective: ¨Millions of Cubans could communicate with millions of people in the world through the Internet¨. The first step in that direction took place in 1996 when the Ministry of Communications--which until then had been devoted to traditional postal work, telephone links and radio and television transmissions-- was transformed into the Informatics and Communications Ministry.
A decade later, the island is showing notable advances in this important sector, as demonstrated by the growing number of citizens and institutions with Internet access and by in massive training of highly specialized engineers and technicians. The scope of this effort would seem inconceivable in not only Third World nations, but in many First World countries. So as not to offer an image that might seem overly optimistic, we can make reference to concrete aspects which are easily verifiable by any interested visitor to the country.
In Cuba, computer courses are included in the national education programs starting at the first grade level.
There are 26 Informatics Polytechnic Institutions in the provinces; these are equipped with modern digital technology and have an enrollment of 40,000 students of whom the first class will graduate in 2008. In addition to the existing programs in the universities, in mid-2002 the Computer Sciences University (UCI) was created. It has 8,000 students selected from among the most talented and hard working in this specialty. Complementing this effort are the over 600 Computer Clubs established and operating throughout the country´s 169 municipalities. This project is important due to its egalitarian character: everyone can have access regardless of their age or occupation.
Some 800,000 people have graduated from universities, mainly young people. Up until today, over 200 of these facilities have Internet access and there are plans of extending this service to all of them. We can also mention the INFOMED network, which belongs to the Health Ministry. Academics and professionals can also navigate with a personalized Internet access through special connections. This also includes doctors, journalists, artists and scientists.
Interviewed by the Cuban press, Engineer Roberto Santiesteban, director of the Data Business Unit which belongs to the island´s telecommunication company, offered a panorama of the future. ¨The more we develop our Internet and more possibilities for connections, the service will spread nationally. This is conditioned by the cost and technological availability to Cuba, which is advancing on a yearly basis through the import of computers and making agreements with other nations,¨ said Santiesteban.
¨Without a doubt these are the guidelines that will make it possible for any Cuban to have Internet access,¨ he concluded.
This and no other is the truth in what is happening in Cuba with the present and future of Internet access
Source: AIN