U.S. Firm Acknowledges Syria Uses Its Gear to Block Web

[Newsjock]

Source: Wall Street Journal

A U.S. company that makes Internet-blocking gear acknowledges that Syria has been using at least 13 of its devices to censor Web activity there—an admission that comes as the Syrian government cracks down on its citizens and silences their online activities.

Blue Coat Systems Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., says it shipped the Internet "filtering" devices to Dubai late last year, believing they were destined for a department of the Iraqi government. However, the devices—which can block websites or record when people visit them—made their way to Syria, a country subject to strict U.S. trade embargoes.

Blue Coat told The Wall Street Journal the appliances were transmitting automatic status messages back to the company as the devices censored the Syrian Web. Blue Coat says it doesn't monitor where such "heartbeat" messages originate from. Computer code reviewed by the Journal indicates that Syrians were also using other Blue Coat products, raising questions about how the tools came to be used this way and whether Blue Coat has violated the trade embargo.

... The discovery of the devices in Syria shows the difficulty of controlling U.S. tech exports and demonstrates how regimes manage to use Western technology to censor speech and stifle dissent even when they are subject to trade sanctions. As the Arab Spring uprisings swept the region this year, security forces used Western technology in their often brutal fight to retain political control.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203687504577001911398596328.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Arctic Dave]

1. Riiight. They don't have any idea how they got there.

Halliburton said the same thing about all their well service equipment.

[tcaudilllg]

2. More flagrant disregard for the law.

[Psephos]

3. If the Syrians couldn't get them from a US supplier, they'd get them from the Chinese.

Trade sanctions mean little in a fluid global economy.