The United States (US) may have imposed sanctions on Burma (Myanmar), but ironically it is a US company which has indirectly helped the junta in that country to censor the Internet. The OpenNetInitiative (ONI) says a product from Calfornia-based Fortinet Technologies has made it to Burma, and is used to filter sites. In its report, OpenNet said Fortinet's FortiGuard system has made its way to Burma in spite of US sanctions, and is now in use there.
This revelation has been by ONI in a report titled "Internet Filtering in Burma in 2005," which documents the degree and extent to which the government of Burma controls the information environment in which its citizens live, including websites, blogs, email, and online discussion forums. ONI is a collaborative partnership between the University of Toronto, Harvard University, and the University of Cambridge.
A Fortinet spokesperson said in the New York Times that the company "does not condone doing business with US-embargoed or sanctioned countries." Like many software companies, Fortinet utilises a model where it sells products to resellers, who then sell them to users. Fortinet said it had no idea how the regime procured its product.
The Mizzima news agency, which does not operate from Burma, however, rebuffed the claim, in a report. "An article published in the New Light of Myanmar in May last year, clearly shows members of the Myanmar Millennium Group Co Ltd (MMG) accepting the Fortinet product at a ceremony in Rangoon. Mizzima has received reports that a technician from MMG said the company, headed by Min Zeyar Hlaing, the son in law of Lt Gen Khin Maung Than, was an official Fortinet reseller in Sunnyvale, California."
Drawing from technical, legal, and political sources, ONI's research has found that the Burmese state seeks to maintain the capability to conduct surveillance of communication methods such as email, and block users from viewing websites of political opposition groups, organisations working for democratic change in Burma, and pornographic material. Burma's online restrictions mirror offline regulation implemented by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), a group of military officials who maintain authoritarian control over the state.
Burma's system combines costly Internet access to Burma's citizens and software-based filtering techniques with broad, vague laws containing harsh penalties to significantly limit the materials Burma's citizens can access online, the report said. Individual dial-up subscribers may only access state-monitored email and the country's intranet, a small collection of mostly government and business websites hosted by Burmese authorities and companies.
Citizens who want to access the World Wide Web and who do not have individual subscriptions can only do so from Internet cafes in Rangoon and Mandalay. While providing expanded access to all those who can afford it, cafes have rates (around US$1.50 per hour in 2003) that are still expensive for the average Burmese. Anonymous Internet use is impossible; cybercafe licenses require that patrons register their name, identification number, and address to gain access. Internet content is also regulated by the 2000 Web Regulations, which prohibits any content that is "directly or indirectly detrimental to the interests of the Union of Burma."
Economic factors play a large role in limiting Internet access. Establishing a broadband connection with Burma's main ISP, state-run Bagan Cybertech, costs US$1,300, a prohibitive sum in a state where the average annual income is US$225 per capita.
Burma's system of Internet controls places the country among the world's most restrictive Internet regimes, and it appears to offer the clearest example yet of a Western company offering filtering technology that permits censorship of political speech to an authoritarian government for use upon its populace. The combination of expensive access, harsh laws, and software-based filtering makes the Internet largely a state-controlled space in Burma, the report said.
