Case Study: Government as an inhibitor to the free flow of information
China's isolationist attitude in political matters has now extended to its inforrmation infrastructure development as well.  Rather than risk exposing its general population to potentially subversive or politically incorrect information on-line, it has restricted the flow of information by implementing cyberlaws.

Since February 1996, it has imposed the following regulations:
All network traffic must be channeled through the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications (MPT).  This implies that anyone wishing to access a link, both within and outside of China, can have his/her on-line history tracked.  Privacy, or more specifically its lack thereof, becomes a major concern for the general population, private industry, and academia.
  Highly regulated ISPs have been created which must meet four criteria in order to continue operations and avoid stiff legal penalties.  These four criteria consist of: (1)"have legal person" (2) "corresponding computer information networks" (3) "perfect safety and security control systems and technical protection measures" (4) "conform to other conditions conforming to relevant laws and regulations and relevant rules of the State Council." [ China Issues Regulations to Control Internet 02/06/96 ]
  All Internet users are required to register with the police. [ China Gets Wired ]

While the Chinese government has exerted considerable influence in establishing a restrictive regulatory environment, it has developed some partnerships with private industry in order to develop an infrastructure that it deems agreeable.  In particular, Xinhua, "China's official news service", along with "a group of Hong Kong investors and Sun Microsystems" have created a national intranet known as China Wide Web.  It provides restricted "access to Internet web sites on the basis of Beijing's political and moral judgements." Despite the highly regulated environment, subscriptions to the Internet are "expected to soar from 20,000 at the end of 1995 to about 2 million by the year 2000."[ Operating with a Net ]
 

Case Study: Government as an enabler for the free flow of information
After ASEAN designated Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore as the main hubs for the proposed Asia Internet Backbone, Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad rushed to develop blueprints for its multi-billion dollar Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). With the MSC, the Prime Minister promises to transform Malaysia into a "fully-developed, matured, and knowledge-rich" nation equipped with an electronic capital, and world-class multimedia universities and R&D centers. Although the plan has been hailed by the government and the techno-intellgencia, will the country need to reconcile its cultural norms to embrace the Information Era? Can the government increase the computer literacy rate to allow its people to fully take advantage of these new technologies? Will the recent downturn in the economy put the MSC on the backburner?
 

	Internet users by region  (As of 10/97)
	Selangor	22,937
	Kuala Lumpur	22,757
	Penang	12,175
	Johor	6,954
	Sarawak	6,147
	Perak	5,029
	Malacca	2,283
	Source: Malaysia's Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment.

The same Prime Minister who banned Schindler's List as Zionist propaganda now welcomes the information age with a bill to guarantee free speech on the Internet. Although the Prime Minister has apparently changed his public stance on free speech, the Information Ministry's efforts to license all Internet subscribers and people with homepages calls the legitimacy of the bill into question. While some of the more liberal, techno-savy Malaysians are clearly opposed to such initiatives, the predominantly Muslim population might see things differently once questionable materials start flooding into their homes. Before fully embracing the information age, Malaysia must prepare its population for the free-flow of information that will accompany these new technologies, and consider if and how to accept these outside influences without sacrificing its cultural norms. 

According to a recent study by the Malaysian National Library, the nation's computer literacy rate stands at 12%, equivalent to approximately 27 people to a PC. This is far behind neighboring Singapore, which boasts 4 people to a PC. To help reduce this gap, the government recently initiated a National IT Awareness Campaign themed "IT as a Culture". Part of the campaign includes industry incentive awards and grants for local innovations in IT applications, national IT campaigns for e-shopping and e-commerce, and a national IT task-force to identify strategic and cost-benefits of IT usage. Citing the prohibitive cost of PCs as a major barrier to computer literacy, the government claims that they will "make IT affordable to all," however, concrete plans have yet to materialize. As of October 1, 1997, Internet users numbered 167, 447, far behind the Prime Minister's goal. See chart (right) for regional breakdown.

  Malaysia's Home Page
  Multimedia Super Corridor
  Malaysian Institute of Microelectronic Systems
  National Information Technology Council
  Putrajaya
 

Case Study: The General Population seeking to promote the free flow of information
Complete reliance on U.S. Internet networks has limited Latin American countries to expensive network connections which are U.S. centric in terms of language and content. Moreover, without independence from the U.S., NICs (National Information Centers) have yet to develop and most countries have been precluded from participation in the development of Internet standards and protocols.

Although political leaders have publicly expressed interest in developing an NII, actual steps towards implementation have not materialized. In Peru, a non-profit group called the Peruvian Scientific Network (also known as Internet Peru) has started to change all of this by actively participating in plans to develop national and regional NIIs. In addition, they provide public access not only to the Internet but also to a bank of computers and classes on how to navigate the network. In contrast to countries such as Malaysia which have openly cited economic development as the primary incentive for projects like the MSC, organizations like the Peruvian Scientific Network main goals are to improve each and every citizen's access to information.

Last December, the Peruvian Scientific Network helped guerillas and hostages communicate with the outside world via the Internet. Fear of providing additional outlets for guerillas to voice their opinions, may be one of the reasons why the government has been slow to develop NII plans. China is well-known for its attempts to block "subversive" Web sites published by political dissidents. Might Peru take a similar approach and attempt to restrict politically "questionable" material?

  Peru's Home Page
  Internet Peru
 

Case Study: Private Industry promoting free flow of information
In an attempt to boost the country's laggard economy and establish faith in the government, India's Ministry of Industry began developing plans for an NII to be completed in the year 2000. Recently, corporate America giants such as IBM (see India House), Intel (Project Vidya), and Microsoft have also entered the picture. Microsoft, for example, plans to set up a Telecottage system, distance learning centers, in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh. Although these initiatives are noteworthy, can Internet access increase literacy rates when computer penetration is so low? Another concern to consider is the potential for censorship in a country with diverse religious beliefs and an often entangled political landscape.

Main telephone lines per 100 inhabitants in 1994
Argentina	14.14
Chile	11.00
Malaysia	14.69
China	2.29
India	1.07
Source: ITU

Moreover, Internet access is often plagued with busy signals, hang-ups, and random breaks in communication. The sole ISP, government-owned Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (VSNL), is known for selling more connections than its network system can handle and charging prices far beyond the reach of average citizens (See chart on left for number of main telephone lines compared to other developing nations). Many are optimistic, however, that Internet access will improve as a result of recent government moves to privatize ISPs. Privatization is predicted to increase Internet subscribers 1.5 million over the next year, and 7.5 million by 2002. But the root of the problem will still remain as VSNL continues to be the sole international gateway for these new ISPs. Unfortunately, if VSNL does not make significant efforts to improve its infrastructure and service, India's Internet market will never reach predicted growth rates.

  Government's Home Page
  Ministry of Industry, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion
  Virtual America House in India

Case Study: Cultural Issues (Belief systems and information access)
The Internet provides a highly decentralized model for the access and flow of information within its network.  Information from a wide subjects is only a mouse-click away when accessed through the Internet.  The book The Cockoo's Egg recounts a true story in which a systems administrator literally tracks down a an illegitimate user who was stealing highly sensitive military information and selling it to the KGB.

The belief systems of certain societies may not find it suitable to allow information to flow so relatively freely and into the hands of its members.  A good example of this is the mixed treatment by which Islamic communities have used the Internet.  Netwar in the Gulf is an article that explains this in terms of the affect of the "Information Revolution" on the countries of the Arab/Persian Gulf.  One example of this is the Islamic Ring in Maylasia where it is immediately stated on their Web site:

The Islamic Ring Web Sites are linked together in a circular fashion. The idea is to join together lots pages which contain Islamic information to visit into a loop or ring. This is a great way to be sure you are always in "Islamic" areas while surfing the web. The ring is monitored regularly to be sure that everything within it is appropriate contains Islamic information only.

Some countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran treat the Internet with caution because it can both hurt and help the countries in terms of the methods by which the Internet allows information to flow.  In a paper about the development of the Internet in Egypt, Tarek Kamel of Egyptian Cabinet's Information and Decision Support Center and Regional Information Technology and Software Engineering Center states one of the main challenges facing the country:

The security of the Internet and Intranet is also considered one of the decisive issues that will affect the growth of the Internet in the country. The Egyptian society, although an evolving economy, has its own conservative traditions. The indecent material on the Internet has triggered a lot of debates and contra version among society groups of different ages. The Internet society [Egypt's Internet Society] is challenged with the assignment to find an acceptable model to reduce the public's access to Internet pornography within the framework of the code of ethics.

However, the Internet can work to a county's advantage in terms of its political image.  Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia maintain governmental Web sites that clearly are targeted towards image building.  Among such sites are the

Egypt Information Highway
The Egyptian Presidency
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from the Royal embassy in Washington, D.C.

In addition to Arab countries, other countries of the Middle East are using the Internet as a political tool to win over a favorable image in the eyes of the users of the World Wide Web.  Iran is a good example of this.  The Persia.Net Web site shows images of women that defies the Western stereotypical image of Muslim women and society and would be completely banned within the Islamic Republic of Iran due to the fact Iran's censorship policy for television prohibits the images of women are not even allowed on television in Iran.  Iran is also known for having none if any Internet connectivity to the outside world (as shown in the NetWizards Domain Name Survey the reliability of accessing any DNS in Iran was very low).  Given this and the fact that the largest Iranian emigrant population is within the United States [see Imagined Cyber Communities, Iranians and the Internet, by Haleh Nazeri, New York University], this web site is an example of what types of information emerge when information is allowed to flow in a much more liberal manner.
 

Case Study: Cultural Issues (Language and compatibility)
The current level of support for Internet applications is primarily with applications that support Latinized languages.  Among the developers of Internet clients that support non-Latin languages, the effort to "Internationalize" Internet applications may often complicate matters more than ease them. Some of the prominent ones in this field are:  Accent Software [Internet with an Accent], Alis Technologies [Tango] and Sakhr Software [Sindbad].  The Babel project is a joint effort by Alis Technologies and the Internet Society that is investigating and developing new ways to implement the internationalization of the Internet.

On Babel's Character Encoding Page, the following is stated about usefulness of ASCII coding and the internationalization of the Internet:

Document encoding is the most important but also the most sensitive and explosive topic in Internet internationalization. It is an essential factor since most of the information distributed over the Internet is in text format. But the history of the Internet is such that the predominant - and in some cases the only possible - encoding is the very limited ASCII, which can represent only a handful of languages, only three of which are used to any great extent: English, Indonesian and Swahili...All the other languages, spoken by more than 90% of the world's population, must fall back on other character sets.  And there is a plethora of them, created over the years to satisfy writing constraints and constantly changing technological limitations.

Indeed it is clear that when evaluating the flow of information on the Internet within countries whose belief systems are quite different from the United States that the decentralized nature of the Internet is a very liberal and democratic construction that places the no distinction on the political value of information and how it is accessed.
 

Case Study: Measuring Development
The Internet Society publishes a "Map of the Internet" that suggests a perceived level of growth and expansion of the Internet.  Countries projected in purple are "on the Internet," while those in yellow are not.  What this map does not say is that being "on the Internet" as it so confidently states, is not a clear cut issue.  The Internet may be potentially there by the fact that the phone lines are in place, but what about a country's current ability to utilize and maintain the Internet within its borders.  The map makes no distinction between the level of Internet development for any given country and its ability to support an information infrastructure.

The Domain Name Server (DNS) survey taken by Net Wizards is not a survey that humans answer, but one that machines answer.  "Pings" are sent out from their server to domains all over the world in order to get a reading of the reliability of those servers as well as get a more detailed feel for the level of growth of the Internet.  This survey shows that in many LDC's the reliability of even getting a response from any server in that country is extremely low.  This brings up the issue of the current "usability" of the Internet for lesser developed countries.

The global development of the Internet in many LDC's is analogous to building a bridge for cars in a place where cars may be few and far between.  The very basic infrastructure has been laid down, but achieving the intended usefulness of the Internet requires a support network consisting of the necessary social and technical capital.  A number of issues arise in attempting to pinpoint areas where the Internet growth is not occurring at the same rate as it is in Europe and the United States.

Case study: Subsidizing and technical support for the global Internet
It is commonly agreed upon that a major part of the success of the Internet and the WWW is due to an almost 10 year period in which the Internet was subsidized within the United States. [ A Brief History of the Internet | Hobbe's Internet Timeline ]  How are other countries going to develop their own information infrastructure if they have no means by which they can financially or technologically support an incubation project of such proportions?

Commenting on the future of the Internet in Turkey, Tolga Yurderi, of SoftCom Technology Consultancy Inc. stated the following:

Other challenges to Internet enthusiasts include the proliferation of misinformation about the Net. Some companies are trying to fool less-knowledgeable users by talking about technologically impossible or unnecessary solutions. The best example is the problem of secure commercial transactions on the Net. Whoever says they have software that makes the Net 100% secure is lying, and whoever says that using credit cards on the Net is less secure than using them in a restaurant is also lying.

We at the Istanbul Chapter of the Internet Society (http://www.isoctr.org) are trying to teach facts about the Internet to the general public and are also doing our best to keep the Internet as a free platform in Turkey. We have a duty to tell users their rights and help them to defend them. Also, we are developing and proposing technical solutions to some problems we face. Most countries have similar problems, such as connection to their neighbors over networks that are thousands of kilometers away. To prevent this, the European Union is supporting a pan-European network instead of using the U.S. Internet infrastructure as the main backbone.

But the main problems in Turkey are the ISP monopoly and the speed of international connectivity. It takes nearly half an hour to receive 10 e-mails from an out-of-country mailbox. This means that it is practically impossible to use the Internet in Turkey.

A Bedouin in an Amman suburb keeps his sheep in the garage and pitches his tent on the roof of his house beneath a brace of television satellite dishes. Another in the south of Jordan told an archaeologist that he got a cellular phone so he could stay in touch with his parents when they are out grazing the sheep. Back in Amman, there are three cyber cafes: one in an old-city bookstore with designer coffees, another in the Amman Safeway, and another in a storefront opposite the University of Jordan. In short, the face of the information revolution in Jordan, as in other Arab countries, is mixed and changing rapidly...The infrastructure in Jordan, some say, is barely adequate for telephoning. Numbers change without notice and there is no phone book. Jordan has fewer phones per inhabitant than Gulf countries, but the government has secured a World Bank loan to double the number of lines which would move Jordan from among the lowest to the highest per capita in the Arab world. Global One, an international consortium, has brought the Internet, but for now Jordanian websites are located in the US because connections in Jordan have less capacity than a medium-sized college. [from Bumpy Ride on Jordan's Info-highway by Jon Anderson]

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