IronBallsMcGinty Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 http://www.techcentral.co.za/ethiopia-criminalises-skype/32723/Ethiopia’s state-owned Internet service provider, the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation (Ethio-Telcom), has begun performing deep-packet inspection of all Internet traffic in the country. The country’s government recently ushered in new legislation that criminalises the use of services such as Skype, Google Talk and other forms of Internet phone calling.The new law, which came into effect on 24 May, makes use of Internet voice services punishable by hefty fines and up to 15 years in prison.The official line from the government is that the move is intended to protect national security and protect the national, state-owned telecoms carrier from losing revenue to Skype and similar services; this, despite the fact that Ethiopia’s fixed-line penetration rate is the second worst in Africa (after Sierra Leone) at an estimated 1% of its 85m strong population.Ethiopia has instituted numerous restrictions on its digital community in recent years. The government has previously closed down Internet cafes offering voice-over-Internet protocol services and, in December 2006, made it obligatory for Internet cafes to keep records of the names and addresses of their customers in an effort to clamp down on bloggers and other users critical of the regime.The new law prohibits all VoIP traffic along with audio and video data traffic via social media. The Africa Review reports that the law also gives the government the right to inspect any imports of voice communication equipment and accessories.The OpenNet Initiative, which tracks Internet filtering and surveillance, says in a report on Ethiopia that the country already blocks all blogs hosted at blogspot.com and at nazret.com, a site that aggregates Ethiopian news and has space for blogs and forums.The new legislation is no doubt also motivated by the events of the Arab Spring that saw mass protests organised via social media. With many bloggers critical of Ethiopia’s current government, censorship by the state looks likely to increase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronBallsMcGinty Posted June 15, 2012 Author Share Posted June 15, 2012 ooh wee what up with that....so catchy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever Julian Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Mostly to make sure we dont have anymore repeats of revolutions which made it the poorest nation on earth in the 70's.Good on them I say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opensource01 Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Just once, when a digital services gets banned in a country, I want it to be cause of the recognition of crappy code not because of some political agenda. Is that too much to ask for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostone Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Just once, when a digital services gets banned in a country, I want it to be cause of the recognition of crappy code not because of some political agenda. Is that too much to ask for?I am loving the new IT war!!! Open source(google) vs closed source (apple)... Who will come out on top?!Oh well if you could ban windows I'd be cool with that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brehus Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 I agree that it is wrongThe US Gov also sometimes does what is in the best interest of big business vs what's good for the people Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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