Cuba connects
p2pnet news | Freedom:- The Cuban version of the Sneaker Net, with flash cards and DVDs instead of hard-drives, is helping to change the way people talk to each other and receive unspun news in Cuba.
“Last month, students at a prestigious computer science university videotaped an ugly confrontation they had with Ricardo Alarcón, the president of the National Assembly,” says the New York Times, going on >>>
Mr. Alarcón seemed flummoxed when students grilled him on why they could not travel abroad, stay at hotels, earn better wages or use search engines like Google. The video spread like wildfire through Havana, passed from person to person, and seriously damaged Mr. Alarcón’s reputation in some circles.
Something similar happened in late January when officials tried to impose a tax on the tips and wages of employees of foreign companies. Workers erupted in jeers and shouts when told about the new tax, a moment caught on a cellphone camera and passed along by memory sticks.
“It passes from flash drive to flash drive,” said Ariel, 33, a computer programmer, who, like almost everyone else interviewed for this article, asked that his last name not be used for fear of political persecution. “This is going to get out of the government’s hands because the technology is moving so rapidly.”
Cuban authorities routinely in block public online and digital video access, “tearing down unauthorized satellite dishes and keeping down the number of Internet cafes open to Cubans,” says the NYT.
“Only one Internet cafe remains open in Old Havana, down from three a few years ago.
“Hidden in a small room in the depths of the Capitol building, the state-owned cafe charges a third of the average Cuban’s monthly salary – about $5 – to use a computer for an hour. The other two former Internet cafes in central Havana have been converted into -postal services- that let Cubans send e-mail messages over a closed network on the island with no links to the Internet.
But people who’ve smuggled in satellite dishes offer illegal online connections for a fee, or download movies to sell on discs while, “Others exploit the connections to the Web of foreign businesses and state-run enterprises,” states the NYT, and, “Employees with the ability to connect to the Internet often sell their passwords and identification numbers for use in the middle of the night.”Hotels catering to tourists provide Internet services, and Cubans also exploit those conduits to the Web.”
The University of Information Sciences has, “become a hotbed of cyber-rebels,” says the NYT. “Students download everything from the latest American television shows to articles and videos criticizing the government, and pass them quickly around the island.”
The Alarcón video was leaked to the BBC and CNN, and young journalists have started blogs and Net news sites, using servers in other countries, and their reports are reaching people through the digital underground, says the story.
“Yoani Sánchez, 32, and her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, 60, established Consenso desde Cuba , a Web site based in Germany. Ms. Sánchez has attracted a considerable following with her blog, Generación Y, in which she has artfully written gentle critiques of the government by describing her daily life in Cuba. Ms. Sánchez and her husband said they believed strongly in using their names with articles despite the possible political repercussions.”
Adds the New York Times:
“Pedro, a midlevel official with a government agency, said he often surfed Web sites like the BBC and The Miami Herald at work, searching for another view of the news besides the ones presented in the state-controlled media. He predicted that the 10,000 students studying the Internet and programming at the University of Information Sciences would transform the country over time, opening up more and more avenues of information.
” ‘We are training an army of information specialists,’ he said.”
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Also See:
New York Times – Cyber-Rebels in Cuba Defy State’s Limits, March 6, 2008
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