Wednesday, February 02, 2011
The next time an authoritarian regime cuts off all news and Internet communications with the outside world, the United States can do something about it.
At the request of the federal Broadcasting Board of Governors, the U.S. government now has technology that allows for the transmission of news into a locked-down country via a special email system.
The FOE (feed over email) was successfully tested last year in China to transmit news feeds from the Voice of America, CKXX and China Weekly. Users do have to have email accounts with foreign service providers, such as Google’s Gmail.
It remains to be seen if the U.S. intends to use the technology for sending news into Egypt, where the regime of President Hosni Mubarak has shuttered Web and cell phone services and revoked the broadcasting license of the Al Jazeera Network.
The U.S. already uses proxy servers to provide news to 21 countries, including Egypt, Iran and Cuba.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Test Affirms United States' Ability to Circumvent Internet Censors (by Aliya Sternstein, NextGov)
Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Internal Test Report of an Anti-Web Censorship System (GovernmentAttic.org) (pdf)
What is the “Feed over Email” System? (The Telegraph)
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