Challenges of freedom of speech online Andrej Petrovski, SHARE Defence BalCCon 2k14

Feketić During the snowstorms in northern Serbia in February 2014 the National TV – RTS broadcasted a video of the then Vice – PM (present PM) taking part in a rescue action Considering the video a form populism, someone published a subtitled parody on YouTube The video was rapidly removed from YouTube because after a copyright claim submitted by KVZ digital, a multimedia distribution company who claimed that RTS was their client. It was later determined that a written agreement between RTS and KVZ digital does not exist.

The current situation in Serbia (Jun – Jul) 6 cyber attacks 6 cases of pressure on journalists 2 court decisions that can potentially harm freedom of speech 5 negative reactions by the international community and experts

What is freedom of speech? The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, Article 46: The freedom of thought and expression shall be guaranteed, as well as the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through speech, writing, art or in some other manner. Freedom of expression may be restricted by the law if necessary to protect rights and reputation of others, to uphold the authority and objectivity of the court and to protect public health, morals of a democratic society and national security of the Republic of Serbia.

Censorship The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, Article 50, Paragraph 3: Censorship shall not be applied in the Republic of Serbia. Competent court may prevent the dissemination of information through means of public informing only when this is necessary in a democratic society to prevent inciting to violent overthrow of the system established by the Constitution or to prevent violation of territorial integrity of the Republic of Serbia, to prevent propagation of war or instigation to direct violence, or to prevent advocacy of racial, ethnic or religious hatred enticing discrimination, hostility or violence.

Taking it online

DDoS

Government

Technical challenges It is really hard to determine the source of a DDoS attack The Hosting providers are not really helpful Security was (is) not something that was (is) not seriously considered Lack of back up habits Bots cost a dime a dozen

Ethical issues Who watches the watchdogs? What mama don't know won't hurt her. Are people just another sort of resource? Self – regulation or self – censorship?

Legal issues The law isn’t really clear and there are many grey zones The court processes take too long The police doesn’t have the infrastructure to investigate that type of crimes There is a huge conflict of interest Social media are still not legally defined

CINS – the case The Centre for Investigative Journalism of Serbia published an article about the “special treatment” of the child of a prominent politician Soon after publishing the article, it disappeared At the same time SQL injection attack was preformed, injecting a script that collects metadata from the Centre’s server The journalists who work at CINS are still under pressure both digitally and physically

CINS – the investigation The Hosting provider was not really cooperative It took time to obtain access to the server During that time some alterations were made on the server The police acknowledged the criminal acts, and processed the petition The Prosecution Office for Cyber Crimes (POCC) claimed they don’t have the capacity to obtain the evidence

CINS – the investigation (cont.) A team of cyber forensics managed to obtain a list of 15 IP addresses who were potential sources of the SQL injection The POCC asked for a shorter list of IP addresses A list of 6 IP addresses The POCC asked for a shorter list of IP addresses The court went into summer recess

The alternative

Mechanisms of protection

Questions?