Protesters are using hackers' tools to help get the news out of
Iran following the public protests over last week's presidential
election, according to security expert Bruce Schneier.
Citizens and journalists are using anonymity tools to protect
their identities and proxy server tools to connect to blogging
services such as
Twitter.
These techniques have demonstrated the power of social media to
influence international politics.
Iranian opposition groups have used hacker-style denial of
service attacks against the government.
This proves that, like all technologies, there are good uses for
hackers' tools, as well as bad, Schneier told a security awareness
conference in London this morning.
Schneier, chief security technology officer at BT, was speaking
in a debate at the event organised by the European Network and
Information Security Agency (ENISA).
He believes that it is short-sighted for governments to block
technologies such as anonymity tools just because they can be used
by cybercriminals.
Every technology has the potential to be put to good and bad
use, but society survives because the "good guys overwhelm the
bad", he said.
Schneier expressed concern that state control of the internet
continues to increase steadily around the world, limiting its use
for good as well as bad.
It is not just countries such as China where state control of
the internet is increasing, he said, but in western democracies
too.
The intentions are good, such as combating illegal images, but
Schneier said some of the methods used have the effect of limiting
the freedom of the internet.
He questioned the wisdom of China's decision to
mandate anti-porn censorship and software on every PC sold in
the country.
This is like built-in botnet software on every computer in
China, said Schneier, which could potentially be exploited by
cybercriminals.