DAP will lodge official complaint to MCMC of violation of MSC Guarantee of “No Internet Censorship” since dissolution of last Parliament last month, causing blockade to several DAP sites

DAP will lodge an official complaint to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) of violation of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Guarantee of “No Internet Censorship” since dissolution of the last Parliament last month, causing blockade to several DAP sites.

It is clear that for this period, Malaysian internet users, particularly visitors to Pakatan Rakyat websites and others deemed unfriendly to Barisan Nasional have been put under surveillance, censorship, filtering and blockade without their knowledge – which is a gross violation of the MSC Guarantee of “No Internet Censorship”.

The recent Internet censorship and filtering on Malaysian Internet users are both unprecedented and sinister, as they are designed to filter specific websites, facebook accounts, youtube videos and live video streaming.

The filtering of the specific content and websites are designed to sabotage and cause annoyances to Malaysian Internet users by preventing the sites from loading immediately. And more seriously it denies Malaysians a source of information when the censored site/video could not load.

Independent in-depth technical study of the effects of filtering and censorship, such as that posted on a popular Malaysia’s Internet forum by rizvanrp on May 1 (https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/2794929) have been verified by separate independent tests carried out by the DAP IT Manager, Goh Kheng Teong, viz: the MSC guarantee of “No Internet Censorship” had been violated since the dissolution of the previous Parliament in early April.

These findings are conclusive proof that internet censorship through Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) are being used on Malaysians Internet users.

DPI allows blocking of a specific content on the Internet without blocking the entire site.

This can be effectively demonstrated by the blocking of video uploaded by DAP to youtube entitled, Dalang sebenar Mei 13 dibongkar oleh Dato’ Mohd Tamrin Ghafar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI7xB3d2rNA) but other traffic to and from youtube.com is not restricted.

This is not the only DAP content subject to blocking in Malaysia. A list of DAP and other sites that has been a target of blocking since dissolution of 12th Parliament are as follows:-

1. http://dapmalaysia.org
2. http://ubah.my
3. http://ubah.tv
4. http://facebook.com/DAPMalaysia
5. http://facebook.com/DAPMalaysia.zh
6. http://blog.limkitsiang.com
7. Ubah.TV Livestream account:- http://new.livestream.com/accounts/3410615/events/1978169 (operation ended since May 9)
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jQuCRcdbVM
9. http://sakmongkol.blogspot.com
10. http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com

Malaysiakini has also lodged official complaints with the MCMC, handing over evidence of such Internet restrictions and censorship compiled from exhaustive investigation by Malaysiakini technology team during the period before polling day.

What is more worrying is that the DPI method may be used at more sinister level than just blocking specific contents. It could also be used to spy on Malaysia’s Internet users by collecting username and passwords, emails, Internet chats and all form of data that pass through the DPI point.

An independent and indepth investigation should be carried out by MCMC to ascertain who and under what authority Deep Packet Inspection had been sanctioned.

Had higher powers been at work to authorise the use of DPI to carry out Internet censorship in violation of the MSC Guarantee even without the knowledge of the MSC?

The violation of the MSC Guarantee of “No Internet Censorship” after the dissolution of the 12th Parliament will be one of the major issues to be debated at the opening of the 13th Parliament expected in the middle of next month.

The official report to MCMC of illegal and unlawful Internet censorship will be lodged by DAP IT Manager, Goh Kheng Teong.