By Julia Scheeres. Wired
News. 2:00 a.m. Feb. 23, 2001 PST
Internet and e-mail access in Cuba is as jealously guarded as Fidel
Castro's chokehold on power. But that hasn't stopped enterprising Cubans from
finding ways to flout government restrictions.
The Cuban governmentcontrols the
country's only Internet gateway and four national ISPs. Out of 11 million
Cubans, only about 40,000 academics and government workers are permitted to
have Internet and e-mail accounts, according to government spokesman Luis
Fernandez.
At best, Cuba's attitude toward the Internet could be described as
patriarchal. Father Fidel knows best. At worst, it's a pothole in the
information superhighway that will slow, but not impede, the Net's inexorable
reach.
The official reason for the island's low connectivity is economic. The
U.S. trade embargo forces Cuba to use an expensive, sluggish satellite
connection and bandwidth must be doled out carefully, Fernandez said.
"The state subsidizes the Internet, so researchers have priority,"
Fernandez said.
The real reason lies somewhere between economics and politics.
All Internet accounts must be registered through the National Center for
Automated Data Exchange (CENIAI)
for a whopping $260 a month. With the average Cuban making $240 a year, the
Internet is a luxury few people can afford, even if they are lucky enough to
have a phone line and computer for a dialup connection.
But even the privileged few don't have complete access. Sites that
include pornography and anti-Castro rhetoric are blocked at the gateway. Just
as the Cuban government jams the signals of pro-democracy radio stations
broadcasting on the island, it filters out "subversive" Web pages,
Fernandez said.
"We need to do the same with the Internet because we can't have
things that undermine Cuban society," Fernandez said. "The Internet
is used only for good purposes in Cuba."
As for e-mail, Fernandez said the government only monitors people who are
"under investigation" for anti-revolutionary activities, although
he wouldn't specify the actions that merit wiretapping.
Yet there are many ways to circumvent the rules, according to Cuba
experts and independent journalists living on the island.
"Cuban young people are really hungry for information and have a
sense of being left behind," said Juan Carlos Espinosa, professor of
Cuban Studies at St. Thomas University in
Miami. "Cubans are very inventive, despite all the ways the regime tries
to control information."
Laptops donated by foreign friends are secretly plugged into phone jacks
at work; Internet passwords are traded on a burgeoning black market; blocked
Web pages are sent as text attachments; free Web-based e-mail accounts allow
free speech; used components are pieced together with hacked software to
create what locals call "Frankenstein" computers.
The tech-savvy youngsters who hop on the Net despite difficulties are
called "gurus," said Hector Maseda, an independent journalist in
Cuba.
"They laugh at the restrictions imposed by the government
authorities," Maseda said.
The gurus that have been caught with clandestine Internet connections
have had their equipment confiscated, he said. Maseda said dissident
journalists routinely have their equipment seized and risk jail time for
expressing anti-Castro views. Two
reporters are currently serving jail time for "anti-revolutionary"
activities.
Paranoia runs deep in everyone with ties to Cuba; no one wants to anger
the government.
Several academics contacted for this story refused to speak on record,
fearing their research on the island would be compromised if they were
critical of the government. A Cuban programmer queried via e-mail had an
American friend call this reporter to tell her not to send more electronic
missives. The government screens e-mail, he said, and the questions about
censorship were too conspicuous.
The fear of government wiretapping is so great that some families create
code languages for their electronic correspondence, said a Cuban exile living
in New Hampshire who asked to remain anonymous.
Dollars are referred to as vitamins, and arranging for the illegal
emigration of a relative is referred to as "delivering a package of
medicine."
"Nobody says things straight," he said. "If you live here
you don't want to jeopardize anyone's situation there. They could go to jail
just for receiving an anti-revolutionary e-mail."
In a country where letters show obvious signs of being opened and
re-glued and a person will stroke his or her chin in reference to Castro
rather than say his name aloud, this isn't surprising.
Meanwhile, the Cuban government has capitalized on the Net by hosting
tourism sites to pump up the island's primary industry and publishing
Castro's
perorations in six languages.
"Cuba is full of those paradoxes," said Espinosa. "They
want the milk but they don't want to deal with the cow."
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