Cambodia adopts China-style internet gateway to control, monitor online traffic

The new decree seeks to facilitate and manage internet connections to help revenue collection, protect national security and maintain social order
Rights activists say the law has implications for free speech, privacy, data protection and public information

Published: 8:38pm, 17 Feb, 2021
Cambodia’s government has issued a decree establishing a China-style internet gateway that will allow online traffic to be controlled and monitored, prompting local concern that democratic freedoms could be under threat.

The 11-page decree announced on Wednesday seeks to facilitate and manage internet connections to help revenue collection, protect national security and maintain social order, culture and tradition.

The gateway’s operator will support authorities with “measures to prevent and disconnect all network connections that affect national income, security, social order, morality, culture, traditions and customs”.

It comes as Prime Minister HE’s government faces international criticism over a crackdown that has decimated civil society and the political opposition, resulting in a power monopoly for his party, and criminal charges and jail terms for many of its rivals.
The gateway is similar to that of China
, an important economic ally for Cambodia
, which has seen its ties with the United States and European Union deteriorate recently.

The decree gives service providers one year to connect to the gateway, but gave no time frame for its launch.

It requires service providers to make users complete online forms with their correct identities and says failure to connect networks to the gateway would result in operating licences being suspended and bank accounts frozen.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeas ... ay-control

More here:
Cambodia sets up China-style internet firewall
Issued on: 17/02/2021 - 10:32Modified: 17/02/2021 - 10:31
3 min
Phnom Penh (AFP)

Cambodia's government moved to exert near-total control over the country's online life Wednesday, setting up a national internet gateway which activists say will stifle freedom of expression and block content via a China-style firewall.

Cambodia has seen a rapid increase in internet use in recent years, and Premier HE's government -- which dissolved the main opposition party in 2017 -- has intensified a crackdown on online dissent.

A government spokesman dismissed concerns over the gateway (NIG), a system which will funnel all international internet connections through a single entry point, saying it would prevent online crime and promote "national interests".

But Phay Siphan also told AFP the authorities "will destroy those (internet) users who want to create rebellion" against the government.

A sub-decree signed by HE and obtained by AFP on Wednesday stated that the NIG would control web connections in order to enhance "national revenue collection, to protect national security and preserve social order".

It instructed the gateway's operator to work with Cambodian authorities "to take actions in blocking and disconnecting any network connections" that were deemed to contravene these goals, or to violate "morality, culture, traditions and customs".

The operator will be required to submit reports about internet traffic regularly to authorities.

Chak Sopheap, executive director of the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, said the NIG would facilitate mass surveillance, through the interception and censorship of digital communications and the collection of personal data.

"The establishment of the NIG is of grave concern for the future of fundamental human rights in Cambodia," she said, adding that "it will become another instrument for the Royal Government of Cambodia to control and monitor the flow of information in Cambodia".

Ith Sothoeuth, director of the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, said the vague language in the document bestowed the power to block comments critical of the government.

"It's worrisome," he said.

Comparisons have been drawn to China's "Great Firewall", which deploys a vast and sophisticated surveillance state to scrub the internet of dissent, and prevents citizens from accessing international social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Internet subscriptions in Cambodia have soared over the last decade, from 5 million in 2014 to 20.3 million last year, according to government statistics.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/2 ... t-firewall

John Bingham wrote: ↑Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:17 pm Any tech people want to chime in? Is this even feasible without a huge investment?

Always feasible with big brother China. Now Cambodia and Myanmar. SEA will be the Great Wall. Would CEO be able exist now in China? If not, Cambodia?


https://www.yahoo.com/news/cambodia-set ... 32033.html

https://news.yahoo.com/digital-warfare- ... 41106.html

John Bingham wrote: ↑Wed Feb 17, 2021 11:17 pm Any tech people want to chime in? Is this even feasible without a huge investment?

It’s easy enough to say right all traffic has to go through us, and send in the popo to any ISP that peers internationally to anyone else. But the amount of detail they can get snooping traffic is minimal; they can see for example that you’re sending traffic to Facebook but not what that traffic is since it’s all encrypted.

My gut instinct is that NSA levels of cracking and monitoring are probably out of both their price range and availability of expertise, unless they decide to farm out the whole operation to China, which I find highly unlikely.

What it does give them the ability to do is easily shut down parts of the internet, though in principle they always have been able to do this by simply ordering the main ISPs to block it on their end.

What they also can do is order Facebook to hand over their logs of all activity from your IP address, which they can then tie to you from the gateway, but again, this is something they always could do, this just makes it quicker and easier.

Side note: Don’t forget that if you criticise the government here on CEO, you’re not necessarily as anonymous as you think you are regardless of where the server is physically located.

When I am working in China I have no idea what they could monitor or not monitor although we assumed it was everything. What was most obvious was the number of websites you could not access.