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February 24, 2021 02:00 pm

A Digital Firewall in Myanmar, Built With Guns and Wire Cutters

The Myanmar soldiers descended before dawn on Feb. 1, bearing rifles and wire cutters. At gunpoint, they ordered technicians at telecom operators to switch off the internet. For good measure, the soldiers snipped wires without knowing what they were severing, according to an eyewitness and a person briefed on the events. The New York Times: The data center raids in Yangon and other cities in Myanmar were part of a coordinated strike in which the military seized power, locked up the country's elected leaders and took most of its internet users offline. Since the coup, the military has repeatedly shut off the internet and cut access to major social media sites, isolating a country that had only in the past few years linked to the outside world. The military regime has also floated legislation that could criminalize the mildest opinions expressed online. So far, the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, has depended on cruder forms of control to restrict the flow of information. But the army seems serious about setting up a digital fence to more aggressively filter what people see and do online. Developing such a system could take years and would likely require outside help from Beijing or Moscow, according to experts. Such a comprehensive firewall may also exact a heavy price: The internet outages since the coup have paralyzed a struggling economy. Longer disruptions will damage local business interests and foreign investor confidence as well as the military's own vast business interests. [...] If Myanmar's digital controls become permanent, they would add to the global walls that are increasingly dividing what was supposed to be an open, borderless internet. The blocks would also offer fresh evidence that more countries are looking to China's authoritarian model to tame the internet. Two weeks after the coup, Cambodia, which is under China's economic sway, also unveiled its own sweeping internet controls. Even policymakers in the United States and Europe are setting their own rules, although these are far less severe. Technologists worry such moves could ultimately break apart the internet, effectively undermining the online networks that link the world together.

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