Preface
Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace is the latest report
from the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), which is a collaboration of the Citizen Lab at the
Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; the Berkman Center
for Internet and Society at Harvard University; and the SecDev Group (Canada). The
country profiles and regional overviews provided in this volume have been substantially updated and revised to reflect recent events since our last publication, Access
Denied. In addition, Access Controlled includes six newly authored thematic chapters
that analyze the themes of our investigations and grapple with the theoretical and
public policy implications.
With Access Controlled, we take on new themes emerging from our research and concentrate on the countries that make up the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE), as it is there, primarily, where some of the most important techniques of next-generation Internet controls are emerging and a normative terrain is
being set. While the Access Controlled volume focuses on the OSCE region as an important locus of norms and emerging techniques, the ONI conducted tests in more than
65 countries over the last year and a half. We have included a selection of these
regional overviews and country profiles in this volume on the basis of two criteria: first,
we included countries that either border on or have strategic significance to the OSCE
region; second, we included countries that are significant stories in and of themselves
and on which we wanted to report. China and Iran are included in both categories,
for example, but we also included Egypt, Tunisia, and South Korea (which are OSCE
‘‘partner in cooperation’’ states), as well as Australia and New Zealand, and all our
regional overviews. As with Access Denied, all our country profiles and regional overviews are accessible in full on our Web site: http://opennet.net/, as well as the thematic
chapters of this book.
Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski
Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace is the latest report
from the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), which is a collaboration of the Citizen Lab at the
Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; the Berkman Center
for Internet and Society at Harvard University; and the SecDev Group (Canada). The
country profiles and regional overviews provided in this volume have been substantially updated and revised to reflect recent events since our last publication, Access
Denied. In addition, Access Controlled includes six newly authored thematic chapters
that analyze the themes of our investigations and grapple with the theoretical and
public policy implications.
With Access Controlled, we take on new themes emerging from our research and concentrate on the countries that make up the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE), as it is there, primarily, where some of the most important techniques of next-generation Internet controls are emerging and a normative terrain is
being set. While the Access Controlled volume focuses on the OSCE region as an important locus of norms and emerging techniques, the ONI conducted tests in more than
65 countries over the last year and a half. We have included a selection of these
regional overviews and country profiles in this volume on the basis of two criteria: first,
we included countries that either border on or have strategic significance to the OSCE
region; second, we included countries that are significant stories in and of themselves
and on which we wanted to report. China and Iran are included in both categories,
for example, but we also included Egypt, Tunisia, and South Korea (which are OSCE
‘‘partner in cooperation’’ states), as well as Australia and New Zealand, and all our
regional overviews. As with Access Denied, all our country profiles and regional overviews are accessible in full on our Web site: http://opennet.net/, as well as the thematic
chapters of this book.
Ronald Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski