"Threats to Internet freedom are growing and have become more diverse," warns a new report on global cyber-liberty titled Freedom on the Net 2011. The survey, published by Freedom House, looks at the state of Internet free speech in 37 countries. It notes that in twelve of them, state cyberattacks against critics of their respective regimes are "intensifying." And in almost two thirds, bloggers and less prominent users face harassment and arrest for expressing their views.

The report spotlights a quintet of countries that it sees as "particularly vulnerable to deterioration" over the next 12 months: Jordan, Russia, Thailand, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. China, Iran, Tunisia, and Belarus are highlighted when it comes to recent crackdowns on state critics. Now under new leadership, Tunisia's Internet status is in flux, but Freedom on the Net calls the Chinese government "a major global source of cyberattacks."

"These encroachments on Internet freedom come at a time of explosive growth in the number of Internet users worldwide, which has doubled over the past five years," the report observes. "Governments are responding to the increased influence of the new medium by seeking to control online activity, restricting the free flow of information, and otherwise infringing on the rights of users "

China

Although not all attacks on dissidents in China have been "explicitly traced back to the government," Freedom contends, "their scale, organization, and chosen targets have led many experts to conclude that they are either sponsored or condoned by Chinese military and intelligence agencies."

These have included distributed denial-of-service attacks on local and international human rights groups, sending malicious bot-laden e-mails to foreign journalists, and sponsoring huge hacking raids on defense and technology companies in the United States. Analysts say Chinese-government-backed networks have infiltrated over one hundred countries in a bid to monitor the Tibetan government-in-exile and its allies.

Of course, if you can't hack dissidents, you can always arrest them—that being the fate of Tibetans, Uighurs, and Falun Gong religion practitioners who have spoken their minds over the Net. Two Uighurs were recently sentenced to life in prison.

As for the average Chinese Netizen, by the end of 2010, "the Chinese internet increasingly resembled an intranet," the report suggests, with blocks on international applications like Facebook and Twitter the norm. The government even imposed a lengthy closure of Internet access in the western Xinjiang. Many local users now have minimal knowledge of significant events related to China, such as Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo's 2010 receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Iran

Iran takes the bottom rank on this list when it comes to civil rights on the Internet. The irony of the Ali Khamenei regime in Iran is that it is responsible for much of the flurry of cyber activity that the government now seeks to suppress. Recent fiber optic buildout in that country contributed significantly to the growth of Iran's Internet-savvy political class. Most of it is very young. Seventy percent of Iran's populace was born following the 1979 revolution.

During protests against the July 2009 presidential election, in which incumbent victor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was accused of fraud, the government engineered a huge slowdown of Internet traffic. Basic activities like opening e-mails or viewing webpages became a challenge. And by December of 2010, blocks appeared on all major social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr.

But if that wasn't enough, a government-commandeered group called the Iranian Cyber Army went on a rampage against opposition sites.

In some cases the hacking resulted in total discontinuity of the websites. One outlet so affected was MowjCamp.com, a popular site launched after the election that very soon became the main news website of the Green Movement. Outlets that were temporarily disabled by hacking included the Amsterdam-based Radio Zamaneh and the Jaras Green Movement website. A number of non-Iranian sites, such as Twitter, were targeted through the temporary hijacking of their domain names. At the time of these hacking incidents, there was speculation about the connection between the Iranian Cyber Army and the Iranian authorities. Some months later, Iranian officials confirmed these suspicions by publicly announcing that the Iranian Cyber Army was under the command of the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps].

Belarus

Furor over fraudulent elections in Belarus in 2010 brought a government response that included DDoS assaults on opposition sites, rendering others nearly impossible to access, and strategically slowing down connections. International port numbers for the standard mail transfer protocol (SMTP) and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) were also blocked.

But this was just the beginning of the repression, Freedom House says. In February of 2010 Presidential Decree Number 60 went into effect. It compelled sites using the .by top level generic domain ending to use Belarus ISPs and ordered compulsory registration for other sites. During the December elections, news outlets like pro-opposition Charter97 and Belurus Partisan became "temporarily inaccessible." Users couldn't access Facebook, LiveJournal, or YouTube either.

This was followed by lawsuits against Charter97, and government raids against its website's office, in which computer equipment was confiscated. Authorities continued this approach with a criminal prosecution against the site for "objectionable comments," and the KGB detained its editor without charges or allowing her access to an attorney.

It gets even worse. "Online activists and web-based journalists face extralegal harassment, mostly in the form of phone calls or intimidating messages," the report continues:

However, until 2010, physical attacks were not common. For that reason, the death of the founder of Charter97Aleh Byabenin prompted many questions among his colleagues and fellow journalists. Byabenin was found hanged from a stairway at his summer home in September 2010. Although the authorities declared his death a suicide, most independent sources questioned the official version and suspected foul play.

Back in the USA

For the most part, the report praises Internet conditions in the US, calling them "quite free compared with the rest of the world." US courts have consistently refused to back government efforts to regulate speech on the 'Net. Libel and copyright immunities for online service providers are also strong.

But Freedom House is concerned about the impact that slow Internet development in the US may have in the long run. "The United States lags behind many major industrialized countries in terms of broadband penetration, and the strength and legal viability of recent rules concerning network neutrality remain uncertain," the compendium worries.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration seems fixated on maintaining the government's online surveillance powers to fight crime and terrorism: "It has been reported that the government is seeking expanded authority to control the design of internet services to ensure that communications can be intercepted when necessary."

The top-scoring country in the survey is Estonia. "Restrictions on internet content and communications in Estonia are among the lightest in the world," the survey notes.