Cuba texts
Cuba: Radio/TV Martí texting is 'cyberwar'
The Cuban government said that Radio/TV Marti could disrupt the island's
cell system by sending up to 24,000 texts per week to local cell phones.
By JUAN TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com
Cuba alleged Monday that Radio/TV Martí is violating the country's laws
and may disrupt its cellular text-messaging system with a computerized
system that can send up to 24,000 text messages a week to cell phones on
the island.
Developed for mass marketing campaigns, the system makes it almost
impossible to block the texts because the computer makes them look as
though each individual message, or SMS, was sent from a different
telephone number.
Radio/TV Martí is using the text messages to deliver the same kind of
news and information that the U.S. government-run stations already
broadcast to the island, said stations director Carlos García-Perez.
Cuba's government controls and censors all the mass media on the island
as well as access to the Internet. But at the end of last year, Cubans
owned 1 million cell phones that could receive SMS, according to
official figures.
"We try to get our information into Cuba through whatever means are
possible, and text messaging is increasingly available in Cuba,"
Garcia-Perez told El Nuevo Herald.
The text messaging program is "within the guidelines for the use of cell
phones" and "certainly not intended to disrupt anything," added Tish
Wells, spokesperson for the Office of Cuban Broadcasting (OCB), which
supervises the Martí stations.
Cuba took a more dire view of the effort, however, with the government's
CubaDebate Web page branding it a part of a U.S. government "cyberwar"
against the communist system. The text also was read Monday on a Cuban
TV news program.
The Cubadebate report complained the system "will be able to bombard
Cuban cellular telephone users with 24,000 text messages a week, in open
violation of Cuban laws and international agreements." It did not detail
which laws or agreements.
"I don't know what they are talking about," said García-Perez. "We work
openly, publicly, transparently. We have nothing to hide."
The Cuban report added that the "gigantic cyberwar operation threatens
to seriously affect the normal functioning of the SMS services offered
to Cuban cellular users," but did not explain how that could happen.
García Pérez said Radio/TV Martí, created by the U.S. government to
break the Cuban government's monopoly on the mass media, began sending
the computerized SMS messages to the island in March or April. A Cuban
blogger in Spain has been using the same system to send his messages
since October under the name Cuba Sin Censura.
But the details of Radio/TV Martí's effort came to light only after the
contract for the computerized SMS services was published in Cuba Money
Project, a Web page that tracks U.S. government spending on Cuba-related
programs.
The contract between the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which
runs all U.S. government TV and radio stations, and Washington Software
Inc. is for $84,000 for one year starting Sept. 15. One-year extensions
could bring the total to $464,000.
It requires the Maryland-based firm to be ready to send up to 24,000
text messages per week to telephone numbers that the BBG will provide,
"using a variety of tools to counter foreign government-sponsored
Internet censorship controls."
The Money Project report, based on U.S. government documents obtained by
journalist Tracey Eaton through the Freedom of Information Act, noted
that one of the companies that was considering bidding on the contract
had asked if the SMS campaign was legal.
"We are concerned with the legality of sending these types of
notifications to people in another country. Does the U.S. government
take all legal responsibility for these messages?" the unidentified
company asked in one document.
The BBG replied that the winner of the contract "assumes all
responsibility under this requirement and should consider all aspects of
this requirement before submitting an offer."
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/03/2437103/radiotv-marti-sending-news-to.html
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