{"id":77184,"date":"2016-08-08T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=77184"},"modified":"2016-08-03T13:19:15","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T12:19:15","slug":"a-guide-to-online-security-for-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/08\/a-guide-to-online-security-for-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"A Guide to Online Security for Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Aug 2016 –<\/em> The last year has seen an uptick in digital threats faced by individuals and organizations around the world, and those working on the question of Palestine are no exception.<\/p>\n

Over the past few months, there have been attacks on boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement websites, threatening emails to activists and new information emerging on Israel\u2019s surveillance capabilities.<\/p>\n

\"Amid<\/a>

Amid growing digital threats from Israel and other governments, individual activists and organizations can take practical steps to protect themselves and their communities.
Ryan Rodrick Beiler ActiveStills<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe latest cyber-attacks against BDS seem to be part of a full-fledged Israeli war on the movement that includes McCarthyite legal repression, use of intelligence services and yet more funding for \u2018brand Israel\u2019 propaganda,\u201d said<\/a> Mahmoud Nawajaa, the general coordinator of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC). \u201cThese attacks smack of Israel\u2019s despair at its growing isolation around the world, after failing for years to stem the growing support for the nonviolent BDS movement as a strategic and effective means to achieve Palestinian rights under international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following several new stories involving digital threats to BDS and solidarity activists, I started speaking with different people in the movement to learn more about the specific concerns faced by individuals.<\/p>\n

The concerns they raised vary, as do the threats they perceive to their work and the work of others, but everyone I spoke with agreed that digital threats to the movement are on the rise.<\/p>\n

Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian human rights activist and co-founder of the BDS movement, told me that the common response to such threats has been \u201cto further enhance our electronic security but without panicking or adopting stringent measures in that regard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barghouti says that an \u201cunexpected common outcome\u201d of such attacks \u201chas been to raise the morale of activists who feel further reassured about the effectiveness of the human rights campaigning that we are conducting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although such attacks can serve as an affirmation, they are nevertheless a hindrance to important work.<\/p>\n

This article serves as a concise resource to address the most commonly cited concerns. It is by no means exhaustive, but should provide a series of first steps toward improving digital security for activists and organizations.<\/p>\n

Problem: Solidarity websites are regularly experiencing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As eQualit.ie \u2013 an organization that provides free and open source digital security for civil society \u2013 reported in June<\/a>, there were six recorded incidents against bdsmovement.net<\/a>, the high-profile website of the BNC between February and March of 2016.<\/p>\n

Ali Abunimah of The Electronic Intifada, which has experienced DDoS attacks as well<\/a>, observed<\/a> that the attacks \u201clook like another element of Israel\u2019s increasingly aggressive effort to silence the BDS movement by all means.\u201d<\/p>\n

The technical report from eQualit.ie \u201cuncovers important evidence that the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks carried out on the main website of the BDS movement and websites of other groups critical of Israel\u2019s occupation and violations of human rights are complex and highly coordinated,\u201d Barghouti said. \u201cWe\u2019re encouraging all of our partners to use anti-DDoS services such as the Deflect service provided by eQualit.ie and to encrypt their communications wherever possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

A DDoS attack<\/a> can prevent a website from functioning efficiently, temporarily or indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Typically, the attack saturates its target with server requests designed to flood its bandwidth, leaving the server incapable of responding to legitimate traffic. To the user, this results in an inability to access the site in question.<\/p>\n

Although a DDoS attack can be leveraged against any website, journalists and activists are frequent targets. And where a corporation or government may have the resources to fend off such an attack, many smaller organizations or individuals don\u2019t know what to do when they experience one.<\/p>\n

What you can do:<\/strong><\/p>\n