ACCESS DENIED!
If you tried to access a website (URL) that could not output the expected result, instead it says, “you don’t have permission to access this website” or “you might be behind a firewall”, then it is possible you have been fenced out from entering the “facility”.
In telecommunication, firewalls are like software security check points that screens the packets as they pass through the network pathways. The purpose of the screening is to make sure there is no harmful contents or “forbidden” contents being transported across locations. In literal terms of the everyday life, firewalls are like the police in the city dealing with safety threats to maintain law and order. Firewalls can also be compared to the customs and immigration personnel or border police who are at the ports of entry making sure activities adhere to applicable laws, to maintain orderliness and ensure a secure space. Like the immigration officers at the airports, the network firewalls have the authority to question, screen delay or hold the passage of a matter until it satisfies the established rules and requirements. That is how powerful a New Generation Firewall (NGFW) software could be.
GEOPOLITICAL WEAPONRY
NGFW can be programmed to prevent a user in a specific geographical location from accessing online resources. When this powerful network tools are used as gatekeepers to identify, control, block or limit access, they become a tool for geofencing which keeps off identified users. Then the tools become a formidable barrier to both personal and societal development. Imagine you are a student in a location where access to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is restricted or denied, or access to potential scholarship, study and research resources are restricted or denied. It is like an individual in a library being prevented by the Librarian from accessing some useful learning resources. That individual is locked in a room with limited books. A barrier to accessing knowledge-base resources can be interpreted as a prevention from accessing global resources for development. For students and researchers, it leads to stagnation and artificially imposed limitation on the individual who is seeking knowledge for personal development.
There is also identity-based screening which can target selected group of people or a certain demography. When a security system screens, identifies and locks out an identified group, it results to a form of isolation and loss of the individual’s authority to make decisions, The question becomes: who controls what the people know?
WHO CONTROLLS THE NARRATIVE?
In the wake of the United States’ withdrawal of its membership from the World Health Organization (WHO), many questions are asked about whose institutional behaviour was a firewall to obstruct or endanger public health and economic prosperity of sovereign nations? While the government of the USA cites that during the COVID-19, the WHO acted as a metaphorical firewall causing “obstruction” against freedom of information and that the organization barred the public from knowing its “failures” on the COVID-19. The WHO argues that during this global health threat, it remained a “flat network”-without a firewall-, allowing transparency and best recommendations based on the “available evidence”. However, it is established that for lack of information and barrier to accurate and timely information, great nations including the USA were thrown into panic, as they decided on social distancing and mandatory vaccines. Due to limited knowledge, the giants were limited in their capacities to get “everything right”. The result was a mandatory lockdown which caused emotional mutiny in some countries as their citizens rebelled against the logic behind the decisions by the centre for disease control. Just as the digital firewall filters packets to control a narrative, institutional firewalls can filter global health data to lead a public blinded by limited information. And while the USA-WHO COVID-19 debate challenges critical thinkers to further explore how knowledge is controlled, it is glaring to see that, like metaphorical firewalls, new generation firewalls are used by governments for internet shutdown, blocking of apps and information, and controlling the knowledge accessible to the people. The peak of this strategy usually leads to revolution or rebellion where the isolation and individual or societal stagnation persists.
BREAKING THE FENCE OF THE DIGITAL GHETTOES
For small business at grassroot levels, geofencing leaves many start-ups in digital ghettos where they are prevented from global visibility. It also prevents small businesses from accessing gateways for growth and bars individuals from building the necessary digital social capital they need to break the barriers of social and economic stagnation.
While firewall is a very important facility in the digital space as it ensures a safer superhighway, when it is deployed at national level as a gatekeeper, it becomes censorship. As we know that hitting the “Access Denied” wall multiple times leaves people with little information to formulate decisions that guide their entire future, the communities champions must continue to prepare others through digital education, using the tools of Virtual Private Network (VPN) and Domain Name System (DNS) to bypass the barrier that stands against transparency and opportunities. What you know guides what you become- for they say “Knowledge is Power”!
Written by: Byke Freeborn |X/Twitter: @bykefreeborn