Tord Lundström: “We are seeing an increase in the variety of methods used to silence the media” (and 3)

This interview with the director of Curium was originally published in the #LaMarea100 dossier ‘The Hour of Truth’. You can print the magazine here and continue to support independent journalism.

Curium is a non-governmental organization that provides web hosting and hacking protection services for independent media and human rights organizations. Leading the forensic analysis team Tord Lundstroman expert in the fight for freedom of information. Throughout his career, Lundström has documented and analyzed numerous attacks on freedom of expression by Aliminalia. In 2021, it was revealed that the digital reputation company was behind emails in which it posed as a lawyer for the European Commission to try to hide articles published by two investigative journalism outlets hosted on Curium.

He has long been condemning Aliminalia and its black tactics. What stands out to you about this company and its way of working?

One of the things that has surprised us the most is their methods of declassifying, deindexing, or eliminating content Online They are not particularly sophisticated, but still work. They have imported their strategies from other industries, such as those that provide SEO (search engine optimization) positioning services.

As an entity that provides web hosting to many investigative journalism outlets, Curium is often the target of attacks to silence the work of journalists around the world. What changes have you noticed in the frequency of these attacks and the methods used?

We have seen a rise in the various methods used to silence the media. Curium started with a focus on mitigating denial-of-service attacks, and today we are facing traffic interception (DPI), surveillance, and legal threats. We have also seen a rise in the use of Proxy into residential areas to carry out attacks. Fifteen years later, censorship and surveillance services are a well-established industry that operates openly without the need to resort to secrecy.

When conducting a forensic investigation of a malicious agent who does not want to be discovered, what are the biggest challenges we face, and how should we address them?

Of course, the initial challenge is to attribute the attacks, identify the people and companies that perpetrate them, and expose those who finance them. But the main challenge remains holding those involved accountable for their actions. Accountability remains a major challenge, as it usually requires more resources than simply identifying the perpetrators.

Curium has often denounced the fraudulent practices of certain “reputation management companies” that try to eliminate or hide information of public interest. However, there has been little change and no real consequences. How does this make you feel and why is it important to continue reporting this type of abuse?

We believe that, after so many years of exposing these practices, it is now common knowledge that reputation management companies and the advertising industry encourage abusive behavior and that big technology companies are also part of the problem. The bad practices are so obvious that no one denies that the system is now corrupt, but rather we debate how to fix it. But I believe that real results are yet to come.

Last November, Google filed a lawsuit against a group of business managers Online Which de-indexed its competitors’ content relying on the DMCA (Digital Age Copyright Act). Does this type of action make you more optimistic about Google’s ability to counter this phenomenon?

The solution is not to sue the anonymous Vietnamese group that filed the content removal request Online Over 600,000 URLs have been taken down under the DMCA for copyright infringement. The solution will come when the root of the problem, which is the DMCA itself, is addressed. This law has not provided adequate protection to copyright holders and is currently being used to fight good journalism on the Internet.

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You can read the articles that are part of the special ‘The Aliminalia Method’ here:

(Check) The ‘Alibililia method’ for deleting information is still valid (1)

(Research) Tricks to circumvent copyright to remove content (2)