What are Cubans doing with their smart phones?

Necessity is the mother of invention., proverb, unknown
Small Is Beautiful, E. F. Schumacher, 1973.

When personal computers became availaible, people began developing low-cost medical diagnosis equipment like this PC-based endoscope, which replaced a $30,000 instrument with a PC interfaced to an $800 scope:

Today, smart phones are being used as computers in diagnostic equipment and the savings are even more dramatic, as in this retinal scanner, costing $500, phone included:

What's happening in Cuba?

Cuba is known for the quality and quantity of their doctors, health care system and medical research. Cuba also has many computer scientists and resourceful developers. While Cuba has second-generation cell phone infrastructure, Cubans still have third and fourth-generation smart phones, which they use as cameras and handheld computers.

All that is good news. The bad news is that Cuba does not have a lot of capital for building clinics and purchasing diagnostic equipment.

Cuba sounds like a perfect environment for innovation in medical applications of smart phones. Are Cubans developing and using smartphone-based tools for medical diagnosis and community health? If you know of such examples, please let me know.

More generally, what sorts phone-based applications are Cubans using and developing? No doubt they are taking selfie-photos, listening to music and playing games, but what else are they doing with those pocket-sized computers?

Dissecting DRIP - the emergency Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill

[Update: DRIP became law on Thursday 17 July 2014. The Act is available here. Post-Act analysis here.]

Three months after the EU Court of Justice invalidated the EU Data Retention Directive, the UK government has burst into feverish action with emergency legislation to replace the 2009 Data Retention Regulations.  Those Regulations, made under the European Communities Act, are nominally still in place but highly vulnerable to judicial review following the demise of the Directive.

What does DRIP (the inevitable acronym with which the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers draft Bill has been saddled) do? With so much material appearing at such short notice, considered analysis is difficult.  Here are some first impressions.

DRIP, now with its accompanying provisional draft regulations which appeared on the Home Office website yesterday afternoon, has to square a circle.  Ideally it should make a plausible attempt to address the 15 or so fundamental rights grounds on which the ECJ held that the Data Retention Directive was invalid.  But at the same time DRIP has to deliver on Theresa May’s 10 July statement to the House of Commons that it maintains the status quo until 31 December 2016, when the sunset clause kicks in.

In reality DRIP cannot square the circle. Indeed the newly published Impact Assessment recognises that the legislation does not overcome all the ECJ stumbling blocks, claiming only to address the ECJ judgment “where possible” and “to the extent practicable”.  It also acknowledges the “Risk of being perceived as ignoring the ECJ judgment”.

[Update: The Home Office Human Rights Memorandum published by the Joint Committee on Human Rights on 16 July 2014 says in paragraph 33 (p. 8) that the Bill, together with existing domestic legislation, addresses "the majority of the criticisms of the Directive set out in the ECJ's judgment". The Committee has written to the Home Secretary asking her to provide the Committee with "a further detailed memorandum setting out in full the Government's analysis of precisely how UK law satisfies, or will satisfy, each of the requirements set out in paras 54 to 68 of the CJEU's judgment.]

We can frame two simple questions.

1. Does DRIP merely maintain the status quo?
2. If so, how far is maintaining the status quo permissible in the light of the ECJ decision?

First, however, we should recognise that DRIP does far more than replace the 2009 Data Retention Regulations.  It makes substantive changes to the interception warrants, interception capability and communications data access provisions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).  The Home Secretary has justified these amendments on a different basis from the data retention legislation: an urgent need to clarify, in particular, the territorial scope of RIPA's interception and communications data acquisition provisions.

These are the non-data retention aspects of DRIP.

• Clause 4 addresses the government’s concern that it should be able to apply RIPA to non-UK companies that provide communications services to the UK public.
• Clause 5 broadens the RIPA definition of telecommunications services. The Explanatory Note says this is so that webmail providers are clearly caught.  The change will also have implications for data retention because of crossover into DRIP.
• Clause 3 places a further restriction on the general purposes for which interception warrants and communications data acquisition notices can be issued.  This will bring RIPA into line with the existing codes of practice.

Whatever the merits of the non-data retention amendments (more on that below), it is debatable why any of them requires emergency legislation to be fast-tracked through Parliament at such breakneck speed.  They seem to be taking a piggy-back ride on the government’s urgent need for primary legislation in the wake of the ECJ’s data retention decision.

In relation to data retention, does DRIP merely maintain the status quo?

Putting Clauses 3 to 5 aside, let us focus on the claim that for data retention DRIP merely maintains the status quo.  This splits into three questions:

• Are the same providers as before required to retain data?  
• Are they required to retain the same data?
• Are the retention periods the same?

Are the same providers as before required to retain data?

This is difficult to answer, as the government is shifting from one existing set of definitions to another and then amending them for good measure.  Conspiracy theorists will smell a rat. Even the more generous may chalk up another example of the obscurantist law-making for which this field is notorious.

The 2009 Data Retention Regulations were based on EU definitions of publicly available electronic communications services and networks in the EU communications Framework Directive, implemented in the UK by the Communications Act 2003.

DRIP, however, abandons those EU definitions and instead adopts the homegrown RIPA definitions of public telecommunications systems and service.  It then amends the latter, which has been in place for 14 years.

Why, if the intention is to continue the status quo, does DRIP not simply continue to use the definitions in the Communications Act 2003?  The Explanatory Note (para 53) says that this is to "ensure uniform definitions across access and retention regimes".  

It is anyone's guess at this stage whether these changes will cast a wider net than the existing 2009 Regulations.  That would require detailed comparison of the two sets of definitions and a truckload of hypotheticals.  What is quite clear, however, is that they broaden the RIPA definitions.

The existing RIPA definition of telecommunication service is framed in terms of a service consisting in the “provision of access to, and of facilities for making use of, a telecommunications system”: two discrete elements related to the telecommunications system. 

DRIP Clause 5 says that the RIPA definition is now to cover a service that “consists in or includes facilitating the creation, management or storage of communications transmitted, or that may be transmitted, by means of such a system.”

The Explanatory Note (para 71) says that this is in order to ensure that companies who provide internet-based services, such as webmail, are caught.  Although para 18 of the Explanatory Note says that the amendment is “for the purposes of communications data and interception requests”, it also applies to the new mandatory data retention regime under DRIP.  

On the face of it the amendment could apply not just to webmail, but to any remote storage service (bearing in mind that the meaning of “communication” under RIPA is effectively anything capable of being transmitted). The word “facilitating” is a red flag for broad interpretation.  There is obvious potential for this to cover a very broad spectrum of activities.  It is exactly the type of provision that deserves the fullest Parliamentary scrutiny. 

The Home Office is reported in the Sunday Times (13 July 2014, subscription) as saying, in relation to this amendment to RIPA: "The bill clarifies how the current definition should be interpreted, but this cannot change or extend the meaning of the definition in RIPA to capture new services." This is twaddle.  In effect the amendment says "A shall be taken to include B." To the extent that B covers anything not within A, new services are captured.  Even if different views might exist on whether B does in fact cover things not within A, to suggest that the amendment 'cannot' capture new services is nonsense.  

Are they required to retain the same data?

The Explanatory Notes stress that a DRIP notice (i.e. a notice by the Secretary of State to a public telecommunications operator) cannot require retention of data types additional to those specified in the existing legislation. This is achieved by defining 'relevant communications data' by reference to the Schedule to the 2009 Regulations, which sets out the specific types of communications data that a CP could be required to retain.

The definition also carries through the important qualification that such data is caught only so far as it is generated or processed in the UK by public telecommunications operators in the process of supplying the telecommunications services concerned.  In other words, a PTO  cannot be required to create data if it does not generate or process it in the course of supplying those services. 

Generally, this appears faithfully to replicate the 2009 Regulations.  However the adoption and amendment of the RIPA definitions of telecommunications services and systems (see above) could conceivably affect the scope of data falling within "relevant communications data".

Are the retention periods the same?

The existing 2009 Regulations mandate retention for 12 months. DRIP (subject to an apparent drafting defect) provides for a maximum retention period of 12 months, while enabling shorter periods to be specified for different purposes. 

The defect is that if no regulations were in place specifying a maximum retention period under S1(4)(b), then the Secretary of State could apparently issue a notice under S1(2)(c) requiring retention for longer than 12 months. It is hard to believe that the government intends this to be a possibility.  The provisional draft regulations do specify a maximum period of 12 months.

Is maintaining the status quo for data retention permissible after the ECJ judgment?

The extent to which the government will in the new legislation address the grounds on which the ECJ invalidated the Data Retention Directive was initially unclear, since much is to be implemented through secondary legislation requiring affirmative resolutions of the Commons and the Lords.  DRIP and the now published provisional draft regulations go some way to addressing the ECJ judgment, although it was always difficult to see how any form of general mandatory data retention could comply with some of the more fundamental issues identified in the ECJ judgment. 

There may be room for debate about whether the ECJ intended to lay down that every objection identified in the judgment is a self-standing issue that has to be overcome independently in national legislation; and if so how each one should be overcome.  It does have to be remembered that:

• The ECJ was assessing the compatibility of EU legislation with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Liberties.
• The question of whether national legislation also has to comply with the EU Charter was not before the Court (although following the subsequent Pflegerdecision of the ECJ it is very likely that national legislation does have to comply with the Charter, for reasons explained by Professor Steve Peers here).
• National legislatures may have a certain degree of latitude (margin of appreciation) in how they comply with the Charter.
• The ECJ judgment may in some respects have applied stricter standards under the Charter than the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has done in respect of the Convention.  If so, that could open up the possibility that a Minister might certify DRIP compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights while not complying with all aspects of the ECJ judgment.

In any event the main Impact Assessment now makes tolerably clear that the government has not tried to comply with the full implications of the ECJ judgment. 

With all this in mind, it is instructive to list the ECJ's specific grounds for invalidating the Data Retention Directive and consider how DRIP does and does not address them. [Update: the government has now published a Note making its own comparison.]

Issue [paragraph number in ECJ judgment]	National legislation
Generality ●          Applies to all means of electronic communication (use widespread and of growing importance in people’s everyday lives) [56] ●          All subscribers and registered users [56] ●          Interference with fundamental rights of practically the entire European population [56] ●          All persons, all means of electronic communication without any differentiation, limitation or exception [57]	The ECJ's comments on generality referred specifically to the datatypes listed in Article 5 of the Directive.  Those were replicated in the Schedule to the 2009 Regulations.   No change in DRIP, which replicates the 2009 Schedule/Article 5 list.
Suspicionless ●          Applies even to persons for whom no evidence capable of suggesting a link, even indirect or remote, with serious crime [58] ●          No relationship required between data retained and a threat to public security: not restricted to: •         data pertaining to: -           particular time period -           particular geographical zone -           circle of particular persons likely to be involved in serious crime [59] •         persons whose data for other reasons could contribute to prevention, detection or prosecution of serious offences [59]	These objections all go to the very heart of a requirement on communication service providers to retain communications data of all users.  It is difficult to see how DRIP could address these (as a matter of retention, rather than access) without fundamentally altering the nature of the retention to something targeted at specific categories of communications relating to likely suspects and associates. Not addressed.
Specific rights ●      Applies to persons whose communications are subject to professional secrecy [58]	Again, it is difficult to see how this could be addressed (as a matter of retention) without moving to some kind of targeted scheme. Not addressed [Update: Not addressed as a matter of retention. Intention is that Communications Data Code of Practice will be amended regarding access (See Comms Data Factsheet)].
Access and use ●      No objective criterion to determine limits of access to data and subsequent use for prevention, detection or prosecution of sufficiently serious offences [60] ●      Leaves serious crime definition to national law [60] ●      No substantive and procedural conditions relating to access and subsequent use •         Left to member States to define procedures and conditions in accordance with necessity and proportionality [61] •         In particular no objective criteria re restriction of number of persons authorised to access and subsequently use to that strictly necessary [62]	Should be capable of being addressed in national legislation.  The government is relying in part on the provisions of RIPA governing access to communications data to satisfy these requirements.  RIPA is not the only legislation that can be used to require access to communications data.  The use of other powers is discouraged in the Communications Data Code of Practice, but not forbidden. The government addresses this under DRIP S1(6) by limiting access to mandatorily retained data to RIPA authorisations and notices, court orders or other judicial authorisation or warrant, or regulations under DRIP. (See 'Joining DRIP to RIPA', below)
Independent supervision ●      Above all, access not dependent on prior review by court or independent administrative body following a reasoned request •         No obligation on MS to establish such limits [62]	Capable of being addressed in national legislation. But this requirement for prior review by a court or independent body is contrary to the scheme of RIPA, whose communications data acquisition notices are not (save for local authorities) subject to any such requirement.  Nothing in DRIP or the provisional draft regulations addresses this objection. The government may perhaps seek to suggest that the ECJ has set a higher threshold than applies under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Retention period ●      No distinction between categories of data on basis of: •         possible usefulness •         persons concerned [63] ●      No objective criteria limited to strict necessity on which to base determination of retention period [64]	Capable of being addressed in national legislation. The government's intention appears to be to leave this aspect to the terms of individual retention notices issued by the Secretary of State, who is required in general terms to act in a way that he considers to be necessary and proportionate.  DRIP itself and the provisional draft regulations do no more than set an overall maximum 12 months retention period.
Data protection issues	Various issues raised by the ECJ concerning matters such as data security and destruction of data are addressed in the provisional draft regulations, which also introduce oversight of these aspects by the Information Commissioner.

Joining DRIP to RIPA

The government is relying on the necessity, proportionality and safeguards provisions of RIPA that govern access to communications data in order to address some of the implications of the ECJ judgment. 

However, RIPA is not the only legislation that can be used to access retained communications data.  Other powers exist which do not enjoy RIPA's safeguards. The use of other non-specific powers is deprecated in the Communications Data Code of Practice (para 1.3), but not forbidden.

The draft Communications Data Bill proposed in 2012 would have prevented such powers being used to acquire communications data.  The draft Explanatory Note to Clause 24 stated:

"123. This clause introduces Schedule 2 to the Bill which contains repeals of certain general information powers so far as they enable public authorities to secure the disclosure by a telecommunications operator of communications data without the consent of the operator. Clause 24 therefore ensures that operators are not required by law to obtain and disclose communications data other than in cases where the relevant statutory framework expressly guarantees the substantive protections of Article 8 and Directive 2002/58/EC (Directive on privacy and electronic communications)."

The powers specifically earmarked for abolition were under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Criminal Justice Act 1987, the Consumer Protections Act 1987, the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Social Security Administration Act 1992, the Competition Act 1998, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the Enterprise Act 2002.

The argument that in assessing compliance with the ECJ judgment DRIP should be read together with RIPA’s safeguards is difficult to maintain if other powers exist that may not have similar safeguards.  DRIP therefore addresses this in S1(6) by limiting access to mandatorily retained data to RIPA authorisations and notices, court orders or other judicial authorisation or warrant, or regulations under DRIP.  Part 3 of the provisional draft regulations also applies this limitation to data retained voluntarily under S.102 ACSA 2001.

DRIP's RIPA provisions

The new provisions in DRIP include Clauses 4 and 5, outlined briefly above. According to the Explanatory Note, these measures are only intended to clarify the intent of the current legislation and therefore were subject to Parliamentary scrutiny when RIPA was enacted in 2000. 

RIPA extra-territoriality

Clause 4 attempts to address the government’s concern that it should be able to apply RIPA interception capability notices, interception warrants and communications data acquisition notices to non-UK companies that provide communications services to the UK public.

18 months ago this issue was addressed in some detail, as regards communications data notices, in the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Communications Data Bill (paras 230 to 243) published in December 2012.

The DRIP clarification has two distinct aspects. One is whether, as a matter of interpretation, the warrantry and communications data acquisition provisions of RIPA can apply to conduct outside the UK. The second is how a RIPA warrant or a notice can be served on an entity outside the UK and the entity made subject to the relevant duty under RIPA.  This is important since no-one is obliged to do anything under these RIPA provisions unless they are served with or given the appropriate warrant or notice.

As to the first aspect, none of the existing RIPA provisions contain any clear territorial limitation on the location of conduct that can be authorised or required under a warrant or communications data notice.  That contrasts with the criminal offence of unauthorised interception which is explicitly confined to conduct within the United Kingdom.

However location of conduct is only part of the issue.  A person located outside the UK may engage in conduct within the UK.  A person located within the UK may engage in conduct outside the UK; and a person located outside the UK may engage in conduct outside the UK.  How these different scenarios map onto the different aspects of RIPA is, and always has been, fearfully difficult to understand.

The Joint Committee said:

"The terms in which RIPA is drafted appear to impose no limits on the telecommunications operators which may be required to disclose communications data, as long as they operate in the United Kingdom i[t] does not matter where they may be based."

As to location of conduct, now DRIP states explicitly that a warrant, a capability maintenance notice and a communications data acquisition notice may each relate to conduct outside the UK.

DRIP then provides that the duties to comply with such warrants and notices apply whether or not the person is within the United Kingdom. In the case of interception warrants knowing failure to comply with the duty can give rise to criminal liability under RIPA S11(7).

DRIP then goes to great lengths to devise ways of serving warrants and notices within the UK on non-UK entities.  For communications data acquisition notices this can even include oral notification.  Whether this elaboration is simply a question of practicality or perhaps reflects a deeper concern that serving government warrants and notices outside the UK might be regarded as executive acts violating the territorial sovereignty of another State is a matter for speculation. 

As for data retention notices, DRIP provides that they can be given to an operator (or description of operators) by giving or publishing it in such manner as the Secretary of State considers appropriate for bringing it to the attention of the operator or description of operators to whom it relates.

Telecommunications services

As explained above, the amended definition of telecommunications services under DRIP Clause 5 applies both to data retention under DRIP and to RIPA. 

[Updated with minor amendments 21.40 12 July 2014, 10.50 13 July 2014; and 12.17 13 July 2014 to take account of Home Office statement on telecommunications services reported in The Sunday Times; 14:42 15 July 2014 regarding professional secrecy. Further updated 23:11 16 July 2014 to take account of Home Office Human Rights Memorandum; and 09:48 22 July 2014 to include the government's point by point Note on compliance with the ECJ judgment and a reference to the enacted legislation.]

Could Google provide Internet access in Cuba?

The obstacles are political, not technical

Eric Schmidt and other Google executives traveled to Cuba where they met with members of the Internet community and the government. Google is providing Internet access in a few US Cities and is considering others -- might they provide Internet access in Cuba?

Consider the following:

• Cuba has very little domestic backbone infrastructure, but they could afford to extend Internet connectivity via satellite.
• Google has satellite projects that could serve Cuba.

Of course, both governments would have to agree for Google or any other satellite ISP to connect Cubans. I believe that, if the Cuban government would agree, the US would as well.

But, the Cuban government has feared the Internet since the time of their first IP connectivity in 1996. At that time, there was high level debate about the Internet. The hard liners, led by Raúl Castro, argued against the Internet while others argued for a "Chinese" approach of supporting Internet use while censoring content and surveilling users. (It seems Fidel Castro was ambivalent).

The hard liners won in 1996, but what about today? Schmidt reports that a "number of the people" he spoke with said "the eventual model of Cuba would be more like China or Vietnam than of Venezuela or Mexico." If some of those were young government officials, there may be a glimmer of hope.

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Update, July 3, 2014

It is noteworthy that Jared Cohen, Google's Director of Ideas, accompanied Schmidt on this trip -- before joining Google, he was a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff and served as an advisor to Condoleezza Rice and later Hillary Clinton.

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Update 8/22/2014

MIT Media Lab founder Nichlas Negropont gave a TED talk summrizing his work over the last 30 years. He concludes with his plan for the future -- using stationary satellites to connect the "last billion" -- the poorest, rural people -- to the Internet. (That part of his talk begins at 17:05). He mentions that he has partner in this project -- might it be Google?

Here is what he had to say:

And so my plan, and unfortunately I haven't been able to get my partners at this point to let me announce them, but is to do this with a stationary satellite. There are many reasons that stationary satellites aren't the best things, but there are a lot of reasons why they are, and for two billion dollars, you can connect a lot more than 100 million people, but the reason I picked two, and I will leave this as my last slide, is two billion dollars is what we were spending in Afghanistan every week. So surely if we can connect Africa and the last billion people for numbers like that, we should be doing it.

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Update 11/6/2014

I have suggested satellite connectivity as an interim step for Cuba on the way to a modern internet, but, might Google bring a Google Fiber-like project to Havana if it were not for political barriers? They are providing fiber connectivity in Kampala, Uganda -- why not Havana?

But, even if they provided a fiber backbone in Havana, how would the end users in homes and offices be connected? Google may be working on an answer to that as well -- they are experimenting with high-speed, short range wireless connectivity.

NPR on the Internet in Cuba -- repeating party lines

Josefina Vidal

NPR is in Cuba for a week, and a segment on today's Morning Edition program touched on the Internet. Josefina Vidal, Cuban director of US relations said "one of the reasons" for Cuban's inability to access the Internet was the US embargo blocking access to underwater cables, but she did not elaborate on the other reasons  nor did the interviewer, David Greene, push her and forgot to mention the ALBA-1 cable.

She also denounced USAID efforts like Alan Gross bringing equipment into the country and the more recent revelation of their covert sponsorship of Zunzuneo.

The segment concluded with a USAID official saying "The US will continue to support the Cuban people's ability to communicate with one another."

When Greene suggested that the Castro administration was using the embargo as an excuse for their poor economy, Vidal challenged the US to drop it and see what happened.

I wish Greene had challenged her to allow Cubans to have satellite Internet accounts -- I'd like to see what would happen.

ETECSA will provide service to non-agricultural coops

ETECSA has been authorized to provide Internet service for Cuba's 245 non-agricultural cooperatives.

The access will be restricted to the cooperative's location and will be dial-up only in order to stop them from reselling access. They will pay the same rate as state entities.

For background on the cooperatives and their importance see these posts.

Cuba's WiFi crackdown -- substance or theater?

The New Republic blog reported on a crackdown on a 120-user WiFi network in Havana on May 26 and the Miami Herald reported on that crackdown and three others, one of which had 400 users.

When one hears of a "120-400 user network," one might imagine 120-400 simultaneous users downloading files, posting social media content, communicating with each other and, even, maybe, accessing the Internet. But that is unrealistic.

The articles report that these were WiFi mesh networks. I worked on two WiFi mesh networks around ten years ago (see the update, below) and in spite of having fast backhaul to the Internet (by Cuban standards) they were limited in physical range, speed and the ability to serve many simultaneous users.

So, ten years ago, router overhead and link bandwidth severely limited WiFi mesh networks. But, what about today's improved equipment, as used in Cuba? The articles mentioned above say the networks used Ubiquity Nanostation M2 outdoor routers, shown here:

These are much faster and have better antennas and radios than we had ten years ago, but they are WiFi devices, designed for local area networks. I have no experience with the Nanostation M2, but I checked the "most helpful" five-star review on Amazon. The review was written by an installer, who states that "One customer uses them for a bridge covering 300' line of sight ... and gets 150 Mbps throughput, which is fantastic." That is better than the equipment we used ten years ago, but it does not sound like a link in a network in which multiple users are simultaneously downloading the latest episode of their favorite TV show from a PC server or surfing the Web (Cuban or World Wide).

I suspect, though do not know, that the routers are running Commotion, a mesh networking program developed by the New America Foundation with funding from USAID. They have piloted networks in a number of cities but I am not familiar with any reports giving performance and capcity data. If you have used a WiFi mesh network in Cuba, I would love to hear about your experience.

Given the limitations of WiFi and the need to keep antennas out of site, I suspect that Cuban WiFi networks are primarily serving and being used by tech enthusiasts -- like our pre-Internet dial-up bulletin boards. These networks would have a hard time competing with shared flash drives for distributing music, video and software and they do not offer a practical, sharable path to the Internet or the Cuban intranet -- they do not seem to me to pose a political threat.

(We can imagine future mesh networks using very fast cell phones with smart, non-WiFi radios as posing a political threat -- see this speculative paper on a mesh network in North Korea).

If I am correct, why did the government bother to shut these networks down and why is the enforcement somewhat sporadic?

Cracking down on these networks is reminiscent of, though less tragic than, the Alan Gross case in that the government is overstating their threat. Had Alan Gross succeeded, it would have meant little, and, if my speculation about the performance of these mesh networks is accurate, they too have little political or practical importance.

Enforcement also seems to be selective. Several networks were closed down, but people openly advertise WiFi equipment and weekly packets of entertainment and software for sale on the Revolico Web site, for example:

They may have stopped these networks as a PR/propaganda measure -- for internal and external consumption. Perhaps it is just a general slap to intimidate people who are uncertain as to what the rules and regulations really are -- to let them know who is boss. Another possibility is that these networks might be seen as a threat to ETECSA's revenue. It does not seem like much today, but one could imagine mesh networks as one day impacting ETECSA's bottom line.

It seems that issue of WiFi networks was included as part of a discussion at a forum in Havana earlier this week. Were you there?
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Update June 24, 2014

I have had off-the-record conversations about these WiFi hotspots with people in Cuba since writing this post. They say there are many such networks -- possibly in every large or medium size city in Cuba -- and the networks are not political. There are unwritten rules against political discussion and a member could be banned for breaking them. They say the major uses are sharing programs, songs and videos and playing games.

This tends to confirm my suspicion that these are more like hobbyist bulletin boards than a political threat and still leaves me speculating about the motive is for closing some of them.

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Two WiFi mesh networks -- ten years ago

This university housing network was a class project connecting 22 small apartment buildings to 100 Mbps backhaul links (in the red buildings). The three buildings on the lower left were unable to connect to the backhaul points, so we installed a two-hop mesh to extend the network to them. The addition of a single hop added significant latency and we could not have realistically gone further. 

Around the same time, I worked on a public-access WiFi mesh network with a radius of around 2,000 feed for laptops with external antennas in downtown Hermosa Beach, California. The meshed computers shared a 6 Mbps backhaul link, as shown here, the traffic was spiky, but spikes saturated this link at times.

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Update 11/21/2014

A friend forwarded me a link to a story on another crackdown on a Cuban WiFi network. Five men were arrested and their equipment confiscated.

As we see above, this and similar networks do not pose a political threat and, indeed, the charges against the five were not political, but economic -- the arrests were the result of a complaint by Cuban State Radio and the men were charged with illegal economic activity.

This sounds like a desire to protect an economic monopoly and it reminds me of the efforts of Internet service providers in the United States lobbying for state laws that prohibit local governments from offering broadband service.

Tom Wheeler, Chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, has said he would seek to invalidate those laws. Perhaps small WiFi networks like this (and "sneaker nets") should be considered legitimate small businesses and encouraged as part of the Cuban Small Business Initiative.

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Update 2/8/2015

Ted Henken found an article describing Street Net (SNET), a large WiFi network in Havana.

The post describes the network and its uses (a lot of gaming) and gives a list of 14 rules of membership, including:

• Don't speak of politics or religion.
• Don't post illegal material like pornography or television programs.
• Don't charge for services offered on the network.

Evidently the restrictions they place on users are sufficient to keep the government from closing them down -- they are far from secret. It is interesting to note that they seem to have banned the posting of copyrighted material while weekly information "packages" publish TV shows, movies, magazines, etc. I've read the hypotheses that the weekly packages are distributed by the government -- perhaps SNET is staying out of their territory.

I also skimmed the comments. One said -- perhaps half seriously and half gallows humor -- that it was a good article and he hoped the network would not mysteriously disappear after it was published. The author replied that he was not worried because the network was well known and would have been closed down long ago if it bothered the government.

Iván García's description of the Cuban "computer rooms" -- a success in spite of everything

The internet arouses affection and fear.

Iván García has posted a great description of the Cuban "computer rooms". (As he notes, there is no good English translation for "salas de navegación").

Here are a few random quotes:

• On average, each internet room has received 7,600 customers a month in the first 12 months. Some 250 internet users a day. 25 an hour: the internet premises are open 10 and a half hours every day of the week, from 8:30 am to 7 pm.
• Of the blogs or webs originating in Cuba, like Primavera Digital, out of every 100 people consulted, only 9% said they copy the contents onto a pendrive to read later at home.
• A technician tells me that, right now, the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) has a fleet of vehicles equipped to detect illegal internet signals and cable satellite channels.
• The connection speed can’t be compared with what you find in other countries: between 512 Kb and 2 Mb.
• For those who like to read the international media, the favourites are the BBC, El Pais and the Financial Times. Of the Cuban pages, the most visited are Diario de Cuba and Havana Times, and, of the Miami newspapers, El Nuevo Herald and Diario de las Américas.

I better stop before I copy the entire post -- go read it for yourself.