Myanmar’s Military Struggles to Control the Virtual Battlefield Crisis Group Asia Report N°314, 18 May 2021 Page 25 ed applications, particularly cloud services, that will give them access to the wider internet, and restrictions on how DIA is used can easily be circumvented through VPNs. Already, instructional videos are widely available online explaining how to regain mobile internet access using certain applications and VPNs.121 One local information technology expert said: “Burmese people are very good at bypassing a lot of controls. We’re born in a system where everything has been blocked. Give us an inch of freedom, we’ll take ten inches”.122 In the long term, the economic cost of such a “walled garden” would be massive. Restricting the online sphere to a locally managed intranet would stifle innovation and entrepreneurship, decimating Myanmar’s growing e-commerce sector and promising start-up scene. The effects will be felt far beyond the technology sector, however, because many ordinary businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, are unlikely to have access to a DIA service. They will be reliant on a small number of whitelisted applications, and not the full suite of services they have come to use in their economic activity. If Myanmar develops an intranet, it will not resemble the internet, because it will not have social media or popular instant messaging services, for example – unlike in China, which had the resources to develop homegrown versions.123 The plan might also wipe out billions of dollars in investment, including in operator licences, cell towers and international gateways.124 Experience from elsewhere suggests the regime is likely to face significant challenges implementing its intranet model. Countries like Iran and Russia have spent years trying to retrofit an intranet onto existing architecture without success, in part because users have resisted and found workarounds.125 North Korea and Cuba have been more successful, partly because the population has never experienced political freedom. China’s model, while effective, carries a financial burden that Myanmar simply cannot afford, and has developed in a similarly closed political culture. The military is likely to encounter significant pushback in Myanmar, given the telecommunications liberalisation of the past decade. “The internet is part of our lifestyle now. … This is trying to take us back to the Stone Age. It might have worked twenty years ago, or even ten years ago, but I don’t think people will accept these restrictions”, said one information technology expert.126 whitelisted, too. It also warned that whitelisting could increase the risk of cyberattacks. See “The case for open internet in Myanmar”, Telenor Myanmar, 11 May 2021. 121 To prevent these loopholes from being closed, Crisis Group has decided not to disclose further details about how the restrictions are being circumvented. 122 Crisis Group interview, Myanmar-based IT expert, April 2021. 123 Crisis Group interviews, IT expert and businesspeople, April 2021. 124 In its first-quarter earnings for 2021, Telenor announced a 6.5 billion krone ($780 million) writedown of its Myanmar business, valuing it at zero. The business is heavily reliant on revenue from mobile data, and the write-down suggests the company sees little prospect of the restrictions being lifted in the near future. See “Telenor Group’s results for the 1st quarter 2021”, Telenor, 4 May 2021. 125 See, for example, “How Russia is stepping up its campaign to control the internet”, Time, 1 April 2021; “How the Iranian government shut off the internet”, Wired, 17 November 2019; and “Oracle: China's internet is designed more like an intranet”, ZDNet, 23 July 2019. 126 Crisis Group interview, IT expert, April 2021.