We at the OpenNet Initiative have just released a new report on Internet content filtering in Saudi Arabia. Probably the most interesting result is the identification of commercial filtering software through “fingerprint” errors.
Author: Ron
Georgewbush.com Geolocational Filtering
We just released another Bulletin (007), this one examining the rather curious geolocation filtering by the official georgewbush.com website.
It seems for security reasons they didn’t want these countries looking at their website.
Not sure anyone there would have wanted to look at it anyway, but if they did they could have just used the IP address instead. However, the practice of geolocational filtering is one we’re following closely.
CJFE/IFEX Panel
I participated in a panel organized by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) and World Press Photo 04 on October 13 to discuss how the Internet is being policed and the impact this has on freedom of expression. Part of the events surrounding the World Press Photo exhibit in Toronto.
Weekly Standard Coverage of the ONI
Weekly Standard has a nice little article on our most recent bulletins on China. It looks like we’re helping to put a bit of pressure on Google to live up to their own highly publicized ethical standards. They just released this in response to our colleagues at DIT discovering that Google news searches in China are filtered.
Power and Pathologies of Networks
I just returned from the Power and Pathologies of Networks conference, organized by James Der Derian at the Watson Institute at Brown University, and held September 10 and 11th. It was a great conference, lots of good people, featuring a nice exhibit on the history of computer viruses.
ONI Bulletin on China's Filtering of Google
Our OpenNet Initiative project released a new bulletin today on China’s filtering of Google’s cache, how this affects using it as an ad hoc form of circumvention, and some other details related to backbone filtering on search engines.
The Wall Street Journal did a piece profiling (reg req’d) this and our previous Bulletin, as well as some research that colleagues of ours at Berkeley did on SMS messenging filters in China.
And now the Bulletin has been Slashdotted…..
Probing China
We (the OpenNet Initiative, that is) did some probing of Chinese search engines from behind the Great Firewall and found some interesting stuff. Look HERE for the full bulletin.
Die Zeit Story about Citizen Lab
I’m not quite sure what this story from Die Zeit says about me or the Citizen Lab, but if you speak German it looks interesting.
OpenNet Initiative Report on Iran
We just released this report on Iranian censorship of the Internet, essentially verifying banned websites reported by RSF and stop.censoring.us.
Citizen Lab — a hacker "grow op"
Wired News has a story about the history of hacktivism and the cDc, with some mention of the Citizen Lab as a “hacker grow-op.”
Hacktivism and How It Got Here
Michelle Delio 07.14.04
NEW YORK — Hacktivism isn’t found in the graffiti on defaced Web pages, in e-mail viruses bearing political screeds or in smug take-downs of government or organizational networks.
These sorts of activities are nothing more than reverse censorship and “the same old cheap hacks elevated to political protest,” according to Cult of the Dead Cow member Oxblood Ruffin.
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