[liberationtech] A Method for Identifying and Confirming the Use of URL Filtering Products for Censorship

[Ronald Deibert]

Hi Lib Tech

The Citizen Lab published a new research paper on URL filtering and censorship, which presents an initial methodology for identifying and confirming the use of URL filtering products around the world. The authors leverage the fact that many of these products accept user-submitted sites for blocking to confirm that a specific URL filtering product is being used for censorship. Using this method, the paper confirms the use of McAfee SmartFilter in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Netsweeper in Qatar, the UAE, and Yemen. The results show that these products are being used to block a range of content, including oppositional political speech, religious discussion and gay and lesbian material, and speech generally protected by international human rights norms. The paper is authored by Citizen Lab's Ronald J. Deibert, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, Jakub Dalek, Bennett Haselton, Helmi Noman, and Adam Senft, and Phillipa Gill of the Department of Computer Science, Stony Brook University. 

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fconferences.sigcomm.org%2Fimc%2F2013%2Fpapers%2Fimc112s-dalekA.pdf

Ronald Deibert
Director, the Citizen Lab 
and the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies
Munk School of Global Affairs
University of Toronto
(416) 946-8916
PGP: http://deibert.citizenlab.org/pubkey.txt
http://deibert.citizenlab.org/
twitter.com/citizenlab
r.deibert at utoronto.ca



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