All Content Related to Filtering tech and software

Vietnam: Google, Yahoo! sought to regulate blogosphere

charles — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:11:05 -0500

According to AFP news reports, Vietnam’s government wants to enlist Google and Yahoo! to help “regulate” the country’s blogging scene in an effort to stop “incorrect information” from being published online.

Recent years have witnessed an explosion of activity in Vietnam’s blogosphere, one of the sole outlet’s of expression amidst Vietnam’s state-controlled media.

Senior officials have stated that blogs should serve as personal diaries rather than “organs to disseminate opinions about politics, religion, and society,” AFP reports. Information and Communication Deputy Minister Do Quy Doan has announced that the government’s proposed regulations intend “to create a legal base…to tackle violations in the area of blogging.”

The new slate of regulations, expected to be announced later this month, include fines of up to USD 12,000 and jail time of up to twelve years for violators, according to Nguyen Tu Quang, the director of the state-run Back Khoa Internet Security Centre. Quang acknowledged that “this is quite a strict punishment but perfectly suitable for those who intentionally release incorrect information about religion, the political system, state and government of Vietnam.”

These reports follow the September jailing of high-profile Vietnamese blogger Dieu Cay, purportedly for criticizing China’s claims over disputed South China Sea islands.

Firefox Add-On Allows Users to Experience Chinese Internet Censorship

jillian — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:23:19 -0500

Anyone who has followed OpenNet Initiative's research or even the mainstream media knows it's no secret that China filters the Internet. China has made headlines time and again for its pervasive policies toward censorship.

In 2006, Nart Villeneuve of ONI partner institution Citizen Lab (at the Munk Centre of University of Toronto) created a side by side comparison of Google.com and Google.cn. This comparison allows users to see the differences in a basic search on Google's US and China servers. In the image below, one can view the differences in a search for "falun," a popular spiritual practice in China, the practitioners of which face persecution. The Chinese government has admitted to filtering this search term. The screen capture below demonstrates Villeneuve's tool:

Now, a new Firefox add-on allows users to easily experience life behind the Great Firewall. China Channel, created by Aram Bartholl, Evan Roth, and Tobias Leingruber, was built with the intent to simply "help lower the technical barrier to surfing the Chinese internet." Bartholl, Roth, and Leingruber built a user interface over a switchproxy, allowing a user without technical skills to surf via open Chinese proxies. The switchproxy runs on proxies that are available on the web, and maintained by China Channel.

The creators admit that China Channel has flaws. For example, the connection to the proxy is in plain text, which means that requests that contain keywords are filtered on the way to the proxy. One example of this is that in China, you can search for "falun" in the Chinese versions of Google or Yahoo!, whereas using China Channel you cannot.

In an e-mail, Bartholl admitted that the results from China Channel are not identical to those within China, and that the team is working on the encryption. But Bartholl explains that the tool is by no means intended to replicate the Great Firewall exactly, rather, the intent is to provide a tool for "regular people" to experience life on the Chinese Internet.

As for inspiration for the project? The team states that they were inspired by several projects and wanted to build a tool to draw more attention to this important topic. Bartholl states that, "It is not only about China. Many countries [practice] filtering in different degrees and ways. There is not just one global internet."

Special thanks to Nart Villeneuve.

Australian Activists Fight Filtering Measures

jillian — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:40:20 -0400

Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's recent announcement that Australia's upcoming filtering scheme would not allow Internet users to opt-out was met with great opposition from the Australian public, as well as some from ISPs.

The scheme has also received criticism from Australian activist groups. An Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) editorial by activist blogger Michael Meloni (Somebody Think of the Children!) argues that the idea of a high-speed national network is a "step in the right direction" but that the filtering scheme will slow down Internet access and raise costs.

Meloni also questions the Australian government's definition of "illegal" and the methods used for blocking such material: "As for banning websites that are 'inappropriate', is the Government really in the best position to decide what that is? Does inappropriate include information on sexual health, breast-feeding, drugs and abortion?"

Therein lies the problem for most. How can the government guarantee that only illegal sites will be blocked? With fine lines between nudity and pornography, drug education and drug use, sexually educational and sexually explicit, how can any filtering mechanism appropriately filter material?

Activist group No Clean Feed designed their site to "focus public scrutiny and action on to abandoning or severely modifying this policy." Their web site, which refers to the "Great Firewall of Australia," offers a number of ideas Australian citizens can
implement to protest the filtering scheme.

Additionally, a YouTube group related to the site shares videos made in protest of Australian filtering.

Despite the myriad efforts taken thus far to protest the filtering scheme, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has not responded to his constituents in any way, and has been accused of attempting to silence his critics.

Image Source: No Clean Feed

Australia's Filtering Ideals

jillian — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:24:11 -0400

Under Australia's new Internet filtering scheme, citizens will be unable to opt out of inclusion. Instead, they will be able to choose between two blacklists; one blocks content inappropriate for children, the other blocks illegal material.

Shortly after the plan was unveiled in late 2007, an Australian teen cracked the AU$84 filter almost immediately.

In January of this year, our own Rob Faris blogged about the incident, saying, "In placing the controls in the hands of ISPs—who so far seem to be understandably reluctant to take over this role—the calculus of filtering and circumvention change somewhat, but the vulnerability to circumvention remains."

The latest concerns in the case involve not only user ability to get around the filters, but also the fact that the filtering technology will likely slow Internet speeds. Libertarians are also concerned that the filter could later be expanded to include subjects like euthanasia, protest, and drugs.

Although the child-friendly filter has a simple opt-out option, it is not yet clear what will be included in it, or to what ages it will be geared.

Australia's policies differ from the United States in that illegal material found on the web in the U.S. is often removed by a take-down order, rather than filtered from view.

Source:
The Standard

Porn on Planes?

jillian — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:42:17 -0400

The recent announcement from American Airlines regarding wireless Internet service on airplanes has caused quite a stir. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants have raised concern about passengers viewing questionable content during the flight. That questionable content, specifically, would be porn.

Although most people would agree that viewing pornography during a commercial flight is a no-no, it seems that both flight attendants and passengers worry that some might try to do so anyway and have launched a campaign for American to filter its in-flight wireless service. The airline, however, has instead chosen to leave monitoring up to flight attendants, who by all accounts already have plenty of work to do.

According to Fox News, Delta, Alaska, and Northwest, all plan to roll out unfiltered Internet service soon, while JetBlue and Continental intend to filter some content. International airlines also plan to follow American's lead, with the exception of Australia's Qantas.

The hope is that people will use their own good judgment while flying the friendly skies, but what if they don't? Should flight attendants be responsible for determining what constitutes an offensive site?

On the other hand, is filtering the right choice? And will it even be effective? There are two major issues behind this possibility.

GoGo, the company which supplies wireless Internet to the airlines, already filters VOIP (voice over internet protocol) services from fliers, so as not to disturb passengers by allowing customers to make phone calls. Even still, some passengers have already managed to evade this block. Therefore, there's nothing stopping them from evading a block on pornography.

The other issue is in defining "offensive content". Although most frequent fliers would certainly oppose the viewing of porn during a flight, where should the line be drawn? If children are the main concern, should content containing vulgar words or scantily clad women be filtered as well?

While adding wi-fi to flights is a positive for most, there are concerns that come along it, whether filtered or not. Even if what you're viewing would not be deemed offensive by your neighbor, it's worth considering if you'd want your neighbor to see it at all. USA Today suggests investing in a privacy screen to avoid allowing anyone to see your work.

Another potential solution, and one that would find support even from those with no desire to use in-flight wi-fi, would be to create separate family and adult sections that would allow adults to sit away from children, thus eliminating the need for filtering.

New Domain Names May Aid State Censorship

brendan — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:36:20 -0400

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - the organization that licenses domains like .com and .edu - meets in Paris this week to discuss two proposals which could change the shape of the Internet. The first would create a new class of non-latin alphabet domains - Cyrillic and Chinese, for example - while the second would create a potentially infinite number of 'generic' domains - .museum, for example, or .africa. (See [here] for a post on the second proposal.) The first proposal includes potential censorship concerns, which are discussed below.

The new proposal considers adding non-latin country names - the Chinese character translation of .cn, for example, and the Cyrillic translation of .ru - and if approved would cede management of those domains to their countries' respective governments. The Chinese government already operates .cn and the Russian government operates .ru, and both countries have repeatedly censored material within these domains. Last year Russia censored the popular website Lenta.ru for criticizing Uzbek elections, and this year Russian lawmakers proposed censoring any online material the government deemed "extremist". China has a long history of censoring websites related to the Falun Gong and Tiananmen Square, and continues to censor politically sensitive sites in the run-up to the Olympic games.

In the face of ongoing censorship, ICANN could do two things to aid free speech in these countries. First, it could require an 'open access' provision for these new non-latin domains. That is, it could require that any person who wanted to buy a specific site within the Cyrillic or Chinese domains (www.falungong.cn, for example) could do so, regardless of his or her politics. Second, ICANN could relax registration requirements for purchasing new domain names. For example, it could strike its own requirements that buyers give their addresses or contact information, or it could mandate people be allowed to purchase domain names under pseudonyms (provided, or course, that the buyers actually paid their bills). In this way governments would have a much harder time controlling end-user content.

The current proposal for non-latin domains does neither of these things. After all, ICANN considers itself a technical body, not a political one. And even if ICANN were to impose these sorts of requirements, a government could try to create its own top-level domains, and provide its own registry services, ostensibly making a separate Internet. Yet even if ICANN's influence on the Chinese (or any) government is small, it remains the best-placed organization to make just such a demand for free speech.

You can track the debate in Paris here and here; a decision on the non-Latin domains is expected this week.