iTechNote

Amnesty International has set up a campaign to fight against Internet censorship. It is working with the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) to help raise awareness of internet censorship around the world.

The aim of the ONI is to document empirically patterns of Internet content filtering and surveillance worldwide behind national firewalls over an extended period of time. The ONI’s flash map of global filtering is the first result of such attempt.

The map shows that China, Iran, Myanmar, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Syria and Vietnam have the most pervasive Internet censorship in place. These countries implement commercial, enterprise-level filtering technology deployed at an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or near international gateway connections so that the filtering affects an entire country.

The filtering technologies applied include Smart Filter, Websense, Cisco, Fortinet, Squidguard and etc. China’s backbone routing technology, supplied by Cisco, enables bi-directional packet level filtering which allows blocking of specific URLs that have specified keywords in their path.

In Iran, each ISP implements its own Internet content filtering system that includes SmartFilter and Websense. North Korea is not included in the map yet.

The United States Internet censorship is classified as nominal. Content filtering technologies are applied in the following cases:

1. A Pennsylvania state law required ISPs to block access to child pornography sites identified by agents of the Child Sexual Exploitation Unit (CSEU) formed by the Pennsylvania Attorney Generals Office (OAG).
2. In October/November 2004, www.georgewbush.com was blocked for international access.
3. Public institutions such as schools and libraries apply content filtering as required by the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA).

What you can do to support the campaign? You can sign up a pledge on Internet freedom. As of the time of writing, 48,350 Internet users have signed it. All you need to submit are your name and email address.

via irrepressible.info