From Turkey, talking to lots of people about the future of Internet filtering, I’m struck by the value of a broad, public debate about what kind of a network we want the Internet to become over time. There are decisions, made on a daily basis, by dozens of states around the world, that affect the … Read more
Daniel Castro of The Information Technology & Innovation Fund recently published a paper supporting the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) currently being debated in congress. In that report, he claims that research performed by us supports the domain name system (DNS) filtering mechanisms mandated by SOPA. This claim is a distortion of our work. We … Read more
The Wikileaks/Cablegate story has long-term implications for global society on very many levels. (See JZ’s excellent FAQ on Wikileaks, co-developed with Molly Sauter.) One is our shared understanding of the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack phenomenon. The incidence of DDoS has been growing in recent years. It links up to important threads to emerge … Read more
I’m looking forward to a day of watching the fallout from the Google-China-HK announcement yesterday. I give Google an enormous amount of credit for the approach that they are taking; it’s a worthy effort to meet what they consider their human rights obligations while seeking to engage in the China market, both of which are … Read more
The New York Times’ Brian Stelter and Brad Stone have a very thoughtful piece in the paper today about the changing role of censorship in an Internet age, with references to ONI work. The final point, made in the story by Ethan Zuckerman, draws an appropriate connection to the Green Dam story in China from … Read more
We at the OpenNet Initiative have released our 2009 study of Internet censorship in Iran, including new data from our most recent rounds of testing.
At the OpenNet Initiative, we’ve spent much of this week looking hard at the Chinese Green Dam software that the state is asking all PC manufacturers to ship with their hardware. The analysis highlights — and confirms — a variety of problems with the software. As we argue in this ONI Bulletin, this announcement is … Read more
Our friends at StyleFeeder have offered up some great data about the geographic sources of social media spam on their tech blog. The background: Philip Jacob, the founder of StyleFeeder, is a long-time anti-spam advocate, while also being a careful guy who doesn’t want to ruin the Net in the process of fighting nuisance online. … Read more
As WIRED is reporting, a leaked Cisco presentation (online here) makes clear that, in 2002, Cisco team members saw censorship in China as an opportunity to sell equipment to the state. The presentation, in slide 57, cites what appears to be a Chinese official saying that one of the goals of Operation Golden Shield (what … Read more
Mister Chairman, distinguished members of the Committee: I would like to offer my deep appreciation for the Committee’s interest in this important matter. Congressional engagement is an important factor in deepening understanding of the nexus between global Internet freedom and corporate responsibility, and an essential element for ensuring that the Internet continues on its path … Read more