U.S. Company Helps Saudi Arabia Censor The Net

John writes: "Saudi Arabia blocks its citizens' internet access to some sites on pornography, religious information (including some on the state religion: Islam) humor, music, movies, and homosexuality, and programs that translate web pages into Arabic, according to this Boston Globe article. (Secure Computing Corp.) provides the Saudis with Smartfilter to block network of proxy servers. The article does not describe the criteria used to block various cites. I wonder if Slashdot is one of them?" Update: 07/17 15:02 GMT by T : A brief mention ran yesterday at the Censorware Project as well, linking to the referenced report itself.

Comments

we shouldn't be surprised

[tps12]

America has the greatest programmers on Earth. We've produced the MacOS, Solaris, Java, Windows (hey, like M$ or not, Win2k is pretty stable), and Linux.

We should accept that other countries will come to us when they need something written. If they abuse our products to oppress people, then that is not our fault.

seeking your help

[Anonymous Coward]

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Let me see if I'm clear on this

[gruntvald]

The Saudi Arabian government controls and blocks it's own citizens access to the internet (they're the same people who committed 9/11 right?), yet this is still somehow the fault of the US? What incredible logic.