Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

U.S. Company Helps Saudi Arabia Censor The Net

Posted by timothy on from the or-the-next-bidder-steps-in dept.

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.

3 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Hardly news by j-turkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Although it is ugly, this practice is hardly news...US companies have been helping countries censor their internet (and do other bad shit with our technology) for decades Cisco's Great Firewall of China is a perfect example...also, yahoo China is another great example of this type of censorship (I'm not gonna serach for the Cisco firewall link again -- but its out there in the Slashdot archives) .

    Let's also not forget about IBM's assistance to Nazi Germany during WWII -- cataloging and tracking all of the people that the Nazi's wanted to do away with was a monumental task, and IBM was right there to assist.

    Although assisting Nazi Germany does not necessarily equate to firewalling China, or censoring Saudi Arabia, what I'm saying is that US companies have always been willing to take on less-than-honorable causes in order to earn a buck...because if they don't do it, their competitor will. Didn't everyone already know this?


    -Turkey

    --

    -Turkey

  2. Oh, yes, this is news by Bouncings · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Let's see. The American government helps other nations:
    • Put down opposition parties
    • Solidify military control
    • Exploit their workforces through low-wage jobs
    • Censor virtually everything else
    And now we're all terrible shocked that American firms are being used in the development of censorware for a foreign government? I'm surprised the DOD isn't bankrolling the ENTIRE project.
    --
    -- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
  3. Gosh hard to imagine. by TheGeneration · · Score: 3, Funny

    Gosh it's hard to imagine a company which works so hard to please the Christian Right here in the USA would be able to find similarities in the Islamic Right.

    I know... I know... it's just crazy to think that the Christian Right and the Islamic Right hold very similar view points on opression.

    --


    The Generation
    I'd say something witty here, but I'm not that bright.