The Coming Censorship Wars

KentuckyFC writes "Many countries censor internet traffic using techniques such as blocking IP addresses, filtering traffic with certain URLs in the data packets and prefix hijacking. Others allow wiretapping of international traffic with few if any legal safeguards. There are growing fears that these practices could trigger a major international incident should international traffic routed through these countries fall victim, whether deliberately or by accident (witness the prefix hijacking of YouTube in Pakistan last year). So how to avoid these places? A group of computer scientists investigating this problem say it turns out to be surprisingly difficult to determine which countries traffic might pass through. But their initial assessment indicates that the countries with the most pervasive censorship policies — China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia — pose a minimal threat because so little international traffic passes their way. The researchers instead point the finger at western countries that have active censorship policies and carry large amounts of international traffic. They highlight the roles of the two biggest carriers: Great Britain, which actively censors internet traffic, and the US, which allows warrantless wiretapping of international traffic (abstract)."

Comments

Re:skibaldy

[Anonymous Coward]

I found the Australian and Danish block lists on Wikileaks, and a random sample weren't blocked by my big-name UK ISP. I checked all the ones that looked like they shouldn't be blocked at all (shock sites, anti-abortion etc). I didn't want to look at all the child porn, but I tried about 5 and the home pages all loaded.

The censoring in the UK is at the level of the home user's ISP anyway, so there's no need to "route around" anything. It's inaccurate to say Great Britain (well, the UK) censors Internet traffic. The government has asked ISPs providing connections to home users to filter DNS requests for some websites. This is nothing like the Chinese Firewall, for instance.

Re:to paraphrase a quote

[unlametheweak]

You are labeled a Troll, but I do distinctly remember reading an article that explains that a lot of ISPs do actually route around the USA because of its surveillance policies. Actually, it was quite easy to Google for information: The Internet interprets the USA as damage and routes around it. Your Troll moniker is certainly unjust.