Australia Postpones Filtering Test

Australia’s Labor government has delayed testing its proposed mandatory Internet filtering system until mid-January 2009, when it will announce which ISPs are taking part. The Associated Press has good coverage of the controversy over censorship in Oz. You can download my paper analyzing Australia’s filtering proposal from SSRN.

Filtering in Oz: Australia’s Foray Into Internet Censorship

Australia’s Labor-led government won office promising to prevent access to unlawful content, such as child pornography, on the Internet. Now, the country is about to launch the second round of its filtering tests, amid reports that trials will attempt to block peer-to-peer (P2P) and BitTorrent along with child porn and other sensitive content. The filtering [...]

New York Times Blocked in China

[Update 22 Dec. 2008, 3:30PM: Apparently the site is, once again, available. Again, it's hard to tell if China's Internet censors reversed themselves, or corrected a mistake, or simply wanted to remind the Times that access to China's users is not automatic (pour encourager les autres, as Voltaire wrote).]
Expats will despair: the New York Times [...]

Like the Poor, Spam Is Always With Us

Network World has an interesting article called “CAN-SPAM: What Went Wrong?” This title is akin to: “Subprime Mortgages: A Bad Idea?” There are three depressing trends: spam remains a huge problem, both in IT costs and in volume; legal efforts have been mostly useless; and experts still disagree about solutions. There are two interesting ones: [...]

Spam in a Can? Direct Mail as Information Problem

The NYT interviews Michael Critelli, head of Pitney Bowes, who disputes claims that direct (snail) mail harms the environment, annoys consumers, kills kittens, and is otherwise bad. There’s a mix of ham and spam in his claims. For example, it’s not shocking that the direct marketing industry has long been a fan of “informed consumer [...]

Skype, Filtering, and Privacy

[Update Oct. 3 5:45PM - Skype's president responds, and says Skype was unaware of TOM's monitoring. But this is why tech firms partner with domestic Chinese firms: to handle uncomfortable requests such as filtering and surveillance... (via Wired)]
The New York Times reports on some terrific research done by my former ONI colleague Nart Villeneuve - [...]

Filtering on Planes, or Why I Will Only Take Amtrak

American Airlines is testing in-flight wi-fi Internet access, and flight attendants want something to be done to prevent passengers from looking at naughty things in flight. (”something” = filter the content). This brings back some funny travel memories from my days in consulting, such as seeing someone on a flight to Toronto openly reading Playboy, [...]

Studying Cyberwar

The Washington Post has a great piece about the InfoWar Monitor project, including interviews with my former ONI colleagues Ron Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski. Cyberwar is a new, murky, and fascinating zone of interstate conflict. Most interestingly, it’s one where combat is outsourced: hackers and denial of service attacks can come from volunteers and on-line [...]

More Olympian Censorship

Building on Derek’s recent post about the International Olympic Committee’s complicity in censorship of the internet in China:
Slashdot features an item about a takedown notice from the IOC demanding that YouTube remove video of a Tibet-related protest at the Chinese Consulate in New York. (The video is still available on Vimeo.) The protesters [...]

China: Tough Luck, Journalists - the Net Stays Filtered

In the not-exactly-a-surprise category: China announced that, despite the IOC’s reassurances, it would filter the Internet connections available to journalists. What’s unavailable? The usual: sites criticizing China’s atrocious human rights record, or discussing Taiwan, or telling people how to get around China’s censorship. (See ONI’s complete report for the full list of what’s off-limits in [...]

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