Routing Gone Wild: Documenting upstream filtering in Oman via India
Key Findings
• Data collected from Oman shows that web filtering applied by
India-based ISPs is restricting access to content for customers of an ISP in
Oman. While unusual, content filtering undertaken in one political jurisdiction
can have an effect on users in another political jurisdiction as a result of
ISP routing arrangements – a phenomenon known as “upstream filtering.”
• Content found to be filtered includes news sites, political blogs and
file sharing sites.
• Some variability in filtering was documented, potentially linked to
certain measures to loosen filtering regulations in India.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/internet-content-blocking-travels-downstream-affects-unwary-users/
https://citizenlab.org/2012/07/routing-gone-wild/
https://citizenlab.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/08-2012-routinggonewild.pdf
http://opennet.net/blog/2012/07/routing-gone-wild-documenting-upstream-filtering-oman-india
Please Note:
Data
Raw data for the proxy test results cited here can be found in the following
formats:
Summarized results [Google doc]
Summarized results [csv]
Raw data [zip - html, csv, txt]
The data presented is from a June 18, 2012 test run of a URL list through two
Omantel proxies, as well as from the Czech Republic as a control. There are
three types of block pages that have been highlighted in the columns:
oman_block_social - An Omani block page that specifies that the blocking was
due to "societal and cultural norms of the sultanate."
oman_block_laws - An Omani block page that specifies the reason for blocking
was a violation of the law.
india_block - An Indian block page that specifies the reason for blocking was a
court order.
The presented zip file contains the html contents and headers returned during
the course of this test run. To view this data, extract the zip file and open
the contained index.html. Please exercise caution when following any links in
this file, as the file contains contents of website data returned and we can
make no guarantee as to what these sites contain. This data is presented for
informational purposes only and we make no claims regarding the ownership of
website content.
There were two redactions made in the data. The IP numbers of proxies used were
obfuscated and the website contents of the site songdad.com were removed, due
to the fact that during the time of testing this site contained the JS/Blacole
exploit kit.
Ronald J. Deibert
Professor of Political Science
Director, The Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and
The Citizen Lab
Munk School of Global Affairs
University of Toronto
[email protected]
http://deibert.citizenlab.org/
twitter.com/citizenlab
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