NET CENSORSHIP
"I think all censorship should be deplored. My position is that bits are not a bug – that we should create communications technologies that allow people to send whatever they like to each other. And when people put their thumbs on the scale and try to say what can and can’t be sent, we should fight back – both politically through protest and technologically through software like Tor. (Tor is a program that allows for completely anonymous Internet use, by routing your traffic through dozens of other machines.)" ~ A. Swartz
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
It’s the HD-DVD processing key you can use to decrypt and play most HD-DVD movies in Linux. Movie studios are going ballistic over this leak, so Digg the story up and make it reach the front page.
SECURITY: Censorware Companies and Saudi Arabia / China Censorship How to disable your blocking software The Chinese government is using a new internet content management system named the "Night Crawler System" (pa chong) to block access to websites that have not been registered with authorities. Analysis
SECURITY: A History of Censorship
CENSORSHIP on the Internet page 2
LEARN HOW TO FIGHT CENSORSHIP
Censorware vs. privacy & anonymity | Filters Cyber Patrol , Net Nanny, blacklisted, gator
FILTERS USED IN LIBRARIES and SCHOOLS
K12 Filtering Software
FILTERS used in K12 Schools and Libraries
Filtering in Utah is done by a statewide subscription to N2H2/Bess. Schools are not required to use N2H2, but most districts use this as it is available to them at no additional cost. The state picks up the tab.
How To Protect Kids Privacy and respect their Rights.
Censorship Internet Filtering Program and Corruption
The study explains why it is inappropriate, under First Amendment standards of access to information, for filtering to be used in schools.
Pico v. Island Trees Board of Education
"School boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books."
In this case school board members received a list of "objectionable books" from a conservative parent
organization and sought to remove those books from their school library.
Kaiser studied the six leading filtering products that are used in U.S. public schools, SmartFilter, 8e6, Websense, CyberPatrol, Symantec, and N2H2/Bess, along with AOL Parental Controls.
School boards are at the local level and empowered to select what gets filtered and in what categories BUT ALL THEY GET is a selection based on a one sentence description of what is blocked in that category, with some examples but without an accurate description of the criteria for blocking within the category. Beyond the one sentence description, the filtering companies protect all further information about how and what they are blocking as confidential trade secret information. Who is paying the filitering companies to block this information? No information is available. There is absolutely no public disclosure. These Executives and Investors whose interests and values control the blocking criteria and decision-making are far removed from accountability for their actions. These Filtering companies also sell their product to conservative religious Internet service providers and repressive third world countries like China.
There is also now strong evidence of significant intentional or accidental blocking of sites that present controversial information or address controversial subjects.We have no knowledge on how or why this overblocking is occurring. What the Kaiser study has very effectively demonstrated is intentional or inadvertent blocking of potentially controversial information or information related to controversial subjects.
The Kaiser study demonstrated the reasons why it is both unwise and inappropriate to place reliance on filtering software to protect young people when they are using the Internet. Study found Internet filters most frequently used by schools and libraries can effectively block pornography without significantly impeding access to online health information - but only if they aren't set at their most restrictive levels. As filters are set at higher levels they block access to a substantial amount of health information, with only a minimal increase in blocked pornographic content.
Sites containing health information across a broad range of topics, including health topics unrelated to sex, health topics that relate to sexual body parts, health topics related to sex, and sites presenting potentially controversial health information were evaluated for access.
The six filters used in public schools were set at three different configurations:
least restrictive -- blocking only the pornography-related category or categories;
intermediate restrictive -- blocking those categories that are most likely to be considered inappropriate; and
most restrictive -- blocking all categories conceivable in a library or school setting. Most public schools have configured their filtering systems at or above the intermediate restrictive configuration.
Kaiser found across all of the health information that filters set at the most restrictive level blocked 24% of such sites, filters set at the least restrictive level blocked only 1.4% of the health information sites. They blocked only 5% of such sites at the intermediate level.
Sites identified by researchers as containing health
information on the following categories or subject areas re: safe sex, homosexuality, "condoms," "gay," "lesbian" and drugs the rate of overblocking was significantly higher.
At the intermediate restriction configuration, typical of most school settings, the filters blocked one in four (1 in 4) of the health information sites in these subject areas. The Children's Internet Protection Act contains extensive requirements related to the use of technology protection measures -- but it does not mention Internet safety education even once. How illegal and stupid is this?
Microsoft denies its antispyware favors Claria
7/11/05
Microsoft has denied claims that is antispyware tool, currently in beta, gives preferential treatment to adware from Claria, a company Microsoft may soon buy. Microsoft AntiSpyware used to recommend that users quarantine certain Claria products, but a recent upgrade only gives users the option to remove Claria products, with no recommendation. Claria, previously known as
Gator (who is in the pop-up advertising business, Gator calls itself an "adware" company, while critics often call Gator spyware. But neither "adware" nor "spyware" appears anywhere in Gator's license agreement.)
requested in January 2005 that Microsoft review its classification of Claria products as spyware. Microsoft says a review under objective crtieria found that Claria should not be recommended for quarantine, and denies that Claria is receiving any sort of special treatment.
Saudi Arabia and China Censor THEIR PEOPLE
Chinese Internet dissident found guilty Sydney Morning Herald June 14, 2004 http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/14/1087065067224.html
The Intermediate People's Court of Xiaogan has convicted cyber dissident Du Baobin for inciting the subversion of state power, but commuted his three-year prison sentence to four years probation. Mr. Du has been stripped of his political rights for two years. Mr. Du, 40, a financial officer and Internet social critic, posted 26 essays online arguing for political freedoms and criticizing government crackdowns against Internet users opposing China's policies. Mr. Du's October 2003 arrest prompted a petition signed by more than a hundred Chinese intellectuals calling for his release and official clarification of "inciting the subversion of state power". Mr. Du's lawyer, Mo Shaoping, was barred from the trial as a court-appointed lawyer filed a confession. Mr. Mo was allowed at the sentencing hearing after filing a complaint. Mr. Mo disputes the confession, arguing that though Mr. Du admits writing the essays, he has not admitted that writing the essays is itself a crime.
Great Firewall of China
http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org
Checks addresses against Chinese government Internet censorship protocols to find if a site is blocked in China.
2006 "China Welcomes Back Wikipedia"
For about a year China has blocked citizens from viewing Wikipedia, lest they read unflattering entries on the Tiananmen Square Massacre or the Tibetan freedom movement. But the nation has reversed course: It now allows Web surfers to visit the Chinese-language version of the encyclopedia, at least for the time being. Government officials haven't said why they stopped
blocking the site. But groups that support open access to the Web are praising Wikipedia: Unlike companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google, the open-source encyclopedia refused to alter any of its content to appease Chinese censors, reports the BBC News.
U.S. Tech Firms Help Governments Censor Internet 2005
Free speech advocates are frustrated with a host of American companies they say have been collaborating with oppressive regimes in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, to help them filter and monitor the Internet activity of their citizens. Big technology names like Microsoft, Yahoo! and Cisco Systems have been criticized roundly in recent years for providing foreign governments with the tools they need to crack down on Internet use, but critics say they have not been able to do much more than complain. "These companies' lack of ethics is extremely worrisome," said Lucie Morillon, the Washington representative of Reporters Without Borders, an international advocacy group for journalists that monitors government repression of the Internet worldwide, documenting dissidents charged with breaking their country's Internet laws. For instance, the organization reports that an estimated 60 "cyber-dissidents" are in Chinese jails today.
Yahoo Assisted China a 3rd Time -t his is what US companies in the 30's April 19, 2006
BEIJING -- Yahoo Inc. turned over a draft e-mail from one of its users to Chinese authorities, who used the information to jail the man on subversion charges, according to the verdict from his 2003 trial released Wednesday by a rights group.
Seth Finkelstein - Anti-censorship activist and programmer spent hundreds of unpaid and uncredited hours over several years to decrypt and expose to public scrutiny the secret contents of the most popular censorware blacklists. Seth has been active in raising the level of public awareness about the dangers that Internet content blocking software and rating/labeling schemes pose to freedom of communication. His work has armed many with information of great assistance in the fight against government mandated use of these systems.
Bess vs. Google http://sethf.com/anticensorware/
BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy & anonymity)
http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/Technology/circuits/19HACK.html
Abstract: This report examines a secret category in N2H2's censorware, a product often sold under the name "BESS, The Internet Retriever". This category turns out to be for sites which must be uniformly prohibited, because they constitute a LOOPHOLE in the necessary control of censorware. The category contains sites which provide services of anonymity, privacy, language translation, humorous text transformations, even web page feature testing, and more.
Why Bess Can't Succeed
One may wonder why N2H2 misses so many porn sites. The answer is twofold: size, and rate of growth. In a recent study in Nature magazine, a scientific journal, two computer scientists studied search engines and concluded that the best of them covered only 16% of the web - they simply can't find all the data out there. Hotbot had coverage of only 11.3%.The Web currently contains over one billion pages. That's 20,000,000,000,000 characters of text. And it's adding new material at a tremendous rate - over two million pages day, or roughly 25 new pages every second of every day. If you can read and rate an entire web page in 30 seconds, you would only need another 749 people just like you to keep up with the new information being added to the web. Of course, you'd have to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week... N2H2 employs 15 full time and 58 part time employees to scan websites, according to their recent IPO filing. They're losing ground massively unless they classify huge chunks of the web at once (or skip chunks, such as Geocities and the other free webpage sites). And remember, this is just for a one-time classification. Web pages change, constantly. If you never rescan them, your classifications quickly becomes outdated - but this would take many more employees. And this assumes that you could even find all the new information. The internet search engines such as AltaVista and Hotbot do their best. They have millions of dollars worth of computer hardware, being manned by highly-paid professionals and connected to the internet via ultra-fast (and ultra-expensive) data lines.
Google Cache - Cache Me If You Can
N2H2 is a company which makes censorware (aka "filters"). Censorware is software which is designed and optimized for use by an authority to prevent another person from sending or receiving information. N2H2's product is sometimes sold under the name BESS, The Internet Retriever . This report examines how N2H2's censorware treats many features provided by Google , a popular and advanced search engine. Google has a huge cache of web pages, a large archive of netnews groups, and experimental image searching. Each feature turns out to be treated differently by N2H2.
NCTE Anti Censorship Center offers advice, helpful documents, and other support at no cost to K-12 teachers faced with challenges to literary works, films and videos, drama productions, or teaching methods. If you are facing a challenge, use the electronic "Report A Censorship Incident" form, or call Millie Davis, NCTE Division Director of Communications and Affiliate Services, directly at 800-369-6283, ext. 3634.
N2H2 Company to filter all Christianity.com ISP traffic
http://www.n2h2.com/News/press/press_10-18-00_christ.html
SEATTLE — Oct. 18, 2000 — N2H2™,
Inc. (NASDAQ: NTWO), an Internet infrastructure company specializing in filtering, Internet management, and content delivery services, today announced that the company's proprietary filtering service and filtered search function has been chosen by Christianity.com, an online network for Christian individuals, churches, and organizations. As part of the agreement, N2H2 will provide Christianity.com's global user network with a secure method for accessing appropriate Internet content. N2H2 will receive a per-user monthly subscriber fee for each ISP customer as well as a per-inquiry fee for each use of N2H2's private-labeled filtered search function residing on the Christianity.com Web site. "Because we target one of the most conscientious user groups online, we made it a point to select the most reliable filtering service available," said Spencer Jones, Christianity.com COO. "N2H2 frees Christianity.com users and their children to search the Web without worry — and that's no small thing."
March 11, 2000 Cyber Patrol (R) 4, a "censorware" product intended to prevent users from accessing undesirable Internet content, has been reverse engineered by youth rights activists Eddy L O Jansson and Matthew Skala. A detailed report of their findings, titled "The Breaking of Cyber Patrol(R) 4", with commentary on the reverse engineering process and cryptographic attacks against the product's authentication system, has been posted on the World Wide Web at this address:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/16/0022227&mode=thread
http://hem.passagen.se/eddy1/reveng/cp4/cp4break.html
The abstract of the report:
Several attacks are presented on the "sophisticated anti-hacker security" features of Cyber Patrol(R) 4, a "censorware" product intended to prevent users from accessing Internet content considered harmful. Motivations, tools, and methods are discussed for reverse engineering in general and reverse engineering of censorware in particular. The encryption of the configuration and data files is reversed, as are the password hash functions. File formats are documented, with commentary. Excerpts from the list of blocked sites are presented and commented upon. A package of source code and binaries implementing the attacks is included.
'The Breaking of Cyber Patrol 4(R)' by Matthew Skala and check out his great Cyber Patrol Break FAQ. Get's Settled
