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A Method for Identifying and Confirming the Use of URL Filtering Products for Censorship

The Citizen Lab is pleased to announce the publication of a new research paper titled, A Method for Identifying and Confirming the Use of URL Filtering Products for Censorship [pdf]. The paper presents an initial methodology for identifying and confirming the use of URL filtering products around the world.

This research follows up on ongoing investigations at the lab. Over the last several years, the Citizen Lab team has conducted extensive research on the use of Western commercial filtering and surveillance technologies in countries with questionable human rights records. See Citizen Lab’s most recent reports on Netsweeper’s filtering products being used in Pakistan in O Pakistan, We Stand on Guard for Thee: An Analysis of Canada-based Netsweeper’s Role in Pakistan’s Censorship Regime as well as the latest report on Blue Coat devices, Planet Blue Coat: Mapping Global Censorship and Surveillance Tools.

The paper is authored by Jakub Dalek, Bennett Haselton, Helmi Noman, Phillipa Gill of the Dept. of Computer Science, Stony Brook University, Adam Senft, Ronald J. Deibert and Masashi Crete-Nishihata.

Jakub Dalek will present this research at the upcoming Internet Measurement Conference 2013, taking place from 23-25 October in Barcelona, Spain. Dalek’s presentation will take place on the morning of 23 October. For the full program, see here.