OpenNet Initiative research has documented that web filtering applied by India-based ISPs is also filtering content for customers of an ISP in Oman. This “upstream filtering” is restricting access to news sites, political blogs and file sharing sites for customer’s of Omantel, who have limited opportunities for recourse. Combined with the significant filtering implemented by Omantel itself, this essentially puts users in Oman behind multiple layers of national-level filtering.

The Citizen Lab analyzes a recent targeted malware attack against the Tibetan community spoofing the June 14, 2012 resolution of the European Parliament (EP) on the human rights situation in Tibet. While such repurposing of authentic content for use as a malware delivery mechanism is not unusual, this incident raises serious questions surrounding the use of legitimate political resources for illegitimate ends.

Security Researcher and Citizen Lab Technical Advisor Morgan Marquis-Boire warns that this Trojan has been specifically crafted to target people attempting to evade government censorship. This blog post is written in Farsi.

Security Researcher and Citizen Lab Technical Advisor Morgan Marquis-Boire warns that this Trojan has been specifically crafted to target people attempting to evade government censorship. Last updated: May 30.

In response to the open call of the newly-established United Nations Working Group on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises for input regarding the Working Group’s key thematic priorities and activities, the Citizen Lab submitted its views on the urgent need for greater assessment of and guidance surrounding the surveillance and Internet filtering technology sector.

A new report, entitled The Canadian Connection: An investigation of Syrian government and Hezbullah web hosting in Canada, continues Citizen Lab research into the intersection of the private sector, authoritarianism, and cyberspace regulation, turning our attention to a component of the Internet that does not typically receive the same amount of attention as filtering, surveillance, and computer network attack products and services: web hosting services.

Although Blue Coat has recently acknowledged the presence of their devices in Syria, this brief contributes to previous findings of devices in the country, documents additional devices in use in Syria, and identifies Blue Coat devices actively in use in Burma.

The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) is pleased to announce the availability of our summarized global Internet filtering data as a downloadable CSV file under a Creative Commons license.

An international research team, based at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, has released a detailed report that tracks and analyzes the difficulties of broadcasting the news into jurisdictions that censor the Internet, including Iran and China.