Blue Coat
An article on The Conversation references Citizen Lab reports, which documents the use of US-based Blue Coat Systems’ products by authoritarian regimes in Syria, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Egypt and Kuwait.
As a follow-up to our post about the number of sites miscategorized by SmartFilter, our tests with Blue Coat show that miscategorization is not a problem limited to a single product. We should be skeptical of any company’s claims that they are able to categorize much of the web accurately, or that their rate of “collateral damage” is very low.
The Citizen Lab is pleased to announce the release of Some Devices Wander by Mistake: Planet Blue Coat Redux. In this report, we use a combination of network measurement and scanning methods and tools to identify instances of Blue Coat ProxySG and PacketShaper devices. This equipment can be used to secure and maintain networks, but can also be used to implement politically-motivated restrictions on access to information, and monitor and record private communications. We found Blue Coat devices on public networks of 83 countries. Included in these countries are regimes with questionable human rights records, and three countries that are subject to US sanctions: Iran, Syria, and Sudan.
Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert spoke about how repressive governments around the world have been getting assistance from Western technology companies.
Titled “Teachers’ pension plan invests in Internet surveillance firm,” the Toronto Star editorial connects the investment group that manages the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (OTPP) with Blue Coat Systems.
On 30 January 2013, Senior Researcher Sarah McKune participated in a radio interview on WebmasterRadio.fm in the Cyber Law and Business Report show.
Blue Coat Devices capable of filtering, censorship, and surveillance are being used around the world. 61 of these Blue Coat appliances are on public or government networks in countries with a history of concerns over human rights, surveillance, and censorship. Our findings support the need for national and international scrutiny of Blue Coat implementations in the countries we have identified, and a closer look at the global proliferation of “dual-use” information and communication technologies.
This appendix contains countries of interest in which Blue Coat devices were located.