RE: [soac-mapo] Background info?

["Andrei Kolesnikov" <andrei@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear Evan, there is no such things as global blocking of some URLs/IPs/Content 
in Russia. There is no central system nor technical possibility. There is no 
central proxy/filter lists. Sometimes attempts to block occurs as local court 
decision  in far away regions out of judge’s knowledge on how internet works. 
All these cases listed in Economist, but none have been implemented . Blocking 
only by domain name - technically useless.  The only way to completely control 
/ filter the net -  turn off the light. 

MAPO issue is a design of the process to make politicians happy. It has nothing 
to do with technology.

 

--andrei

 

From: owner-soac-mapo@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-soac-mapo@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
Evan Leibovitch
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 9:23 PM
To: soac-mapo@xxxxxxxxx
Subject: [soac-mapo] Background info?

 

Hello all,

I'm not totally sure that the posting of background information or relevant 
news stories here is welcomed or frowned upon, but to me it may help with the 
discussion to know what is already happening.

By this I mean the existing practices of governments using Internet 
infrastructure to block access to sites with objectionable content based on 
names or IP addresses. For example there is  
<http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/08/internet_censorship_russia> 
this article from The Economist on such blocking efforts in Russia and  
<http://opennet.net/studies/uae> this report from the OpenNet Initiative on a 
variety of blocking tactics in place in the United Arab Emirates -- some of 
which block based on TLD.

Is it of value to this group to attempt to collect such information? To me, we 
can't ignore what's already being done in the real world, and any efforts we 
make will need to complement -- or at least recognize -- existing practice. 
Trying to dismiss, ignore or regulate existing government action seems 
pointless and indeed counter-productive. It's clear that measures by national 
governments to filter/ban domains with objectionable content already exist, and 
it's important to our efforts (IMO) to determine how our proposals here will 
actually affect such efforts without doing damage to other policy priorities.

Of course, if there is a consensus that such news items and background info 
will not help, I'll stop sending them. I have no intention to be disruptive.

- Evan