How India Censors the Web

One of the primary ways in which India engages in online censorship is by ordering Internet Service Providers (ISPs) operating in its jurisdiction to block access to certain websites for its users. This paper reports the different techniques Indian ISPs are using to censor websites, and investigates whether website blocklists are consistent across ISPs. We propose a suite of tests that prove more robust than previous work in detecting DNS and HTTP based censorship. Our tests also discern the use of SNI inspection for blocking websites, which is previously undocumented in the Indian context. Using information from court orders, user reports, and public and leaked government orders, we compile the largest known list of potentially blocked websites in India. We pass this list to our tests and run them from connections of six different ISPs, which together serve more than 98% of Internet users in India. Our findings not only confirm that ISPs are using different techniques to block websites, but also demonstrate that different ISPs are not blocking the same websites

Apollo: A System for Tracking Internet Censorship

If it remains debatable whether the Internet has surpassed print media in making information accessible to the public, then it must nevertheless be conceded that the Internet makes the manipulation and censorship of information easier than had been on the printed page. In coming years and in an increasing number of countries, everyday producers and consumers of online information will likely have to cultivate a sense of censorship. It behooves the online community to learn how to detect and evade interference by governments, regimes, corporations, con-artists, and vandals. The contribution of this research is to describe a method and platform to study Internet censorship detection and evasion. This paper presents the concepts, initial theories, and future work

Ramerican Political Science Review (Vol. 4, 2019)

Letter from the Department of Political Science -- The Effect of Violence on Social Movement Support / Anna Connor -- The Impact of Independence Movements in Spain on Violence and Terrorism / Corey Brocke -- Trends and Predictions of Midterm Elections / James Grubb -- The United Kingdom: A Case Study in Internet Censorship / Ella Bronaugh -- Latin and South American Immigration, Media Bias, and Policy Preference / Caitlyn Page -- Book Reviews: From Politics to the Pews / Carl Warf -- How Facism Works / Kathryn Row

ICLab: A Global, Longitudinal Internet Censorship Measurement Platform

Researchers have studied Internet censorship for nearly as long as attempts to censor contents have taken place. Most studies have however been limited to a short period of time and/or a few countries; the few exceptions have traded off detail for breadth of coverage. Collecting enough data for a comprehensive, global, longitudinal perspective remains challenging. In this work, we present ICLab, an Internet measurement platform specialized for censorship research. It achieves a new balance between breadth of coverage and detail of measurements, by using commercial VPNs as vantage points distributed around the world. ICLab has been operated continuously since late 2016. It can currently detect DNS manipulation and TCP packet injection, and overt "block pages" however they are delivered. ICLab records and archives raw observations in detail, making retrospective analysis with new techniques possible. At every stage of processing, ICLab seeks to minimize false positives and manual validation. Within 53,906,532 measurements of individual web pages, collected by ICLab in 2017 and 2018, we observe blocking of 3,602 unique URLs in 60 countries. Using this data, we compare how different blocking techniques are deployed in different regions and/or against different types of content. Our longitudinal monitoring pinpoints changes in censorship in India and Turkey concurrent with political shifts, and our clustering techniques discover 48 previously unknown block pages. ICLab's broad and detailed measurements also expose other forms of network interference, such as surveillance and malware injection.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of the 41st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland 2020). San Francisco, CA. May 202

California, Are You There? It\u27s the Entertainment Industry Calling and We Need Net Neutrality

With online streaming rapidly replacing cable as the preferred method of media consumption for viewers, demand for online content is at an all-time high. Behind the scenes of the entertainment evolution is an open and neutral Internet that facilitates equal access to all online content. Until recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) committed to preserving the neutral net by passing Net Neutrality regulations that prohibited Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from blocking, throttling, or prioritizing online content. That changed on December 14, 2017, when the FCC repealed Net Neutrality, lifting the restrictions that once prevented ISPs from differentially transmitting online content. ISPs are now free to create a hierarchy of content prioritization that favors the content they own and the content hosted by streaming services capable of paying the greatest prioritization fees. This hierarchy has the potential to reduce innovation in the online streaming service industry by creating financial barriers to entry that keep smaller streaming services out, limiting the diversity of content accessible by consumers. This Note first describes the history of the Internet’s regulation that preceded Net Neutrality’s repeal, then explains the repeal’s potential consequences on online streaming services and consumers. Next, this Note offers solutions to Net Neutrality’s repeal. Finally, this Note concludes with a call to action, encouraging those who care about the future of a neutral Internet to not stand idle

Comparative Modalities of Network Neutrality

This project examines the ongoing debate over internet content discrimination, more commonly referred to as network neutrality. It offers a new approach to examining this issue by combining a critical, political economy approach with Lawrence Lessig’s four modalities of regulation: policy, architecture, markets, and norms. It presents a critical, comparative case study analysis of how architecture, markets and norms have shaped United States policy along with comparative examples from select international case studies facing similar regulatory issues. Its findings suggest that while each of the four modalities plays a significant role in the regulation and persistence of network neutrality, there is a need for more clear, robust policy measures to address content discrimination online. Based on these analyses, the author offers policy recommendations for future network neutrality regulation

Cyberlaw 2.0

In the early days of the Internet, Judge Frank Easterbrook famously dismissed the idea of an emerging field of cyberspace law as akin to a “law of the horse”— a pastiche of unrelated legal principles tied together only by virtue of applying to the Internet, having no unifying principles that would teach us anything meaningful. This article revisits Easterbrook’s assertions with the benefit of hindsight. It suggests that subsequent case law and legislative developments in fact do support a distinct cyberlaw field. It introduces the novel argument that cyberlaw is a global “law of the intermediated information exchange.” In other words, online law is unified by the fact that everything that occurs in cyberspace is an information exchange intermediated by one or more third parties - search engines, social networks, Internet Services Providers etc. Thus, cyberlaw is essentially about regulating communications amongst individuals, and apportioning liability between communicators and those who facilitate communication. Accepting this premise, one can identify a foundation – and set of unifying principles - for the field. This article advocates building up from this foundation to facilitate the development of a more cohesive, systematic and predictable set of rules for online governance