Saudi Arabia's 'Great Firewall'

securitas writes: "We've all heard about The Great Firewall of China (see this Wired feature) but many don't know about Saudi Arabia's version of the same. The New York Times reports on the challenges and problems of filtering the Internet for an entire nation. San Jose's Secure Computing has the contract but may lose it when it comes up for renewal next year."

IN THE UAE too

[vikool]

Hey..this is not the only country where the net in blocked, in the UAE, the internet is completely blocked, ( or proxied is the term that is used) bcos, we have to go through a proxy server of the isp and the isp employs several people full time, just for blocking sites. and of course, there is a government monoipoly which means the isp is government owned, and there can be nothing done about it.

Non-reg-req version of article is at Yahoo

[Seth Finkelstein]

If you don't have a New York Times account, this article can be found at Yahoo, at http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nyt/20011119/bs/com panies_compete_to_provide_saudi_internet_veil_1.ht ml [yahoo.com]

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]

China...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that Geocities, Tripod, Angelfire, and many other free hosting sites are blocked in China (at least with China Telecom).

Thankfully, the amount of interesting/usefull information on most pages hosted on those sites is uhhhh... minimal.

Real.com == blocked.
Real.com.au not blocked.

cbc.ca and cnn.com blocked sometimes.

reuters blocked.

Re:Should / Can

[beebware]

[slightly OTT]
A document illustrating that Al Qaida and Usama Bin Laden (surley Osama Bin Laden) was responsible for the 11/Sept incidents is available from the UK Prime Ministrial website http://www.number10.gov.uk/default.asp?PageID=5322 [number10.gov.uk] . I haven't bothered reading it myself so I can't comment about it - but 'remember the source'.

It's perception, not reality...

[iworm]

I was the Engineering Manager of the third (two others beat us by a few days!) ISP to operate in the Kingdom.

Yes, the filtering is more or less as described. They used to have, maybe still do, an option on the "blocking" page where you could ask that a blocked URL be unblocked, since it was actually something innocuous (of course whether your view that Cindy's Sin Palace etc was innocuous might be disputed by those in charge... :-))

The article also points out that Saudi's can (and do) simply dial up ISPs in neighboring countries to get the access they desire. Equally, rich individuals (they've got a few...) and companies can also make use of satellite access (illegal, but very common).

So, if a Saudi really wants to access porn or political stuff he/she can do so very easily. And therein lies the key to much about Saudi laws: it's not the reality that matters, but appearances.

The Saudi government plays a precarious balancing act, and needs to keep the religious extremists content ("Look we've blocked all the porn") while trying to drag their society into the modern world (where, so I'm told, the Internet is mandatory). Of course balancing acts never work for ever, and one day you fall off, but that's going offtopic.

Either it's bullshit, or it doesn't work...

[NineNine]

... because Saudi Arabia is #5 in countries with the most number of visitors that visit NineNine [ninenine.com]. It's not a lot, but there definately is traffic from Saudi Arabia (surfers using .sa).

Re:Civil Rights & Fire Walls

[gazbo]

If you think of it, it is not any worse from the UK where you are not allowed to have high grade crypto without giving a copy of your private key to the Gov.

Firstly, it is utterly different. From a civil rights point of view, such a firewall would block information that the government did not want you to see. This censorship is used (amongst more innocuous tasks) to block access to impartial information. This is far more damaging to a populace than insisting that the government can eavesdrop on otherwise secure transmission.

Sedcondly, in the UK we are allowed to have strong encryption without giving our private key to the government. I assume you are referring to the RIP act - this states that you must give up your private key if served with an appropriate notice from the courts. Now not being much of a conspiracy theorist, I imagine that these powers will be used appropriately (after much evidence has already been mounted against an individual, for example) but even if not, can you imagine what would happen the first time this was used against Joe Public and he refused to hand over his key? According to the act, he is automatically imprisoned for 5 years (IIRC - it may be a different length of time) Lawyers would be queueing up to defend him. I would put money on the conviction being overturned by the European Court of Human Rights (apologies if I have got the name slightly wrong)

Call me naive, but I really don't go for the black-helicopter-and-black-suits stereotype of government.

Censorship - personal experience

[kptBlaha]

In this country (Czech Republic), communists censored everything. Many books were banned, all photocopiers were registered, Radio Free Europe was jammed etc. It did not work. People who wanted to get the books got the books. People who wanted to listen to RFE hacked sophisticated antenas and filters. We copied books using typewritters and Sinclair computers. During the WWII this country was occupied by Nazi Germany. Germans removed SW band from all receivers. People who were caught listening BBC or radio Moscow were executed. Nevertheless many people listened. You cannot stop one's desire of freedom.

But you can't!

[humberthumbert]

I mean, caching proxies are easily turned into filtering ones, and mail filters into censorship tools restricting the free exchange of mail. This will be a tricky one to nail!

The ones who oughta feel ashamed of themselves, I feel, are the system administrators working for these regimes. They really should commit little acts of sabotage from their positions of power and help smash the control apparatus.

Of course it's risky business, but it's the freedom of humanity we're talking about here. Speaking as someone who lives in Singapore, I have suffered from the effects of intense censorship and the one-party rule that has persisted for decades.

p.s. Oh yeah, you Internal Security Department creeps can kiss my ass. Come get me!

Re:Censorware authors

[stantron77]

While I do agree that censorship is not good, this is a situation we really have no say in. Saudi Arabia is not the US. Our people and our leaders can't make calls for other countries. We have done that type of thing in the past, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. The bottom line is that blocking porn, and maybe some controversial sites is not as bad as killing someone. Do I think that they should be able to look at porn? Yes I do, however as many people noted previously there are several ways to get around this filter (other countries ISP and such). Now back to the comment I am replying too. Although I think it would be a bad thing for people to not write this type of software. What about places this has very legitimate uses. In elementary schools where kids have access to the net. Do we want those kids going to . I certainly wouldn't want my kids at that age to do that, so the software has a purpose. Also, the US is a capitalist economy, based on supply and demand. Even though I agree that you shouldn't work at something you don't believe in, saying that if person Z doesn't do it someone else will is a very accurate statement. If there is money to be had someone will do it bottom line.

Has Slasdot been InstaPundited yet? :)

[David Hume]

This story has been mentioned on one of my favorite websites, Glenn Reynolds' InstaPundit.com [blogspot.com].

Glenn is a professor [utk.edu] at the University of Tennessee College of Law [utk.edu]. The majority of his writing is on the intersection between advanced technologies and individual liberty. One example is Environmental Regulation of Nanotechnology: Some Preliminary Observations [foresight.org], from the April, 2001 Environmental Law Reporter.