Reports and Articles

Country and Regional Profiles

The most recent ONI research on Internet filtering in specific areas can be found in our country and regional profile sections.

Bulletins & Advisories

ONI issues bulletins and advisories to attract attention to recent events and recently-released documents and research concerning Internet filtering.

• In the Name of God: Faith Based Internet Censorship in Majority Muslim Countries, August 2011 (PDF)
• Apple MobileMe Brief, July 2011
• Syrian Electronic Army: Disruptive Attacks and Hyped Targets, June 2011
• The Emergence of Open and Organized Pro-Government Cyber Attacks in the Middle East: The Case of the Syrian Electronic Army, May 2011
• West Censoring East: The Use of Western Technologies by Middle East Censors, 2010-2011, March 2011
• Policing Content in the Quasi-Public Sphere, September 2010
• Bulletin: Sex, Social Mores and Keyword Filtering: Microsoft Bing in the "Arabian Countries", March 2010
• Bulletin: China's Green Dam: The Implications of Government Control Encroaching on the Home PC, June 2009
• Bulletin: Pulling the Plug: A Technical Review of the Internet Shutdown in Burma, November 2007
• China Tightens Controls on Internet News Content Through Additional Regulations, 6 July 2006
• Analysis of China's Non-Commercial Web Site Registration Regulation, 22 February 2006
• Bulletin: Telus Blocks Consumer Access to Labour Union Web Site and Filters an Additional 766 Unrelated Sites, 2 August 2005
• Special Report: Election Monitoring in Kyrgyzstan, April 2005.
• Bulletin: Collateral Blocking: Filtering by South Korean Government of Pro-North Korean, 31 January 2005
• Bulletin: Filtering by Domestic Blog Providers in China, 14 January 2005
• Bulletin: Geolocation filtering: georgewbush.com blocked during run-up to election, 27 October 2004
• Bulletin: Google Search & Cache Filtering Behind China's Great Firewall, 30 August 2004
• Bulletin: Probing Chinese search engine filtering, 19 August 2004
• Bulletin: Internet Content Filtering in Iran: Verification of Reported Banned Websites, 13 August 2004
• Bulletin: Internet Content Filtering in India: Variations in Compliance and Accuracy, 27 May 2004
• Advisory: Unintended Risks and Consequences of Circumvention Technologies: The IBB's Anonymizer Service in Iran, 5 May 2004
• Bulletin: OpenNet Initiative: Bulletin 002, 22 March 2004
• Bulletin: OpenNet Initiative: Bulletin 001, 18 March 2004

Internet Watch

Internet Watch reports investigate emerging trends in Internet filtering and control. These occasional reports take a detailed look at events, policies, technologies and countries where filtering and content controls are occurring in new and unexpected ways, or where filtering has been alleged but undetected using conventional ONI testing methodologies. They are designed to test hypotheses, refine monitoring techniques, and report on the cutting edge of the global informational battle space.

• Internet Watch Report: The 2007 Presidential Election in Nigeria, November 2007
• Internet Watch Report: The Internet and Elections: The 2006 Presidential Election in Belarus (and its implications)", April 2006

Case Studies

ONI case studies are in-depth reports of Internet filtering for a selection of countries that predate our current country profiles.

• Case Study: Vietnam, August 2006
• Case Study: Tunisia, November 2005
• Case Study: Burma, October 2005
• Case Study: Singapore, August 2005
• Case Study: China, April 2005
• Case Study: Bahrain, February 2005
• Case Study: United Arab Emirates, February 2005
• Case Study: Iran, 2005
• Case Study: Yemen, 2005
• Case Study: Saudi Arabia, 2004

Articles

ONI articles are a selection of publications by ONI investigators and researchers that examine the tools and techniques of Internet filtering worldwide, as well as other related topics.

• Robert Faris, Jonathan Zittrain, "Web Tactics" Index on Censorship, 2009; 38; 90.
• Robert Faris, Stephanie Wang, and John Palfrey, "Censorship 2.0," Innovations: Technology|Governance|Globalization, 2008.
• Ronald Deibert, "The Geopolitics of Asian Cyberspace," Far Eastern Economic Review, 2006.
• John G. Palfrey, Jr. and Robert Rogoyski, "The Move to the Middle: The Enduring Threat of 'Harmful' Speech to Network Neutrality," Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, 2006.
• Nart Villeneuve, "The filtering matrix: Integrated mechanisms of information control and the demarcation of borders in cyberspace," First Monday, 2006.
• Jonathan L. Zittrain, "The Generative Internet" (PDF), Harvard Law Review, 2006.
• Derek Bambauer, John G, Palfrey, Jr., and Jonathan L. Zittrain, "A Starting Point: Legal Implications of Internet Filtering" (PDF), 2004.
• Ronald J. Deibert, "Deep Probe: The Evolution of Network Intelligence," Intelligence and National Security, Volume 17, No 1, 2004.
• Ronald J. Deibert, "Firewalls and Power: An Overview of Global State Censorship of the Internet," with Nart Villeneuve in Klang, M. & Murray, A., (eds) Human Rights in the Digital Age, Cavendish Publishing London, 2004.
• Rafal Rohozinski, "'Secret Agents' and 'Undercover Brothers': The Hidden Information Revolution in the Arab World" (PDF), 2004.
• Ronald J. Deibert, "Black Code: Censorship, Surveillance, and Militarization of Cyberspace," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2003.
• Ronald J. Deibert, "Social and Electronic Networks in the War on Terror," with Janice Gross Stein in Robert Latham, (ed.) Bombs and Bandwidth: The Emerging Relationship between IT and Security, New York: Free Press, 2003.
• Rafal Rohozinski, "Bullets to Bytes: Reflection on ICT and 'Local' Conflicts," in Robert Latham, (ed.) Bombs and Bandwidth: The Emerging Relationship between IT and Security, New York: Free Press, 2003.
• Jonathan L. Zittrain, "Be Careful What You Ask For: Reconciling a Global Internet and Local Law" (PDF), Who Rules the Net? The Cato Institute, 2003.
• Jonathan L. Zittrain, "Internet Points of Control" (PDF), Boston College Law Review, 2003.
• Ronald J. Deibert, "Dark Guests and Great Firewalls: Chinese Internet Security Policy," Journal of Social Issues, (2001) 58, 1: 143-158.
• Ronald J. Deibert, "International Plug n’ Play? Citizen Activism, the Internet, and Global Public Policy," International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 1, No. 3, 2000, pp. 255-272.
• Rafal Rohozinski, "How the Internet Did Not Transform Russia," Current History, Volume 99, no 334, October 2000.
• Rafal Rohozinski, "Mapping Russian Cyberspace: Perspectives on Democracy and the Net" (PDF), UNRISD Discussion Paper No. 115, October 1999.
• Ronald J. Deibert, Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communications in World Order Transformation, New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.

Issue Crawler Visualizations

ONI has collaborated with Dr. Richard Rogers and Govcom.org to produce a series of analytical visualizations based on the outputs of ONI's research and Govcom.org's issue crawler tool.

• Leaky Content: An Approach to Show Blocked Content on Unblocked Sites in Pakistan - The Baloch Case (November 2006) [method pdf] [story pdf]
• Two Providers, Two Internets. The Case of the United Arab Emirates (November 2006) [pdf]
• The Internet Treats Censorship as a Malfunction and Routes around it? A Semi-manual Approach to Internet Censorship Circumnavigation (June 2005) [updated pdf]
• A Censor's Network: Iranian Social, Political and Religious Sites. A Hyperlink Analysis Method for Censored Website Discovery (June 2006) [updated pdf]

Previous Work

Under The Berkman Center for Internet & Society

• Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, Documentation of Internet Filtering Worldwide” (2003)
• Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, Empirical Analysis of Internet Filtering in China” (2003)
• Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, Documentation of Internet Filtering in Saudi Arabia” (2002)
• Replacement of Google with Alternative Search Systems in China Documentation and Screen Shots” (2002)

Under The Citizen Lab

• Nart Villeneuve, Project C (r. 1.0)

Under Benjamin Edelman

• Benjamin Edelman, Empirical Analysis of Google SafeSearch (2003)
• Benjamin Edelman, Web Sites Sharing IP Addresses: Prevalence and Significance (2003)
• Benjamin Edelman, Sites Blocked by Internet Filtering Programs (2003)