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| Arabia |
| Yemen rebels using Canadian software to censor Internet |
| 2015-10-28 |
| A Canadian software company is helping Yemen’s Houthi rebels expand the country’s Internet censorship regime in the midst of a bloody civil war, according to a new report from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. The report says the Houthis have been using the Internet filtering software Netsweeper to impose new blocks on political content favorable to the deposed Saudi-backed government, as well as independent media outlets and any website bearing the Israeli “.isl” domain. When users in the country try to gain access to the newly blocked sites, they are redirected to fake “network error” pages, rather than pages that explicitly inform the user the page has been blocked. Citizen Lab, which researches Internet censorship, said Netsweeper has provided filtering software to YemenNet, the country’s main Internet service provider, since approximately 2009. The new blocks took effect immediately after the takeover of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, by Houthi forces in September 2014. The report, based on 10 months of technical and in-country research, says that Netsweeper appears to be actively involved in the filtering of content in Yemen because it has been providing services to YemenNet since the Houthi takeover, and therefore “knows or has reason to know of the recent expansion of the filtering regime to include political content linked to the conflict and the Houthi takeover.” “They can’t absolve themselves of what’s going on,” said Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab. “By continuing to provide services to YemenNet in the middle of a civil war and humanitarian crisis, and while a rebel group targeted by U.N. sanctions is in control, Netsweeper is a party to the armed conflict acting on behalf of one of the belligerents.” Al Jazeera was unable to reach Netsweeper despite repeated calls to its headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario. The company has also declined to respond to a Citizen Lab letter sent by email and fax on Oct. 9, requesting answers to a series of questions about Netsweeper’s human rights policies and due diligence. |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 I would need to know their religion and whether they're using any Prestige Classes... if there's a Jihadi equivalent to Divine Crusader, they could get a bonus to Moral Superiority just for being involved with an anti-western authoritarian group. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2015-10-28 17:12 |
| #1 "Netsweeper is a party to the armed conflict acting on behalf of one of the belligerents.” I need a ruling from the DM - if being Canadian gives you a +3 die roll in Moral Superiority, what does a University of Toronto professional-fingerwagger get? |
| Posted by: Pappy 2015-10-28 16:35 |