Censorship

Controversial document-sharing site Wikileaks is now asking visitors for donations before they are allowed to view files. The move has reportedly angered some supporters, including the high-profile 'hacktivist' group Anonymous. Wikileaks holds ... millions of leaked government and corporate documents and makes them available for public viewing. The organization's database allegedly includes a quarter of a million diplomatic cables from US embassies. Its holdings and its use of them make Wikileaks, quite possibly, the most controversial website on the Internet right now. Wikileaks Facing Financial ... (view more)

Iran's government has removed its block on Gmail in that nation, claiming it didn't mean to restrict access to the service. It now says the block was an unintended result of a deliberate effort to stop Iranians from viewing YouTube. These new claims ... contradict an earlier comment from an Iranian official who said last week: "Due to the repeated demands of the people, Google and Gmail will be filtered nationwide. They will remain filtered until further notice." Another government official now says: "Unfortunately, we do not yet have enough technical know-how to differentiate between these two ... (view more)

The Iranian government has blocked its citizens' access to Gmail and a secure version of Google. The move appears to be the first part of a larger plan to control exactly what Internet sites Iranians can access. An Iranian official who is part of a ... government group in charge of controlling Internet content says that "due to the repeated demands of the people, Google and Gmail will be filtered nationwide. They will remain filtered until further notice." (Source: com.au ) The official did not make clear exactly who made these demands. Insiders, however, note that many Iranian businesses use ... (view more)

Freedom of speech online is once again the topic of heated debate, this time in India. That country's government has now urged major sites like Facebook to remove threatening material that may have provoked a mass exodus from some regions. The issue ... stems from religious disputes in Assam, a region in the northeast of India where long-time residents have clashed with immigrants from nearby Bangladesh, leading to dozens of deaths. In the past week, angry residents of Assam have used the Internet to threaten the immigrants with violence. The threats have reportedly caused "tens of thousands" of ... (view more)

Google has revealed that last year it refused to comply with most US government requests to remove controversial content from its websites. The company also discussed its behavior in removing terrorism videos and its response to a particularly ... unusual request from the Canadian government. Google explored these issues in its latest Transparency Report, which provides information about private and public requests that Google receives to censor specific Internet content. According to the report, between July and December 2011 Google received US court orders to take down a total of 3,851 items. ... (view more)

Iran's government has dismissed reports that it intends to block all Internet access for its citizens, starting in August. Spokespeople claim the shutdown reports stem from an April Fool's joke. Yet at least one part of the story appears to be true. ... The allegations of a coming shutdown are made by Reporters Without Borders, an international media and free speech advocacy group that in recent years has turned its attention to online censorship. Intranet Could Replace Internet According to Reporters Without Borders, Iran plans to simply cut all public access to the global Internet for its ... (view more)

In recent weeks, corporations associated with Wikileaks have had to make the difficult decision of whether or not to sever all ties with the organization, and if so, face the potential of backlash on their own companies, including distributed denial ... of service attacks. Bank of America is the latest to join the list of financial and technology companies that have cut off services to Wikileaks, but their decision might have been made with the knowledge that Wikileaks is prepared to release confidential and likely scandalous information about the institution. Two Sides to the Story The official ... (view more)

China has flat-out denied any involvement in recent hacking attacks on Google . China also said its regulation of Internet access and content is justifiable and fair. Google's Gmail email servers recently came under attack. It's speculated that ... hackers sent email to targets containing links to websites which contained a specially-crafted exploit in order to bypass Operating System security. Chinese Deny Google Attack There's no evidence to indicate who carried out the attacks. However, because the victims are believed to have included political activists, suspicion fell upon the Chinese ... (view more)

Nokia Equipment Used to Monitor Iranians Iran: Latest Victim of World's Surveillance State Nokia Monitoring Centre Used to Silence Iranians By now, virtually everyone in the world is aware of the situation in Iran. While protests in Iran continue, ... new details of the technology used to monitor its citizens -- filtering the Internet and mobile phones -- is emerging. (Source: bbc.co.uk ) Nokia Siemens Network reportedly told the news network BBC that it sold a product called Monitoring Centre, which is used to monitor, control, and read local telephone calls, to Iran Telecom in the second half ... (view more)