Distributed reporting of Web filtering

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jonathan Zittrain <zittrain () law harvard edu>
Date: February 25, 2009 2:24:53 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Distributed reporting of Web filtering

Dear Dave,

Today the Berkman Center announced a new project that might be of  
interest to readers of IP.  Since 2002 I've studied Internet filtering  
around the world, most recently as part of the OpenNet Initiative, <http://www.opennet.net 
>.  Last year with support of the MacArthur Foundation we published  
"Access Denied," a study of filtering in about 40 states, <http://books.google.com/books?id=l6ry0NeJ1N8C 
>.  Our work so far has been centralized -- which means that  
gathering the data and analyzing to a gold standard has taken months.   
We're now complementing that effort with a distributed reporting  
system called Herdict, as in "verdicts of the herd."

Anyone interested in helping track blockages of information around the  
Web can download a small add-in for Firefox or IE.  Then, as you surf,  
an icon will change colors depending on whether the site you are  
visiting has been reported as inaccessible by others near you or  
elsewhere in the world.  Data is accumulated at the main web site,  
producing a realtime map of reports of blockages, and there's an  
"AmIBlockedOrNot" mode where you can page through sites reported as  
inaccessible and see whether you can load them yourself.  The hope is  
to gather data in near-real-time about blockages, allow people to know  
what sites appear to be blocked and where, and to test out the notion  
that distributed efforts can work in this field.  This may help to  
enumerate "traditional" filtering -- such as that done in China and  
Saudi Arabia (Chinese and Arabic language versions of the site are in  
progress) -- and also more network neutrality-related issues, such as  
filtering in schools and corporate environments.  People can also  
report as inaccessible material that has been taken down from a site,  
such as a YouTube link that no longer works, and thus show retractions  
of data or geofiltering -- such as when YouTube blocks certain videos  
only for subscribers accessing from Thailand.

I'd love to know what IP'ers think.  The site, still in beta, is <http://www.herdict.org 
>.

Best,
JZ

Jonathan Zittrain
Professor of Law
Harvard Law School | Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Co-Founder, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu>




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