[Chapter-delegates] Internet Filtering

[Alejandro Pisanty]

Hi Tony and OMar,

a few years ago a unit I worked in took a very serious look into this and 
a more specific problem, anti-spam filtering.

As Tony already hints, there is no general answer. This is an engineering 
problem as much as it is a political one. The engineering part should be 
derived from the requirements of the system. The impact on traffic 
throughput depends on what kind of filtering is made (ports? protocols? 
things happening at the header level? strings in the content of email or 
webpages? reputation filters? comparison against online or on-site 
lists?, evaporating the content or filing it? identifying who it was 
directed to and persecuting the user?, etc.) and with what processing 
capacity. There will be more technical terminology if you want to make 
this sound more engineerish.

If you put a weak box in the middle of the stream and ask for it to do a 
lot of work (filtering contents by comparing against some forbidden 
strings), well, you are going to hit the traffic badly. If you put enough 
power you may make it impercetible for most users.

Now of course someone has to craft the requirements and that will most 
probably be where the real problem lies - the political level. All the 
worse if at the backbone and in a non-transparent, non-revocable way for 
people to be able to bring back their sites, or email, onlne.

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty


.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . .  .  .  .  .  .
      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

*Mi blog/My blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
*LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
*Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614

---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, www.isoc.org
  Participa en ICANN, www.icann.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .


On Sun, 29 Jun 2008, Tony Hill wrote:

> Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:26:35 +1000
> From: Tony Hill <tony at keanyhill.wattle.id.au>
> To: Omar D. Al-Sahili <osahili at gmail.com>
> Cc: 'Chapter Delegates' <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Internet Filtering
> 
> Hi Omar
>
> Some work has been done on filtering in Australia, because the new
> government has some plans for centralised filtering.
>
> The previous work seems to be from 2006, but a government supported
> agency called NetAlert, A Study on Server Based Internet Filters:
> Accuracy, Broadband Performance Degradation and some Effects on the User
> Experience, see:
> http://www.netalert.gov.au/programs/research.html
>
> Unfortunately, it looks like that report is not available for download
> from the NetAlert site.  My memory is that it showed up to 70% reduction
> in download speeds.  The report is quoted elsewhere as saying:
> The research shows that network performance was reduced by 18 per cent
> for the best performing filter and almost 78 per cent on the worst
> performing filter. The research also demonstrated variable filter
> performance across the different categories of restricted content.
> see: http://libertus.net/censor/ispfiltering-au-govplan.html
> 2006 NetAlert Research
>
> Also, check out reports by the Australian Communications and Media
> Authority.  See Developments in Internet Filtering Technologies and
> Other Measures for Promoting Online Safety (PDF 2.1mb), online at:
> http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_90266
>
> There is also this nice piece of news about how quickly a new Internet
> filter could be hacked by a 16 year old:
> http://librariesinteract.info/2008/02/28/australias-internet-filter-a-failure/
>
> I hope this info is helpful.
>
> regards, Tony Hill
> ISOC Australia
>
> Omar D. Al-Sahili wrote:
>> Dear All;
>>
>> Internet filtering for porno and Adult sites is now being discussed in
>> Palestine at the backbone level. As it’s being piloted, it is causing
>> ridiculously slow Internet traffic. The funny thing is that some ISPs
>> provide filtered connections for households and that did not cause much
>> slowness.
>>
>> I would appreciate some feedback of similar country's experiences about this
>> issue and especially on the technical side and not the concept itself. I
>> understand that the effectiveness and success of Internet filtering that is
>> a debate on its own.
>>
>> So simply, how does Internet filtering affect the speed of regular Internet
>> browsing.
>>
>>
>> Regards.
>>
>> Omar D. Al-Sahili
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> ISOC Palestine
>> osahili at gmail.com
>> osahili at hotmail.com
>> osahili @ Skype
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Chapter-delegates mailing list
>> Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
>> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chapter-delegates mailing list
> Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates
>