Internet Filtering Close to Home
It seems that while a great deal of attention is paid to the most comprehensive Internet filtering governments, such as China and Iran, you just need to cross the Charles River to see implementation of censorship on the Net.
The city of Boston's municipal wireless network apparently has its own filtering system that just days ago blocked access to popular blog Boing Boing.
After the blocking was reported by both Boing Boing and Slashdot, a local programmer found the source of the problem to be a link that had its SafeSearch turned off. That red flagged the site to the city's censoring software and access was denied.
While the site will be accessible when the offending link cycles off the frontpage, the issue of collateral filtering remains.
A 2006 report by NYU's Brennan Center looked at domestic filtering and found that while there is "substantial overblocking," there are steps we can take to take down the roadblocks to our Internet access.
The city of Boston's municipal wireless network apparently has its own filtering system that just days ago blocked access to popular blog Boing Boing.
After the blocking was reported by both Boing Boing and Slashdot, a local programmer found the source of the problem to be a link that had its SafeSearch turned off. That red flagged the site to the city's censoring software and access was denied.
While the site will be accessible when the offending link cycles off the frontpage, the issue of collateral filtering remains.
A 2006 report by NYU's Brennan Center looked at domestic filtering and found that while there is "substantial overblocking," there are steps we can take to take down the roadblocks to our Internet access.