Boston's Censorware Examined

As noted earlier this week, some blocked websites on Boston's wireless network raised questions about the extent of the city's censorship and the reasoning behind it.

Because of a post on its site, the popular blog Boing Boing, was blocked by the censoring program that the city employs to monitor its wi-fi.  In what the city called a "glitch," we are able to see the effects of collateral blocking, which many times accounts for denial of access to harmless websites and information.

Local programmer Seth Finkelstein does a great job of cataloguing the events and coverage and MIT student David Sheets, has posted his findings on the range of censorship the network appears to implement.

Image courtesy of Dana Spiegel with CC licensing.