Michael Fisher's List: Saudi Arabia Internet Censorship Case Study

• The prohibitions have led to an explosion in circumventors, proxy servers that  allow Internet users to bypass workplace or government filters. In cyber cafes  from Damascus to Dubai, patrons furtively browse blocked sites and swap Web  addresses for the latest “proxies.”
• The most tech-savvy young Arabs and Iranians use new proxies every day, trying  to stay a step ahead of government censors.

• Last month, Syrian authorities banned several more sites, including the book  and music vendor Amazon.com. The government reportedly uses a filtering system  called Thundercache to block content from sites such as Blogspot, Hotmail, Skype  and YouTube. Many Arabic-language news sites also are banned.
• Across the Persian Gulf from Iran, the Arabian Peninsula is home to some of the  world’s most stringent censors, with Saudi Arabia at the top of the list
• The ultraconservative Saudi government, a close U.S. ally, blocks thousands of  Web sites that deal with pornography, religion, politics and human rights.  Medical students at Saudi universities have complained that they can’t even  access scientific sites to study human anatomy.

• Noor, however, hit on an even better solution: he signed up for satellite  Internet, which means his connection is now free from the long arm of the Saudi  censors.

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