{"id":1345,"date":"2014-06-25T09:55:24","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T13:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/?p=1345"},"modified":"2014-06-25T09:55:24","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T13:55:24","slug":"new-citizen-lab-report-monitoring-information-controls-in-iraq-in-reaction-to-isis-insurgency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/2014\/06\/25\/new-citizen-lab-report-monitoring-information-controls-in-iraq-in-reaction-to-isis-insurgency\/","title":{"rendered":"New Citizen Lab report: &#8220;Monitoring Information Controls in Iraq in Reaction to ISIS Insurgency&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/citizenlab.org\/2014\/06\/monitoring-information-controls-in-iraq\/\">new report from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto<\/a> takes a look at Internet monitoring in Iraq. Since violence led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) broke out in the country several weeks ago, the government has responded by <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/2014\/06\/17\/iraqi-government-shuts-down-internet-access-in-five-provinces\/\">cutting Internet access<\/a>, first by blocking websites including Twitter and Facebook and then, on June 15, issuing orders for a total Internet shutdown in five of the nation&#8217;s 19 provinces.<\/p>\n<p>Among the report&#8217;s key findings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A total of 20 unique URLs\u00a0were found to be blocked on three major Internet service providers (ISPs): Earthlink Telecommunications, IQ Net, and Newroz Telecom. The blocked sites include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Skype, YouTube, WhatsApp, and WeChat, as well as popular VPN services including OpenVPN and StrongVPN.<\/li>\n<li>The majority of the websites found to be unavailable corresponded with the list of that the Ministry of Communications ordered to be blocked on June 13. The ISP\u00a0Newroz Telecom showed no signs of filtering, which &#8220;was expected, because this ISP serves the Kurdistan area, and reports have indicated that the shutdown and social media blocking orders did not include Kurdistan.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_1348\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1348\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1348\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/akamai-iraq-disruption.png\" alt=\"Traffic from Akamai, a content delivery network, to Iraq, showing a sharp drop in traffic since the filtering orders from the Iraqi Ministry of Communications. Via the Citizen Lab.\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/akamai-iraq-disruption.png 960w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/akamai-iraq-disruption-150x112.png 150w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/akamai-iraq-disruption-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/akamai-iraq-disruption-400x300.png 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1348\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Traffic from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/akamai_soti\/status\/478517658326167552\/photo\/1\">Akamai<\/a>, a content delivery network, to Iraq, showing a sharp drop in traffic since the filtering orders from the Iraqi Ministry of Communications. Via the <a href=\"https:\/\/citizenlab.org\/2014\/06\/monitoring-information-controls-in-iraq\/\">Citizen Lab<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>The Citizen Lab also looked at seven websites &#8220;affiliated with or supportive of&#8221; ISIS. None were blocked. &#8220;Given that the insurgency was cited as the rationale for the shutdown and filtering,&#8221; wrote\u00a0the authors, &#8220;this finding is curious.&#8221; This could suggest that the Maliki government is using the present crisis as an excuse to rein in broader social media around the country\u2014whether or not it is related to ISIS violence.<\/li>\n<li>Usage of Psiphon and Tor, which allow users to circumvent filtering, has soared in Iraq in recent days (though Tor use <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Herdict\/status\/481470132628115456\">has since fallen slightly<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_1346\" style=\"width: 778px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1346\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1346\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/TorUsers.png\" alt=\"Directly connecting users of Tor in Iraq, via the Citizen Lab.\" width=\"768\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/TorUsers.png 768w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/TorUsers-150x93.png 150w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/TorUsers-300x187.png 300w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/TorUsers-480x300.png 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1346\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Directly connecting users of Tor in Iraq, via the <a href=\"https:\/\/citizenlab.org\/2014\/06\/monitoring-information-controls-in-iraq\/\">Citizen Lab<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_1347\" style=\"width: 866px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1347\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1347\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/PsiphonUsers.jpg\" alt=\"Daily users of Psiphon in Iraq, via the Citizen Lab.\" width=\"856\" height=\"552\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/PsiphonUsers.jpg 856w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/PsiphonUsers-150x96.jpg 150w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/PsiphonUsers-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/files\/2014\/06\/PsiphonUsers-465x300.jpg 465w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 856px) 100vw, 856px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1347\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Daily users of Psiphon in Iraq, via the <a href=\"https:\/\/citizenlab.org\/2014\/06\/monitoring-information-controls-in-iraq\/\">Citizen Lab<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>More information about the Citizen Lab&#8217;s analysis\u00a0can be found in its\u00a0report, <a href=\"https:\/\/citizenlab.org\/2014\/06\/monitoring-information-controls-in-iraq\/\"><em>Monitoring Information Controls in Iraq in Reaction to ISIS Insurgency<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new report from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto takes a look at Internet monitoring in Iraq. Since violence led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) broke out in the country several weeks ago, the government has responded by cutting Internet access, first by blocking websites including Twitter and Facebook and then, on June 15, issuing orders for a total Internet shutdown in five of the nation&#8217;s 19 provinces. The Citizen Lab tests the filtering methods, finding that blockage lines up with the Ministry of Communications&#8217; decree, but does not block sites affiliated with ISIS. <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/2014\/06\/25\/new-citizen-lab-report-monitoring-information-controls-in-iraq-in-reaction-to-isis-insurgency\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6389,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New @citizenlab report takes a look at how Iraqi govt is filtering the net to fight ISIS insurgency http:\/\/wp.me\/p4L9BV-lH","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[401,83921],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iraq","category-technical-filtering"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4L9BV-lH","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1356,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/internetmonitor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}