Web filtering in the UAE
Some random observations
- Wikipedia claims that filtering is done using a SecureComputing solution however I doubt this is (still) the case.
- From what I found our I rather think the UAE is using Bluecoat for webfiltering with block list from Websense.
- I understood from a friend of a friend that this was implemented in conjunction with a team in Canada
- URL keyword filtering does not seem to be in place
Blocked sites
Just the obvious ones:
- Flickr.com (for some reason the US army photostream is NOT blocked The U.S. Army's photostream). Could it be because WebSense has a special deal with the US Army?!
Hacker News Ycombinator was blocked at some point in time but this was reverted about a week or two later
Not all Israeli sites are blocked. Quite a few are not, including Petri's site, much to the rejoice of windows sys admins everywhere
Some Wikipedia pages are blocked
Opera mini does its rendering on Opera servers in Norway, effectively acting as filter-circumventing proxies. This used to be a long standing hole in the filtering system allowing people to browse outside the filter from their mobile devices (mainly Blackberry). This hole was plugged in early 2010. Opera mini can only work if rendering is done on Opera servers so the application no longer works in the UAE.
Hacker News Books -- This is a website with book reviews. It is unclear why it's blocked. Maybe someone didn't agree with the review.
- The webpage for TNT. Oddly enough only the English version is blocked. You can still read the article in other languages, including Arabic and Urdu. The page for Dynamite is not blocked, even in English
- Another one blocked is wikipedia's page about Circumcision. No idea why, but again, only the English version is blocked
Update 27.09.2010: flickr.com no longer blocked
CategoryAbuDhabi
CategorySecurity
CategoryNotes
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