Q&A: Worldwide surveillance and filtering

The aim of the OpenNet Initiative is to investigate, expose and analyze Internet filtering and surveillance practices in a credible and non-partisan fashion.

Rafal Rohozinski is a founder and principal investigator of the Information Warfare Monitor and the OpenNet Initiative, where he directs a network of field-based staff in Asia, the CIS and Middle East. Rafal has 18 years of field-based experience working in an operational and advisory capacity in 37 countries. In 2005-2006, Rafal served as an embedded Chief Technical Advisor to the Palestinian Authority.

In this interview, Rafal discusses international surveillance and filtering issues.


Based on what criteria does the OpenNet Initiative select a country to analyze? What does the process look like?

We were among the first to document the emergence of censorship patterns. This began with a series of experiments carried out in 2002 at The Citizen Lab (University of Toronto) and Harvard which probed the Chinese and Saudi Arabia firewall systems. That work evolved into the OpenNet initiative.

Over the years we've developed a sophisticated and robust testing protocol that fuses data that we generate through technical testing and information we gather from our partners around the world. We currently have a networks of partners in over 95 countries. Basically, the process of determining where to test is quite simple and straightforward. We learn about Internet censorship either by monitoring official government declarations (that they intend to censor), such as in Saudi Arabia, China, Burma and elsewhere.

Alternatively, we pick up reports from our network of partners and or others, including human rights groups, reporters sometimes even ordinary citizens who complain that certain content or services are no longer available. We have developed a number of deployable software tools which allow us to verify whether or not censorship is taking place. These tools are quite accurate, and often will tell us not just if blocking this occurred, but how it is occurring and at what segment of the Internet.

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