The Scale of Geoblocking by Nation
Interesting analysis:
We introduce and explore a little-known threat to digital equality and freedomwebsites geoblocking users in response to political risks from sanctions. U.S. policy prioritizes internet freedom and access to information in repressive regimes. Clarifying distinctions between free and paid websites, allowing trunk cables to repressive states, enforcing transparency in geoblocking, and removing ambiguity about sanctions compliance are concrete steps the U.S. can take to ensure it does not undermine its own aims.
The paper: “Digital Discrimination of Users in Sanctioned States: The Case of the Cuba Embargo”:
Abstract: We present one of the first in-depth and systematic end-user centered investigations into the effects of sanctions on geoblocking, specifically in the case of Cuba. We conduct network measurements on the Tranco Top 10K domains and complement our findings with a small-scale user study with a questionnaire. We identify 546 domains subject to geoblocking across all layers of the network stack, ranging from DNS failures to HTTP(S) response pages with a variety of status codes. Through this work, we discover a lack of user-facing transparency; we find 88% of geoblocked domains do not serve informative notice of why they are blocked. Further, we highlight a lack of measurement-level transparency, even among HTTP(S) blockpage responses. Notably, we identify 32 instances of blockpage responses served with 200 OK status codes, despite not returning the requested content. Finally, we note the inefficacy of current improvement strategies and make recommendations to both service providers and policymakers to reduce Internet fragmentation.
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jnorthon • November 22, 2024 12:36 PM
It’s not hard to see that this is kind of bs, though. Load up Tor Browser and try to view the I.R.S. or F.C.C. web sites, for example: “Access Denied
You don’t have permission to access “http://www.irs.gov/” on this server.”
Luckily, I’m not a U.S. citizen (who’d be required to file U.S. taxes) living in a “repressive regime”. But I’d be curious to see someone file Freedom of Information Act requests for details on why they feel it appropriate to block anonymous viewing of their sites. Heaven forfend someone download a 1040-NR without being tracked by the U.S.A.