Why Is That Site Blocked?

When I worked at EFF I heard a lot of reports about certain sites being blocked in certain countries. We never knew if the site was really blocked or if their net connection was hosed, or if the site had just been down at that moment. In other words, there were a ton of different reasons that person may not have been able to get to the site and not all of them were because an oppressive government was being all evil and stuff. Now a group in Toronto is trying to hone their net detective skills and find the real reason behind people not being able to get too their favorite site.

"We're attempting to technically confirm reports that we get in various countries that the reason why they can't access certain websites is because the government or the internet service provider is deliberately blocking access to those websites, as opposed to it being some network error or some other reason," he said.

Simply put, the Citizen Lab is trying to find out which websites a particular government or internet provider might be blocking, and how they are blocking it.

Excellent.