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SUMMARY:Characterization of Internet Censorship from Multiple Perspectives
  - Dr Shehar Bano\, University College\, London
DTSTART:20170316T120000Z
DTEND:20170316T133000Z
UID:TALK71126@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Professor John Naughton
DESCRIPTION:*Abstract*\n\nCensorship of online communications threatens pr
 inciples of openness and freedom of information on which the Internet was 
 founded. In the interest of transparency and accountability\, and more bro
 adly to develop scientific rigour in the field\, we need methodologies to 
 measure and characterize Internet censorship.  Such studies will not only 
 help users make informed choices about information access\, but also illum
 inate entities involved in or affected by censorship\; informing the devel
 opment of policy and enquiries into the ethics and legality of such practi
 ces. However\, many issues around Internet censorship remain poorly unders
 tood because of the inherently adversarial and opaque landscape in which i
 t operates. As details about mechanisms and targets of censorship are usua
 lly undisclosed\, it is hard to define exactly what comprises censorship\,
  and how it operates in different contexts. \n\nMy research aims to help f
 ill this gap by developing methodologies to derive censorship ground truth
  using active and passive data analysis techniques\, which I apply to real
 -world datasets to uncover entities involved in censorship\, the targets o
 f censorship\, and the effects of such practices on different stakeholders
 . In this talk\, I will provide an overview of my work on Internet censors
 hip from multiple perspectives: (i) measurement of the Great Firewall of C
 hina that shows that inference of the censor’s traffic analysis model ca
 n enable systematic identification of evasion opportunities that users can
  exploit to access restricted content\, (ii) analysis of network logs coll
 ected at an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Pakistan over a period of e
 scalating censorship to study how censorship affects users’ browsing hab
 its with respect to circumvention\, and its economic effects on content pr
 oviders and ISPs\, and (iii) investigation of differential treatment -- an
  emerging class of censorship where websites (rather than the government) 
 block requests of users they don’t like -- in the context of Tor anonymi
 ty network and users of adblocking software. \n\n*About the speaker*\n\nSh
 ehar Bano is a postdoctoral researcher at University College London. Her r
 esearch interests centre on networked systems\, particularly in the contex
 t of security and measurement. Currently\, she is working on: \n* the DECO
 DE platform -- a distributed\, privacy aware\, and trusted architecture ba
 sed on blockchain technology for decentralized data governance and identit
 y management\, \n* characterizing churn in the availability of IP addresse
 s and Internet services over time and across different geographic location
 s in Internet-wide scans\,and  \n* understanding emerging forms of censors
 hip such as conspiracy theories and propaganda in online media. \n\nShe co
 mpleted her Ph.D. from Cambridge under the supervision of Prof. Jon Crowcr
 oft (and co-supervised by Dr. Steven Murdoch\, Prof. Vern Paxson\, and Pro
 f. Ross Anderson) where she was an Honorary Cambridge Trust Scholar\, and 
 was awarded the Mary Bradburn Scholarship by the British Federation of Wom
 en Graduates for her research work. Her thesis contributes novel measureme
 nt methodologies to identify instances of Internet censorship\, and large-
 scale characterizations of such practices to shed light on how it’s done
 \, how it can be stopped\, what its effects are\, and the evolving shape o
 f the ecosystem of government/policy-based censorship. Previously she work
 ed on Intrusion Detection Systems\, and wrote an open-source software for 
 botnet detection. Her work has been published in the Network and Distribut
 ed System Security Symposium\, the ACM Internet Measurement Conference\, t
 he Symposium on Privacy Enhancing Technologies\, and other well-respected 
 venues. 
LOCATION:Room SG2 (Ground Floor)\, Alison Richard Building\, 7 West Road
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