Introduction

The academic debate on deep packet inspection (DPI) centres on methods of network management and copyright protection and is directly linked to a wider debate on freedom of speech on the Internet. The debate is deeply rooted in an Anglo-Saxon perspective of the Internet and is frequently depicted as a titanic struggle for the right to fundamentally free and unfettered access to the Internet.2

This debate is to a great extent defined by commercial interests. These interests whether of copyright owners, Internet service providers, application developers or consumers, are all essentially economic. All of these groups have little commercial interest in restricting free speech as such. However some might well be prepared to accept a certain amount of ‘collateral damage’ to internet free speech in exchange for higher revenues.
It can be argued that more transparent and open practices from network service providers are needed regarding filtering policy and the technology used. Nevertheless these practises are unlikely to fundamentally endanger free speech. Within the international system however, there are a large number of actors who have a considerable interest in limiting free speech, most obviously states.

As this paper will argue, the link between deep packet inspection and internet censorship is of far greater concern for freedom of speech than its use in traffic shaping or preventing copyright infringement. At the present time many of the states censoring the internet are already known to use deep packet filtering.3

A further question that arises in this context is whether state actors which censor the internet are following the lead of non-state actors and modifying content within the data stream rather than just blocking it. As DPI opens the door for far more subtle censorship methods, it could lead to a move from filtering internet content to editing it.

This paper will start by providing a short overview of DPI and it’s technical capabilities, before discussing the motivations of state and non-state actors using DPI. A short sample of various actors using DPI for censorship purposes will be provided and various scenarios related to censorship which are enabled by DPI will be introduced. Finally, some preliminary conclusions will be drawn and technical and institutional responses to dpi will be sketched.

A short overview of deep packet inspection (DPI)

Deep packet inspection technology has been used in various forms since the late 1990s. Its initial development was closely linked to the security industry and early versions of DPI found their way into firewalls and other security software during this time.4

The rise of denial of service (DoS) attacks at the beginning of the 21st century further contributed to the rollout of DPI technology, as it was seen as an effective form of defence against this and other forms of attack.5 Advances both in processing power6 and in DPI technology allowed for the advent of security products including very advanced features such as “application intelligence.”7

“Generally speaking, DPI focuses on analyzing all the content of data packets passing through the network, the headers and the data protocol structures (as opposed to the prior “Shallow Packet Inspection” that would only analyze the packet header) and compares this content against rules or signatures (for example, virus signatures).”8

What Security Focus described as the “Firewall Evolution” in 2003 has quickly come to signify that a large number of security products and firewalls now incorporate DPI technology.9 The use of DPI solutions has become so widespread that it is now used by many major global internet service providers. Furthermore, the use of DPI technology has become pervasive across the Internet, with most users frequently completely unaware of its existence.10

Before discussing the implications of the widespread use of DPI, a detailed description of the technical capabilities of DPI will be provided.

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Table of contents

1. Introduction
2. A short overview of deep packet inspection (DPI)
3. Technical capabilities of DPI technology
4. Reasons for using DPI technology
5. Actors currently using DPI for censorship
6. Scenarios enabled by DPI technology
7. Preliminary Conclusions
8. References

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Notes:

[*] A first draft of this paper was presented at the 3rd Annual Giganet Symposium in December 2008 in Hyderabad, India. For their advice and support preparing this paper I would like to thank: Ralf Bendrath, Claus Wimmer, Geert Lovink, Manuel Kripp, Hermann Thoene, Paul Sterzel, David Herzog, Rainer Hülsse, Wolfgang Fänderl and Stefan Scholz.

[1] (Bendrath 2009)
[2] (Frieden 2008, 633-676; Goodin 2008; Lehr et al. 2007; Mueller 2007, 18; Zittrain 2008)
[3] For further examples see page 6
[4] (Theta Networks Inc 2008; Top Layer Networks 2008)
[5] (Houle and Weaver 2001, 21; Top Layer Networks 2008)
[6] (Cox 2008)
[7] (Leyden 2003)
[8] (Theta Networks Inc 2008)
[9] (Dubrawsky 2003-07-29)
[10] (Anderson 2008; Kassner 2008)

Mariam Zouaghi is the first Tunisian woman to be convicted under The Anti-Terrorism Act of 10 December 2003.

Mariam has been arrested on July 26th, 2008, for visiting banned websites, publishing online articles on alleged extremist forum boards and collecting money to support Gaza.

In a phone call with Global Voices Advocacy, defense lawyer, Samir Ben Amor, says Mariam maintained her innocence and denied accusations that she belonged to any terror groups. She also stressed that her case was related to her online activities and her support to the people of Gaza.

Samsoum wrote:

Le blog de 3amrouch a été censure car il a repris une information publique sur un journal canadien qui est accessible a tout le monde. Par solidarité je publie aussi le lien vers ce journal qui cite dans sa page 10 la transaction immobilière qu'on veut cacher a tout prix. Et qu'on censure ce blog aussi!!!

Thoughts of an ex-Muslim wrote:

Ordinary stories blogged saying:

The house of the Tunisian journalist and blogger Zied el-Heni has been raided last night (April 10, 2009). In a blog post published today, Zied wrote that his laptop and CDs which contain all his work have been robbed:

I am sorry to inform you that my house has been raided and robbed on April 10, 2009. They stole my laptop and CDs which contain the efforts of my work day and night. I surrendered to pressure from friends, and reported the incident to the police, who took the usual procedures in such cases.

In September 2008, blogger Zied el-Heni filed a lawsuit against the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) for blocking the social networking website Facebook, which had lasted for two weeks, claiming that the ATI's illegal censorship violated his right to free access to information. The case was dismissed by the Third District Court in November 2008.

Zied's case was supported massively by Tunisian bloggers who declared November 4th (the date of the court hearing on lawsuit that was filed by blogger Zied El Heni against the Tunisian Internet Agency) as a national day for the freedom of blogging.

Zied's blog has been blocked in Tunisia since October 23th, 2008. Thirty other personal blogs are also blocked by the Tunisian Internet Agency.

* Many thanks to Amira Al Hussaini for the translation of Zied's post

Screenshot of the Tunisian infamous 404 blockpage

The five young UGET unionists, namely Ali bouzouzeya, Taoufik Louati, Aymen Jaabiri, Mohamed Boualleg, and Mohamed Soudani, have been on hunger strike since February 11th, 2009. After more than 48 days of hunger strike their health condition has greatly worsened. However, Tunisian authorities continue not to react.

Political opposition websites in North African countries, particularly in Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania, are becoming a primary target of hackers. This new phenomenon of defacing opposition and dissident websites emerged first in Tunisia, where at least 14 15 websites and blogs were targeted between 2007 and 2008, and seems to be spreading across the region as a result of the attempt to muzzle free speech both online and offline.

Even though it is not clear yet who is behind these hacking attacks, North African opposition leaders and owners of the targeted websites all agree that their regimes are behind this new way of cracking down on oppositional activities online.

Naziha Rejiba, from the Tunisian online kalima magazine and Deputy President of the Observatory for the Freedom of Press, Publishing and Creation in Tunisia (OLPEC), was summoned recently to appear before a public prosecutor, after she openly accused the Tunisian authorities to be behind the destruction of Kalima website, in October 2008.

In a statement protesting the hacking of Libyan oppositional websites, the Libyan league for Human Rights (LLHR) and Libya Human and Political Development Forum [in Arabic] also accused the Libyan authorities of orchestrating these Cyber attacks.

In Mauritania, and while Sahara Media, considered to be the first news site in the country, accused “national and foreign parties” of hacking its website, Sheikh Ould Ahmad Amin, editor in chief of Anbaa, another hacked website, told Menassat that “the current military regime that ousted the first elected government in Mauritania, is directly or indirectly linked to what happened.“

Libya

According to a statement by the Libyan league for Human Rights (LLHR) issued on January 19 2009, six Libyan oppositional websites were hacked into and shut down in January 2009. The hackers defaced the websites and displayed content from the Algathafi, a personal websites that contains the thoughts and visions of the Libyan president Muammar al-Gaddafi. Five from the six targeted websites remain off-line:

1. Akhbar Libya
2. Justice For Libya
3. The New Libya
4. Libya Human and Political Development Forum
5. Transparency Libya
6. Akhbar al-Inkadh

Mauritania

According to Hack In The Box website, at least two influential Mauritanian websites were hacked in november 2008. Both websites are critical of the military junta led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz:

The Sahara Media news agency, considered the first news site in Mauritania, was also disabled for one to two days, while anbaa was not only hacked, but its office in Nouakchott was vandalised and computers were stolen, said Maloum, who is the coordinator of the For Mauritania website, a lobby group.

The attack against the Anbaa website seems to be connected to the website's intent to publish content related to scandals involving politicians and senior public figures in the country.

Tunisia

As highlighted in a previous report on Global Voices Advocacy, almost every single Tunisian opposition website and self-hosted blog has been the victim of one or more hacking incidents. Given the frequency of the attacks and the nature of the targeted websites and blogs, there is a strong feeling among Tunisian opposition figures and Human Rights defenders that the government is carrying out these cyber-attacks. “I would not rule out the possibility that this act was committed by the secret services, with the aid of hackers or pirates based in Tunisia or abroad,” Kalima editor-in-chief Sihem Bensedrine said.

This is a non comprehensive list of targeted blogs and websites between July 6th, 2007 and November 05th, 2008:

2007
1. The online protest Ben Ali Yezzi Fock! (November 7th, 2007) - the website was hacked and completely deleted.
2. Tunisia Watch, (July 26th, 2007)
3. Tunisnews (December 6th, 2007)
4. PDP Info (October 17th, 2007)
5. CPR, the website of the banned opposition party the Congress for the Republic (September 10th 2007)
6. Slim Boukhdhir Blog (July 6th, 2007) his blog got hacked and completely deleted.
7. Reveil Tunisien (December 21th, 2007) the website got hacked and completely deleted.

2008

8. Nawaat (June 16th, 2008)
9. Tunis Online (January 19th, 2008)
10. Moncef Marzouki personal website (June 9th 2008)
11. Astrubal's Blog (June 16th, 2008)
12. Sami Ben Gharbia's Blog (June 16th, 2008)
13. Kalima (October 8th, 2008)
14. Liqaa (October 2nd, 2008)
15. Tunisnews (November 05th, 2008)
16. PDP Info (November 05th, 2008)
17. Tunis Carthage (October 25th, 2008)

From left: Sudanese blogger Kizzie Shawat, Egyptian blogger Nora Younis, Tunisian blogger Sami Ben Gharbia (Source: The Huffington Post)

One blogger, two journalists, and one online writer were prevented from traveling to Beirut, Lebanon, to attend the 3rd Arab Free Press Forum that took place on 12 and 13 December, 2008

Saudi Arabia prevented the leading Saudi blogger, Fouad Al Farhan, from attending the event where he was scheduled to take part in a panel entitled “The Changing face of Arab blogging“.

Tunisian human rights lawyer and online writer, Mohammed Abbou, was also stopped from boarding a flight, for the fifth time since his release from prison in July 2007.

Tunisian journalist and editor of the online magazine Kalima Lotfi Hidouri, and Mazen Darwish, director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression, were also prevented from leaving their countries for Beirut.

L. Hidouri was held by police overnight, before being released on the next day.

In his opening remarks, Timothy Balding, World Association of Newspapers (WAN) CEO, has vigorously protested these incidents:

we can at least thank the authorities of Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Syria for this eloquent and timely demonstration of their contempt for, and fear of, free expression, as we open this Forum

In 2007, Fouad Al Farhan was arrested for unspecified “violation of non-security regulations.” He was released on April 26, 2008, after spending 137 days in detention in Jeddah.

In 2005, human rights lawyer and onlineMohammed Abbou was arrested and sentenced to prison for three-and-a-half years for writing online articles criticizing the Tunisian penitentiary system, and comparing his country's political prisoners with those held in Abu Ghraib. He was jailed for nearly 28 months, and released on 24 July, 2007.

Here are the summaries of the presentations of the panel: The Changing face of Arab blogging (source: Arab Press Network):

When Tunisian bloggers suspected that the presidential jet was being frequently used for personal business by friends and family of the president, they used airport records to track its travels and compared it to official government records. Only one of ten trips proved to be official. Using Google maps, the bloggers illustrated their findings by “following” the plane in a video that was posted on YouTube and could be viewed within Tunisia. This and many other testimonies of how bloggers distribute information in the Arab world were shared at the 3rd Arab Free Press Forum, taking place on 12 and 13 December in Beirut, Lebanon.

The second session of the Forum focused on the changing face of Arab blogging. The three presenters are all living and writing from outside their countries.

“Internet with ID”

Mohammad Al-Abdallah, Blogger, I'm Leaving and I'm Not Coming Back

Syria has imposed draconian restrictions on internet usage, requiring users to provide detailed identification and requiring internet cafes to keep records on the habits and site visits of all their users - and it blocks YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Skype and other international sites.

Despite these restrictions, internet usage in Syria - introduced only in 2000 — is growing, and is expected to reach 10 percent of the population by 2009.

The number of Syrian bloggers is also growing, and they provide a vital service to the country, says Mr Al-Abdallah, who provided an evolution of the internet in Syria.

“We have become a source of information for Syrian citizens, despite all the constraints and obstacles for even just being on the internet,” says Mr Al-Abdallah, who left Syria after being arrested twice and facing a third arrest (his father and brother and both in jail). “A small number of citizens are trying to circumvent the embargo. This if of great importance in a country where the government doesn't allow people to meet and get together.”

“I had no venue to express my opinion”

Kizzie Shawat, Blogger, I Have No Tribe, I'm Sudanese, Sudan

Kizzie Shawat is a pseudonym for a young college student who began blogging because “I had no venue to express my opinion.”

Ms Shawat, who writes about female genital mutilation and other controversial topics, sees her role as providing a view of her country from a different perspective from official sources.

Though censorship is strict in Sudan, the authorities have not been successful in blocking all opposition websites, says Ms Shawat, creating an opportunity for bloggers like herself.

But she has another audience as well - the vast Sudanese diaspora - among whom she tries to encourage unity in a divided country. “Our national identity is important and I try to emphasize this in my blog,” she says.

“It is an important forum for social activism,” she says. “You have to allow people to express themselves and we're not used to doing that.”

Beating the censors

Sami Ben Gharbia, Blogger, Fikra, and Global Voices Advocacy Director, Tunisia

Tunisia has what may be the world's most sophisticated internet blocking apparatus - it not only block websites, it pirates them and adds false and misleading information. But that doesn't stop Tunisian bloggers for finding and using innovative ways around the system, and providing compelling multimedia reports to provide a counterpoint to official propaganda.

When official media “reported” that the Italian region of Tuscany had named a major highway after Tunisian Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, bloggers photographed the new street, showing it was an insignificant rural road leading to nowhere.

Suspecting that the presidential jet was being frequently used for personal business by friends and family of the president, bloggers used airport records to track its travels and compared it to official government records. Only one of ten trips proved to be official. Using Google maps, the bloggers illustrated their findings by “following” the plane in a video that was posted on YouTube and could be viewed within Tunisia.

Bloggers have also found interesting ways of beating the censors, such as buying Google Ads keywords so their information pops up whenever someone searches for certain words.

Mr Gharbia's presentation focused on the methods Tunisian authorities use to block independent information - including “deep inspection” of e-mails - and how freedom of expression advocates try to get around them.

It all started when Tunisian internet surfers welcomed with happiness the repeal of a ban placed on video sharing sites YouTube and Dailymotion. Many Tunisian bloggers celebrated this repeal of the ban by posting videos of songs downloaded from those two video websites on their blogs. But their happiness was cut short as the repeal did not last more than 24 hours. Very soon, the Tunisians discovered that there was in fact no repeal of the ban at all. Rather, a problem with the software and filters used by the ATI resulted in its failure to block these two video websites. The repeal of the ban, which had been welcomed with such enthusiasm, was actually just an accident and a mistake.

Meanwhile, journalist and blogger El Heni is suing the ATI for the censorship of Facebook, which had lasted for 16 days. The trial will take place on November 4 and as a sign of solidarity with his action, a group of bloggers decided that this date will henceforth be baptized as a national day for blogging freedom.

Blogger Abunadem, whose blog had been censored more than twice, spearheaded the campaign on Anticensuretounes, collective blog by Tunisian bloggers on anti-censorship. He explains:

Writing on the same blog, Bachbouch further explains:

Tunisian blogs became the main supplier of unbiased news for Tunisians living inside and abroad. Blogging became a responsibility and bloggers are now citizens who can create jeopardy to any government agency trying to cover and shadow information that doesn’t project a picture of a stable and democratic, government of a country experiencing a fast economic growth.
That in mind, we decided that, as we took this heavy responsibility on our shoulders, we are entitled to a law that protects us from any abuse and unlawful censorship. This law should also shield us from any unlawful investigation and arrest due to the content of our blogs as long as it doesn’t break any law acknowledged by our constitution. This same law will punish any person or entity that shall intentionally break it.
Zied El Heni’s symbolic law suite against “Tunisian Internet Agency” inspired us to launch our movement and decided to have November 4th, the date of the first hearing, as a National Day For Freedom of Blogging. This movement was immediately embraced by most if not all the Tunisian bloggers who will be the force that fuels and inspires this movement.
We will be reaching out parties of our government soon with all our demands hoping for a great cooperation.

The result is an overwhelming support from bloggers, such as Mayadine, who writes:

To support the initiative, Facebook user Bassem Bouguerra created a Facebook group entitled: November 4th: A National Day for Blogging Freedom. Since its launch on October 1, more than 330 members have so far joined the call. This relatively great number can really be considered a great achievement, in a country where people have been raised in fear of speaking out freely. This show of support is also remarkable considering that many people avoid joining groups dealing with matters of freedom of expression and other controversial issues. They fear persecution and jail.

Members on the Facebook group are exchanging ideas about the best methods to overcome censorship and limits on freedom of expression.

Seifeddine Ben Fatthallah, for instance, writes:

“I hope that the trial against ATI will not be only Zied El Heni's trial against ATI but it will be rather the trial of all Tunisians against ATI. It will not be only for internet users. In fact, the problem is larger than it seems to be as it is going beyond all limits. I hope that the information about limits on freedom of expression will reach every Tunisian citizen.”

Hayett Abed explains that Tunisian law guarantees freedom of expression. He notes:

Tunisian law guarantees freedom of expression and this freedom should be through all available means. Because Tunisian law lacks stipulations about blogging and because the Internet is part of new media and modern technologies, the government's approval to introduce such technologies to our countries is equivalent to its approval and acceptance to the use of the different services available on internet, including the different websites and blogs created by internet users.

And while it is really sad to see so many blogs and websites under the ATI's siege, and witness how Tunisia continues to violate freedom of expression while claiming at international gatherings that it is a leader of freedom and human rights, it is inspiring and encouraging to see so many Tunisians voices rising to say No to oppression and barriers on freedom of expression.

But some tests carried out from Tunisia by some Tunisian activists and bloggers have shown that despite restoring access to Youtube, a number of specific youtube videos and pages still remain blocked such as the youtube page of the collective bog nawaat as displayed in the following screenshot:

On September 3rd, 2008, the ban on the social networking website Facebook, that lasted for two weeks, has been lifted after a massive protest by Tunisian Netizens.

News about online censorship in Tunisia is now widespread on the net and this especially after the recent ban on the social networking website Facebook. I was in the United States when I heard about the censorship of facebook in my country and I had been really chocked by this piece of sad news. Indeed, Facebook is used by thousands of Tunisians for different goals and especially for work and business and even one of the two communication operators in Tunisia has launched an advertising campaign in it. As to me Facebook has allowed me to keep in touch with my friends worldwide, to meet childhood friends that I have lost for years and years, to communicate with my students and supervisors, and to know about different cultural, social, and sportive activities in Tunisia and abroad. Bad news succeeded one another, two days later I heard about the censorship of the blog I co-write with my boyfriend. Again I was chocked and spent the whole night looking for a definition for censorship to find some convincing reasons explaining this practice and I came out with the following results:

According to Wikipedia, Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor. The rationale for censorship is different for various types of data censored.
It can be moral (pornography), military (the process of keeping military intelligence and tactics away especially from espionage), political (governments holding back secret information from their citizens. The logic is to prevent the free expression needed to rebel), religious (the means by which any material objectionable to a certain faith is removed), and finally corporate (the process by which editors in corporate media outlets intervene to halt the publishing of information that portrays their business or business partners in a negative light).

I also found out that many countries are exercising control over the internet and that few governments are open about informing their citizens about internet controls. There is no place you can get an answer as a citizen from your state about how they are filtering and what is being filtered. Filtering and censorship happen in the shadows and that is how I realized that I am not going to find an answer to my questions. We, my boyfriend and I, just reopened the blog and went ahead with writing.

On Wednesday 17th September 2008 I discovered that the blog is censored again. The first censorship occurred in August 21st, so less than a month ago. I again tried to find a logical reason for this censorship and I again spent the night reading and re-reading the different posts of the blog in the hope of finding an answer but in vain. Some bloggers with whom I had discussions explained to me that it should be due to my post about the death of a Tunisian man shot by the Tunisia police for the mere reason of taking part in a demonstration. Again we just re-opened the blog and went ahead with writing. But less than 12 hours after, the blog is censored again and for no reason again.

My blog is not the only blog censored in Tunisia the list is too long .Hardly does the sun rises without learning about the censorship of a blog here is: Astrubal, Mochageb, enne9ed, Samsoum, For Gafsa, Against Censorship, Free word, Free Race, etc . Pardon me if I cannot mention all the censored blogs; the list is so long that I cannot retain all of them. All have undergone a case of censorship and now re -censorship. But the problem does not stop at censorship it reaches arrests, punishment, and persecution of internet users. Cases include: the Tunisian journalist and blogger Slim Boukhdhir and the Online writer Mohamed Abbou. And again the list is not complete.