About
From NeuMon
Many countries or ISPs (Internet Service Providers) around the world block or limit the access of citizen to web-sites, resources (P2P network) etc. This is done with different techniques (read ONI / About Filtering for more informations).
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Aims of the service
- Detecting in realtime whether a supposed "down" of a site is genuine, or limited to certain providers, or caused by alteration of DNS or IP blocks from the provider.
- Detecting which providers, and in what time, comply with the directives, locks or unlocks.
- Generating a list of the most neutral provider
- Generating a list of blocked domains
- Generating a list of domains to which a redirect is performed. Redirect can potentially violate privacy (intercepting cookies).
- Identifying which blocks are performed via DNS, which via IP (Deep Packet Inspection), which via both.
Actually, automated test is only about web-sites.
We aim also to:
- Collect results about testing other types of block, for example P2P filtering, with software like Switzerland Network Testing Tool or Measurement Lab.
- Help people organize initiatives through our forums, wiki, and other resources.
We aim to do this check as automatic as possible, to ensure real-time feedback and neutrality of results.
How it works
The service is based on the collection of information through the "probes", or volunteers who run software that contacts the server to know which tests to perform, execute them, and send the results to the server.
An optimal result would be the presence of probes for most providers.
The same service checks the domains (reference probe), to assess the results of probes of the volunteers.
The service also collects/manages a list of known DNS services, and query it in order to identify DNS blocks.
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
What are the sites under control?
The sites to be monitored are specified directly by the community.
Some lists of sites are obtained by performing interrogation of the DNS server of the provider lists.
So you have lists of sites blocked by the ISP?
Compile the lists is one of the objectives of the service.
Please note that our list is dynamic, and domains which no longer exist are removed.
There are some blocks, such as www.latteinpolvere.net, which are specified by the provider, but not on our list, as that domain no longer exists.
Do you offer a list of blocked sites?
No. The system controls every known address, in order to calculate statistics.
But to the public it will only show the overall statistics, and a list of addresses which are considered public.
The staff service is about deciding which addresses are private and which public.
This is because the purpose of the service is NOT to be "a guide" to illegal websites, or to promote reported websites.
Can i suggest a web site to check?
Yes, using this page.
Note that the site specified will be checked, but it will not be visible to the public.
To view the results, we recommend that you save the url of the page which will be shown.
Do you give information about how to skip or bypass the blocks?
Not directly, not the aim of the project.
We allow discussions about this in our forums, as there are many online guides on using alternative DNS, proxy, etc..
My provider isn't checked, why?
Data is collected through volunteers who run a software probe, by the provider.
If your provider is not present, it means that we do not have a probe that controls it.
You can become a volunteer, by downloading from here the software probe (free, open-source, GPL).
Advanced FAQ
Is the service automatic or doeas manual intervention occur?
The staff can manage the results. There are websites that:
- Always returns different pages randomly.
- They are based on geo-IP, for example to display content in the proper language, ignoring the fact that the browser sends information about the favourite language.
This means that it is difficult to compare, in terms of content, the result of a probe with the outcome of the probe of references, in order to identify whether there is a blockade.
Also the same issue applies to DNS resolution: some domains, such as "google.com", depending on various factors, are resolved with different IP addresses.
If in doubt, an inconsistency is treated as if it were the correct result, to avoid false negatives, and reported to the staff, who will carry out a manual validation.
IP addresses typically used as destinations of DNS blocks are directly regarded as blocks, without the intervention of our staff.
Miscellaneous Notes
- The service monitors daily all websites, every hour, and all the websites for which at least one probe gave error, including reference.
- If the probe detects a reference website down, cancels all the results of probes for that site, and thus is removed from the rankings: it will be brought back if and when 'up', as probes will re-perform testing. This is to avoid false negatives.
- Only the results of probes of the last 48 hours are kept.
