![]() As of this report's publication date, we have not received a response to these questions. In our June 2013 report,49 which outlines the use of Netsweeper technology to engage in censorship of political and social content on the Pakistani ISP Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, we posed a number of questions to Netsweeper and committed to publishing their response in full. In addition, further research could examine what types of content are filtered beyond the pornography and circumvention tool websites identified here. In this report, we were not able to document the full breadth and scope of what content is filtered on Hormuud and whether the Netsweeper installations present on Golis and Telesom are also being used to filter content. undertake due diligence before providing its filtering technology to the ISPs and telecom providers in Somalia? Has Netsweeper assessed if its products will be used in Somalia in ways that violate internationally recognized human rights norms and principles, and to prevent the receiving and imparting of information protected by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? More importantly, are the telecommunications companies in Somalia using Netsweeper technology to implement filtering policies enforced by radical groups? How and why did a Canadian-made filtering technology end up on the networks of these telecommunications companies in a country ranked as the most failed state on earth? Somalia?s weak central government, autonomous regions and ongoing insurgency mean that authority is contested amongst a number of actors. ![]() At one time, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions against Ali Ahmed Nur Jim?ale, identified as controlling owner of Hormuud.48 Although that no longer is the case, the history of concern around telecommunications companies and radical insurgency in Somalia is, to say the least, complex and begs the following questions: The presence and use of Netsweeper in Somalia raise even more interesting questions and present a number of avenues for future research. The presence and use of commercial Internet filtering technologies in countries with poor records of human rights practices have always raised questions about the ethical practices of the providers of such technologies. įigure 5: Map of network connectivity of 3 ISPs in Somalia. Hence, the installation of Netsweeper filtering technology on Hormuud and Telesom is significant giving their strategic positions these networks are not just local providers or resellers, but rather among the telecom providers that exert the leverage of shaping and controlling Internet traffic and information flow into and out of the entire country. Mapping the ASNs of three telecommunication networks in Somalia shows that telecommunications companies Hormuud, Telesom, and SomCable are gateways to Internet connections from and to Somalia. The format of this blockpage URL is consistent with the use of Netsweeper devices.47 In addition, the original redirect explicitly refers to Netsweeper (?). However, the correct blockpage can be viewed by replacing with the IP address found via Shodan, as seen below in Figure 4.įigure 4: Blockpage on ISP Hormuud Telecom Somalia at This will prevent the correct image from loading, and appears to be the result of a misconfiguration. The blockpage attempts to load the image ? URL]/webadmin/deny/images/hormuud_block_page.JPG?, where is the URL being tested, instead of opening it from a Hormuud hosted site.
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