...In the Western world, it is usually the criminal, the paranoid, or the very private who conceal tracks on the Internet. In countries with Web censorship, scholars must circumvent government filters just to write papers on human rights or study HIV transmission. Officials at the [University of Toronto's] Citizen Lab say 40 countries use some sort of Internet filtering, and without Tor, Psiphon, or other similar programs, many foreign academics might as well unplug their computers....
Iranian search engines reject the word "women," for example. The rationale? As Mr. Mirmirani writes in an e-mail message from Iran, the government claims 90 percent of people who search for "women" seek pornography, which is illegal.
For the same puritanical reasons, Iran outlaws searches for some seemingly unexceptionable terms. "Meat," Mr. [Jadi] Mirmirani writes, "could be used as a rude word for 'pretty woman' in Farsi." Therefore, searches on Muslim dietary restrictions are blocked. Referring to government officials, he says, "You can see how an ill mind assumes everybody's mind is also ill." ...
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/19/2007 11:36:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
