Entries Tagged 'Websense' ↓
December 21st, 2007 — Foehammer's Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, censorship, censorware
“What’s this about?”
See yesterday’s blog post:
Websense is up to its old tricks again – blacklisting counter-jihadist sites by assigning them to the wrong categories. As a result, many workplaces, schools, and WiFi sites that use Websense “content-filtering” or “censorware” services will automatically block readers from accessing those sites.
We don’t know whether people working for Websense, or malicious outsiders, have been mislabeling these websites – but whoever it is, they are helping our jihadist enemies, and we will not tolerate that.
“What message did you send to Websense?”
Here it is:
I request that http://foehammer.net (Foehammer’s Anvil) be reclassified as a news site. It is currently misclassified as a “games” site.
There are NO games on Foehammer’s Anvil. Instead, it is a a hard news and commentary site with no fluff. The Anvil offers a news aggregator regarding jihadist activity, plus articles and commentary about the U.S. and worldwide political scene as it relates to confronting (or failing to confront) jihadism. Furthermore, the admin keeps an eye out to exclude obscene vocabulary, threats, spam, and the like.
In addition, I request that you also reclassify http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com (Gates of Vienna) as a news and commentary site.
Like Foehammer’s Anvil, it is a counterterrorist site, whose admins carefully screen out bad language, threats, spam, and so forth. It differs from the Anvil in that it focuses somewhat more on European (including UK) counterterrorism news and views.
Counterterrorism news and debate is something that everybody needs in order to make intelligent decisions in the business world, in the voting booth, and elsewhere. Making it too easy to suppress this information helps our jihadist enemies, at everyone else’s expense.
“So why do I need to write?”
Because one person cannot do it all…
Do you value and appreciate good blogs?
If you do, you should be aware that blogs – even nonprofit blogs – don’t remain active unless their intended audience can access and read them. Anything that keeps readers away from a blog will hurt the blog’s chances of survival. So if you want your favorite blogs to be around a few months from now, you need to support them by making sure that nobody is “gaming the system” to obstruct reader access.
Do you value and appreciate your freedom?
Yes, sometimes you have to fight for your freedom – sometimes with the sword, sometimes with the pen, sometimes with both. Okay, these days, the armaments are likelier to involve tanks and fighter planes – along with computers and the Internet. Your email and your blog, if you have one, can be an effective weapon to fight for freedom. Use it!
“How do I get in touch with Websense?”
They don’t make it easy, but we found a way…
Websense Corporate Headquarters
Gene Hodges, CEO
Douglas C. Wride, President and CFO
10240 Sorrento Valley Rd
San Diego, California 92121 USA
Tel: +1 800.723.1166 or +1 858.320.8000
Fax: +1 858.458.2950
Websense Email Form
(Note: Websense will not accept the form if your email address is on a web-based server, such as Yahoo. If that’s a problem, then write or call them up and complain!)
Investor relations:
Kate Patterson, VP of Investor Relations
Tel: 877-273-7379 or 858-320-8072
Fax: 858-458-2959
Email: kpatterson@websense.com
Learn More:
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December 20th, 2007 — Foehammer's Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, censorship
Here we go again…
Having just posted yesterday’s article about censorware vendor WebSense blocking access to Gates of Vienna, I emailed GoV about it to let them know. Seems that, like many of us in the counterjihad, they’d had trouble before with content-filtering firms blacklisting their site, but they couldn’t recall which one.
I didn’t have that information at my fingertips, so while I was waiting for further instructions at work, I thought I’d take a look at the censorship category at Foehammer’s Anvil. There was a good chance that a blog post or comment would identify the censorware firm(s) that had previously bedeviled GoV.
I was startled to find that Websense had blocked me from Foehammer’s Anvil:
Access to this web page is restricted at this time.
The web page you have attempted to access has been deemed inappropriate.
Accessing this material is a violation of [company's] Computer Usage Policy.
Reason: The Websense category “Games” is filtered.
URL: http://foehammer.net/category/censorship/
Continued attempts to access this type of content will result in disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.
If this site has legitimate business value and needs to be unblocked please click here, select your site, System/Appl. Access, and select Internet Web Site Blocking/Unblocking request. The helpdesk cannot grant access.
Please note that internet radio, online shopping, and photo hosting sites are not considered to have legitimate business value.
No games at the Anvil
Games? The Anvil doesn’t offer any games or other entertainment. It’s a hard news and commentary site with no fluff. The Anvil offers a news aggregator regarding jihadist activity, plus articles and commentary about the U.S. and worldwide political scene as it relates to confronting (or failing to confront) jihadism. Foehammer keeps an eye out to exclude obscene vocabulary, threats, spam, and the like.
Suppose some joker who sympathizes with our enemies wants a clever way to keep Foehammer from exposing so many people to unflattering news about jihadist wrongdoing. So the joker calls or emails WebSense and asks them to categorize the Anvil as a games site. I suppose that, to someone at Websense who has never visited Foehammer’s Anvil, the name might sound as though it could possibly be a games site. So WebSense happily obliges. The Anvil is classified as a games site, so that any company or other venue that uses WebSense to block access to games sites will automatically lock out the Anvil.
In this way, we are letting our enemies game the system by manipulating these censorware vendors into muzzling our communications.
If anything, we should be curtailing the distribution of enemy propaganda and disinformation, such as videos that encourage children to become suicide bombers, instead of allowing our avowed enemies to censor communications that we need to defend ourselves effectively.
Too many games at WebSense
Websense unfortunately requires registration to use their site lookup tool, a policy which is highly objectionable in itself. Anybody should be able to see which sites are being blacklisted. So much for accountability to the public!
Therefore, the last time I contacted Websense in order to complain about another site they had misclassified, I used the Websense Email Form.
But when I clicked on that form to to send my message, the Websense email form rejected it because I had entered a “public” (i.e., web-based) email address. Another barrier to accountability!
Even though I was thoroughly disgusted by that petty little ploy, I went ahead and sent the form, but I had to give a personal email address that I would much rather not have used.
“What to do?”
- Contact Websense to request that Foehammer’s Anvil and Gates of Vienna be reclassified as news/opinion sites:
Websense Corporate Headquarters
Gene Hodges, CEO
Douglas C. Wride, President and CFO
10240 Sorrento Valley Rd
San Diego, California 92121 USA
Tel: +1 800.723.1166 or +1 858.320.8000
Fax: +1 858.458.2950
Websense Email Form
(Note: WebSense does not accept the form if sender’s email address is on a web-based server, such as Yahoo. If that’s a problem, then write or call them up and complain!)
Investor relations:
Kate Patterson, VP of Investor Relations
Tel: 877-273-7379 or 858-320-8072
Fax: 858-458-2959
Email: kpatterson@websense.com
Learn More:
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Also on FHK
December 19th, 2007 — Gates of Vienna, Websense, blog censorship, blogging, censorship, censorware
We just received this email from a reader:
Name Smarty
Subject websense and gov
Message Websense is blocking GOV under “social networking and personal sites.” I am at work and got blocked.
Censorware site classifications and company policies
Websense is a vendor of content-filtering a/k/a censorware services. Smarty’s workplace evidently uses Websense to block access to various categories of sites, including sites that Websense has categorized as “social networking and personal sites.”
One could reasonably argue that this classification is incorrect, in that Gates of Vienna is not actually a social networking site like, for example, Myspace or Facebook. GoV is a political news and opinion site focused on counterterrorism and foreign affairs. It carefully screens out anything potentially offensive, such as objectionable photos or vocabulary.
What to do?
If Smarty wants to be able to access GoV from work, here are the possibilities:
- Find out what types of sites are allowed at work, and contact Websense to try to get GoV reclassified into a category that would be acceptable. There are two disadvantages here. Getting the censorware company to make this change may be difficult. Even if the censorware company is willing to recategorize GoV, the new category may be acceptable in some workplaces or venues, but not in others.
- Contact the network admin who person who administers the censorware for this workplace, and ask him or her to “whitelist” GoV – in other words, to allow that specific site to be accessed without regard to its Websense classification.
- Get a cellphone with web access, and a service plan that allows unlimited browsing, and use it to access GoV and other sites from any place where cellphone service is available. The disadvantage here is that cellphone access tends to be slower, the screen is much smaller, and browsing features are more limited.
More Information:
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November 6th, 2007 — Burma-Myanmar, Iran, Islam, Nazism, Saudi Arabia, Secure Computing SmartFilter, Surf Control, Websense, YouTube, anti-Semitism, blog censorship, cartoon censorship, censorship, censorware, video
 |
Updated
11/17/2007:
See below for
new material!
|
Mo-Toons
The Danish People’s Party and its election ad campaign involving the new/old Motoon has not escaped the notice of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC issued this press release a couple of days ago…
Here’s what’s important about this: The threat of Muslim violence hasn’t been part of their deliberations about publication of the cartoon.
The threat of violence should never be a consideration when any group plans peaceful and lawful activities. When you modify your plans in anticipation of a violent reaction, you have ceded control to the Islamists as effectively as if you elected them to the parliament and allowed them to enact the country’s laws.
The simple truth, eloquently stated.
Censorware and Hacking
Note: Jamal al-Badawi was a mastermind of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 US sailors.
They re-blocked my website, other news sites and are denying access to all the proxie sites.
Also hacked: Hewar Forums, a dialog forum in Yemen that hosts public figures who respond to questions from members. Hewar asked me to participate. I happily agreed.
So does Yemen have this evildoer in custody – or not? Is their legal system anything more than window dressing? And what else are they trying to cover up by censoring the Net?
Note: This article is from 2/21/2006, but unfortunately, little or nothing has changed since then.
According to this article in USA Today by Kevin Maney, an OpenNet Initiative (ONI) report reveals that Yemen uses censorware from Websense, based in San Diego, and Blue Coat Systems, based in Sunnyville, CA. Burma/Myanmar, the scene of recent widespread protests that were followed by a shutdown of Internet and cellular communications, uses censorware from Fortinet, also based in Sunnyvale.
How about Iran? This is a country that fears an open Internet the way the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz feared fire. When ONI did its study, it found that the predominant Iranian Internet service providers (ISPs) used SmartFilter from Secure Computing of San Jose, Calif.
A peer-reviewed paper published in January by University of Toronto professor Nart Villeneuve names Websense as the filter used by one major Iranian ISP, ParsOnline.
If you hunt around on the Web, you also find that an entity called Ertebatat Faragostar advertises as “the exclusive reseller of SurfControl in Iran.”
SurfControl, based in Scotts Valley, Calif., makes a powerful Web-filtering system.
Requests for comment from Secure Computing, Websense and SurfControl also went unanswered.
The whole Middle East seems to be a gold mine for U.S. Web-filtering companies.
Blue Coat brags in a November press release that quarterly revenue for Blue Coat Middle East leapt 15%, “with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia leading the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries in terms of sales revenue.” The Saudis block political opposition sites, Christian religion sites, pornography and gambling.
Wow. Just wow.
Censorship by Character Assassination
Racist. Xenophobe. These are just a couple of the epithets Europe’s cultural elite like to hurl at critics of Islamic fundamentalism. Bruce Bawer reports on the character assassination of Hege Storhaug, author of the new book Covered. Uncovered. and a courageous advocate of freedom.
I knew something about ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] and asked Syeed why-if his group truly supported peace and suchlike-its board included members directly linked to Islamic extremism and anti-Semitism, including the notorious Wahhabi-trained Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj. The professorial Syeed dropped his polite mask, shook his fist at me, told me that I would one day “repent,” and compared my question with a Nazi inquisition.
. . . I then joined that Islamic site’s e-mail list-which contained several prominent Dallas Muslims-under my own name. Before the site operators discovered my presence and booted me off, I printed out e-mails in which participants discussed a plan to approach business and religious leaders in town and persuade them to lean on the News’s publisher to fire me as a danger to Muslims. “Dreher needs to be ruined,” one e-mailer wrote. “When people here [sic] the name ‘Rod Dreher’ the image of David Duke should appear in their mind’s eye. So, a campaign must be planned and carefully executed to expose this hate-monger and render him a joke.” Naturally, I publicized the plans and made sure that copies of the e-mails got into the hands of the newspaper’s lawyers. That apparently ended that.
James Lewis suspects that much the same may be happening across the pond:
A minor war has broken out in the conservative blogosphere, and it smells suspicious. I don’t have a smidgen of proof for what I suspect, but here’s the story.
. . . But now Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs fame, has gotten into a fight with Paul Belien [editor of Brussels Journal]. Forgetting the who-said-what-when minutiae, the question raised by Charles is whether Paul Belien is defending people who are tainted with racist or totalitarian ideas. In particular, the question is whether Paul Belien is too close to the Vlaams Belang party, which is accused of having racist or neo-Nazi associations. LGF is a very good site, and Charles Johnson is understandably passionate about keeping his reputation spotless.
So now we get into a classical hall of mirrors, of claim and counter-claim, and maybe even spy and counter-spy. Because it’s a good guess that the overheated Belgian political scene is full of mudslinging, disinformation, planted stories, and psyops.
. . . It’s a good guess that the Vlaams Belang party has been infiltrated for a long time by government agents. That adds another layer.
Belgium has long been a hotbed of secessionism. The French-speaking Belgians bear deep grudges against the Flemish, and vice versa. It’s pretty bad, much like the American South right after the Civil War.
So in Belgium today, the French-speaking population controls the power centers, while the Flamands work harder, are more productive, and have larger numbers. That doesn’t make the Flemish happy. They are constantly wondering whether to secede from the Walloons.
It is vital therefore, as a matter of survival, for the Walloons to keep the Flemish out of power. Splitting the Flemish vote is crucial, and one way to do that is to tar the most radical Flemish political party.
It is not beyond the ethics of a power elite to smear opponents with the worst political sin in sight, i.e., association with racists and neo-Nazis. . . .
So it’s not impossible that the governing elites are sending agents provocateurs into the ranks of the Flemish Interest party, to parade around in Nazi drag and make nice with White Power sleazoids in the US. . . .
Read the comments here for more details. I suspect that Lewis is right, but it’ll be quite awhile before we get to the bottom of this one.
(Updated 11/7/07, 11/17/07)
Anti-jihadist political speech is censored, but…
Incitement to riot and genocide? No problem!
Some activities are not protected under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and there are valid reasons why they are not. Nothing in the US Constitution requires the admission of a flagrantly neo-Nazi foreign national with a reputation for inciting mob violence and who openly calls for genocide. Both the US and Canada have carelessly agreed to let this “performer” in – and he is currently in the US!
Jihadist death threats? No problem!
YouTube (Google) ignores complaints and fails to take down a jihadist death-threat video. Think about it: The whole purpose of this video is de facto censorship by intimidation.
November 06, 2007
Charles Johnson has the details, but here’s the vid. Despite numerous complaints–and a story in the Daily Mail–the death threat remains on YouTube.
My hope is that it remains up only so that the British authorities can look into it. The video not only shows images of the politician, Alan Craig, who opposes the building of the mosque, but of his family as well.
On the negative side, the video is an implied death threat against the family. But on the positive side it is done to the music of Elvis. So, it’s not all bad.
Wed, Nov 7, 2007 at 7:50:26 am PST
Some European politicians are asking YouTube to crack down on the Islamic terrorist videos that are all over the site.
Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 3:32:36 pm PST
That YouTube jihadi who threatened British councillor Alan Craig has been arrested.
But his account at YouTube is still active.
A man who placed an “obituary” on YouTube of one of the leading opponents of plans to build Europe’s biggest mosque near the London Olympics site has been arrested by police.
The video, “In memory of Councillor Alan Craig”, features the Leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance party, his wife and two daughters. The two-minute video, which has now be taken down, was added by a man calling himself “abdullah1425″…
Technorati : Ayaan Hirsi Ali, EU, Iran, Islam, Nazism, Saudi Arabia, Surf Control, Websense, YouTube, anti-Semitism, blog censorship, cartoon censorship, censorship, censorware
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September 5th, 2007 — Barracuda Web Filter, Islam, Jihad Watch, Secure Computing SmartFilter, SonicWALL, The Jawa Report, The Religion of Peace, Websense, blog censorship, blogging, censorship, censorware, counterjihad, cyberwars, littlegreenfootballs
Bookmark this link for rolling updates:
Stop Blog Censorship!
Websense vs. Little Green Footballs
See: LGF: Content Filtering Against Anti-Jihad Sites (includes comments)
Please contact Merrill Lynch and tell them to unblock patdollard.com!
Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
Global Headquarters
4 World Financial Center
250 Vesey Street
New York, NY 10080
USA
212-449-1000
Merrill Lynch site feedback form
Media inquiries (which should include established bloggers)
212-449-7295
For after hours media inquiries, between 5pm and 8pm U.S. ET,
please call William Halldin on 916-781-0657.
Merrill Lynch media contact form
Board of Directors
Ford Motor Company
P.O. Box 685
Dearborn, MI 48126-0685
U.S.A.
Ford Motor Company Email Form
Ford Motor Company
Customer Relationship Center (US)
P.O. Box 6248
Dearborn, MI 48126
800-392-3673
800-232-5952 (TDD for the Hearing Impaired)
These two censorware firms are known to have blacklisted The Religion of Peace:
(Other censorware firms may be involved as well.)
Tell them to unblock The Religion of Peace, which provides a vitally important source of news!
Today’s Mail
Barracuda Web Filter is blocking Jihad Watch and Jawa Report
Just as an FYI — the filter we use at work, Barracuda Web Filter, is currently blocking both JihadWatch and Jawa Report. Why? Because Jihad Watch is currently in the “Terrorism” category and the Jawa Report is labeled as “porn.”
So far no issues with LGF, however.
Use this information to contact Barracuda Networks. Tell them to unblock:
Technorati : Barracuda Web Filter, Ford Motor, Islam, Jihad Watch, Merrill Lynch, Pat Dollard, Religion of Peace, Secure Computing SmartFilter, SonicWALL, The Jawa Report, Websense, blacklisting of antijihadists, blog swarm, blogging, censorship, censorware, cyberjihadism, cyberwars, jihadism, littlegreenfootballs
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September 4th, 2007 — Foehammer's Anvil, Jenn Sierra (author), Surf Control, Websense, blog censorship, censorship, censorware, cyberwars, littlegreenfootballs
Bookmark this link for rolling updates:
Stop Blog Censorship!
We have now received an interesting bit of information from Foehammer’s Anvil, that two of these companies are merging. See WebSense to Acquire Surfcontrol. According to the press release from WebSense, part of their interest in SurfControl is:
All of SurfControl’s solutions for Web, e-mail and endpoint security are backed by industry-leading threat detection technologies, delivered by SurfControl’s Global Threat Experts who work 24/7 to provide customers with dynamic zero-day protection. The company protects more than 16 million users in over 25,000 customers worldwide, and employs more than 600 people in offices across Europe, the Americas, and Asia/Pacific.
The acquisition is scheduled for completion on October 2nd and 3rd. LittleGreenFootballs.com, which previously had been blocked by WebSense, but had managed to get itself re-categorized earlier this year, is now receiving reports that it’s being blocked as pornography by WebSense. Is it possible that the merging of these two databases is causing the problem, or is it something else? It remains to be seen what affect the merger of these two web-filtering giants will have on freedom of access to information via the Internet in many public places.
Technorati : Foehammer s Anvil, Ft. Hard Knox, Islam, Surf Control, Websense, blacklisting of antijihadists, blog swarm, blogging, censorship, censorware, current events, cyberjihadism, cyberwars, e-jihadis, littlegreenfootballs
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September 4th, 2007 — Ft. Hard Knox, Jenn Sierra (author), Websense, blog censorship, censorship, censorware, cyberwars, littlegreenfootballs, smiley
Bookmark this link for rolling updates:
Stop Blog Censorship!
FHK reports that now, Little Green Footballs (LGF) is receiving reports that WebSense, a similar “filtering” service, may be blocking them – again.
For more on that, see the previous entry on this blog (Blog censorship update 9/3/07) and go here (also see the comments – apparently, it’s blocked as “porn.”).
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September 4th, 2007 — Atlas Shrugs, Doctor Bulldog and Ronin, Foehammer's Anvil, Gates of Vienna, Islam, Jihad Watch, Secure Computing SmartFilter, SonicWALL, Surf Control, The Jawa Report, The Religion of Peace, Websense, Winds of Jihad, blog censorship, blogging, censorship, censorware, e-jihadis
Bookmark this link for rolling updates:
Stop Blog Censorship!
Good news! Foehammer has received this reply from SonicWALL:
Dear Customer:
You submitted the following rating request to SonicWALL CFS Support: Rate atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com as “31.Web Communications” at 2007-09-01 17:25:00.257
The request has been reviewed and rated as:
“25.Political/Advocacy Groups” at 2007-09-03 03:20:13.787
You should see this rating change reflected within 1 to 3 business days.
SonicWALL CFS Support
More good news: SurfControl has reclassified Jihad Watch and Doctor Bulldog!
Stein hoist to Sounder and Gramfan for their assistance!
On the other hand…
Secure Computing SmartFilter is blocking The Religion of Peace.
Websense unfortunately requires registration to use their site lookup tool, a policy which is highly objectionable in itself. So much for accountability to the public!
So I used the Websense Email Form to write this note:
It has come to my attention that Websense is blocking the well-respected counterterrorist/antijihadist site, Little Green Footballs (http://littlegreenfootballs.com).
I have also noted that Websense requires registration in order to use the Site Lookup Tool. This is just plain wrong! It discourages public accountability by invading people’s privacy in order to get the information about whether a site they want to access may be misclassified.
Little Green Footballs has been around for a long time. Charles Johnson, who runs the site, does not post or allow to be posted any bigoted or otherwise inappropriate content. It contains nothing that would make it objectionable even for the K-12 environment. Websense should classify it accordingly.
Sites such as Little Green Footballs also contain valuable security information that everybody should know, and that are useful in the corporate, academic, nonprofit, and government environments. In fact, I believe that anybody working at a government site, including state and local governments, as well as schools, should be REQUIRED to view counterterrorist and other security-related sites on a regular basis, because protecting everyone is part of their job!
But when I clicked to send it, the Websense email form rejected it because I had entered a “public” (i.e., web-based) email address. Another barrier to accountability!
Even though I was thoroughly disgusted by that petty little ploy, I went ahead and sent the form, but I had to give a personal email address that I would much rather not have used.
“What’s next?”
- Contact Websense to request that Little Green Footballs be reclassified:
Websense Corporate Headquarters
Gene Hodges, CEO
Douglas C. Wride, President and CFO
10240 Sorrento Valley Rd
San Diego, California 92121 USA
Tel: +1 800.723.1166 or +1 858.320.8000
Fax: +1 858.458.2950
Websense Email Form
(Note: Websense does not accept the form if sender’s email address is on a web-based server, such as Yahoo. If that’s a problem, then write or call them up and complain!)
Investor relations:
Kate Patterson, VP of Investor Relations
Tel: 877-273-7379 or 858-320-8072
Fax: 858-458-2959
Email: kpatterson@websense.com
- If you are registered at LGF, please post a comment here regarding any information that you obtain.
- Use this form to contact Secure Computing SmartFilter.
- Find out whether these sites are blocked where you work, study, or use WiFi:
- If it appears that antijihadist websites are being blocked:
- Try to identify the censorware or content filtering system that is blocking your access
- Use this form to check any site’s classification at SurfControl
- Use this form to check any site’s classification at SonicWALL
- Use this form to check any site’s classification at Secure Computing SmartFilter (also WebWasher; registration required)
- Use this form (registration required) to check any site’s classification at Websense
- Two quick ways to pass this information along to us:
- Bookmark this link for rolling updates:
- Pass the above link along to others who are willing to help.
Technorati : Atlas Shrugs, Islam, Religion of Peace, Secure Computing SmartFilter, SonicWALL, Surf Control, Websense, blacklisting of antijihadists, blog swarm, blogging, censorship, censorware, current events, cyberjihadism, cyberwars, e-jihadis
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