Dear Fouad and Friends,
The practice of manual URL blocking is already in place. This practice was adopted by the PTA and industry after facebook and youtube were completely blacked out in order to block blasphemous contents on the orders of superior courts. That created an fiasco in the country amid hue and cry from Internet users.
Currently, PTA keeps ordering ISPs to block certain URLs containing blasphemous, sacrilegious and anti-Pakistan contents from time to time. These instructions come to PTA from an Inter-Ministerial Committee of Government. ISPs, being a licensee of PTA, are bound to follow these instructions. This blocking is implemented at Internet gateways with PTCL and TWA and also with ISPs.
Superior courts have ordered PTA many times to block the pornographic web sites in Pakistan while deciding public interest petitions filed by Pakistani citizens and organizations from time to time. PTA wanted the ISPs to implement these orders but industry couldn't do so because there are millions of such sites over the Internet and manually it's not possible to block these sites. Few months back, PTA sent a list of around 170,000 pornographic sites to ISPs asking to block them at the gateway routers but the industry could not implement this impractical order. The list was then reduced to 1,000 sites which was implemented by the industry.
For last year or so, PTA wanted ISPs and the Internet backbone service providers, i.e., PTCL and TWA to install an automated URL filtering and blocking system. The operators stance was that since they were operating on already thin margins, it wasn't possible for them to invest millions of dollars in implementing a new system. The operators were of the view that since they were already contributing huge amounts to USF, ICT R&D Fund and PTA license fees besides paying taxes, the project should be financed from one of these funds.
Series of consultations were held at PTA with the ISPs and it was decided that such a system should be locally developed within Pakistan so that it won't have any foreign dependency. The system would be implemented at Internet gateways with PTCL and TWA and its operations and management would be with the operators. The consultations concluded that development of such system in Pakistan could also save huge amount as of the shelf systems of this capability are quite expensive.
It was therefore decided that ICT R&D Fund would be requested to provide funding for this project. Local development of this system would also strengthen the indigenous capability and talent of the software/hardware industry.
The ICT R&D Fund was requested to finance this activity and the proposal was approved by the Board of Directors of ICT R&D Fund. I happen to be one of the Board Members of Fund as representative of Broadband Operators.
With this background, an RFP was prepared jointly by PTA and industry and advertised in the press. Leading universities, research organizations and private sector companies have shown interest to submit their proposals in response to the RFP. The proposals would be evaluated purely in merit and contract, in a transparent manner, would be awarded to a suitable organization have relevant expertise and capabilities to design and develop such a system.
The RFP is backed by PTA and all broadband operators. ICT R&D Fund is only providing funding for this project as indigenous research and development in information and communication technologies (ICT) falls squarely within the domain of the Fund.
The RFP was posted on Pakgrid couple of weeks back by the ICT R&D Fund itself.
IMHO, there's nothing wrong with the concept. The system wouldn't compromise the performance of the Internet. It's not a new censorship as such. The money is not being spent on buying an imported system either. It's to provide an automated and state of the art system for something that's already being done manually and in rudimentary manner that also compromises the performance of Internet at times. Brief background of the RFP is also enclosed.
Kind regards.
Wahaj us Siraj
Convener, ISPAK
Background
Internet access in Pakistan is mostly unrestricted and unfiltered. The Internet traffic is coming from two IP backbone providers, i.e., PTCL and TWA. The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and backbone providers have currently deployed manual URL filtering and blocking mechanism in order to block the specific URLs containing anti Islamic and anti Pakistan content as notified by PTA from time to time.
With the proliferation of Internet and broadband in the country, pornography has become a social menace. Free, unrestricted and easy availability of millions of web sites with pornographic content is playing havoc with country's social fabric, particularly harming young children.
Many countries have deployed web filtering and blocking systems at the Internet backbones within their countries. ISPs and backbone providers have expressed their inability to block millions of pornographic web sites using current manual blocking systems. A national URL filtering and blocking system is therefore required to be deployed at national IP backbone of the country.
ICT R&D Fund has decided to fund the indigenous development, deployment, operations and maintenance of such a system by Pakistani companies, vendors, academia and/or research organizations with proven track record.
This system would be indigenously developed within Pakistan and deployed at IP backbones in major cities, i.e., Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Any other city/POP could be added in future. The system is proposed to be centrally managed by a small and efficient team stationed at POPs of backbone providers.
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From: pakgrid@yahoogroups.com [mailto:pakgrid@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Shiraz Bashir
Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2012 5:46 AM
To: pakgrid@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [pakgrid] A very happy Censorship and Block to 50 million URLs - National URL Filtering and Blocking System
National ICT R&D Fund management is on this group.
We would like to hear what is the most pressing strategic reason to fund this project ?
Let people speak..
Let their peers judge them based on the strength of their arguments or politely tell them that yar koe aqal kee baat kar.
Society settles down based on the interest of the group. Like no one in this group will share any explicit material!
Do we really need Govt to tell us how to behave ?
I hope that sanity will prevail and this funding will be canceled promptly.
@ Fouad Sahib
Thanks much for sharing this very important news.
thanks
-Shiraz
On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 6:03 AM, Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa@gmail.com> wrote:
This may interest many of you to understand how FoE and an open
Internet is being captured in Pakistan. Feel free to be censored and
blocked soon.
http://ictrdf.org.pk/RFP-%20URL%20Filtering%20&%20Blocking.pdf
This is what happens when corruption and only monetary interests drive
business and industry. Imagine the companies that will be contributing
to this process, will they be working in the interest or against the
interest of the nation?
--
Regards.
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Fouad
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