Threats to the Open Net: July 22, 2011

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*Iran has banned the rapidly growing social network site Google+. This marks the Iranian government's latest move towards stricter control of online content; in the past month, the country has upgraded its filtration system and called for the creation of a 'halal' intranet.

*Researchers at the University of Michigan released a proof of concept for a new circumvention tool called Telex. This tool would use hardware on routers outside of the repressive countries to reroute traffic from innocuous, secured sites that are accessible to banned sites. If implemented, it would mark a major advancement in circumvention technology for users looking to access banned content in repressive regimes.

*Indonesian IT and Communications minister, Tifatul Sembiring, recently revived calls for increased control over social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook that could "destabilize the government." Sembiring later used Twitter to state that the media had misquoted him and that he meant to emphasize adult supervision of youth Internet browsing to avoid access of pornographic material and use of indecent language.