In recent years, government censorship by means of restricting internet connectivity has become more frequent. In places where the telecommunications infrastructure is state-owned, disrupting internet access is trivial. A common way to do so is by withdrawing BGP route advertisements from a nation's edge routers. This tactic has been observed in multiple countries including Syria, Egypt, and Libya. In this talk, I'll demonstrate how BGP data from the Route Views Project can be reliably used to detect government censorship of the internet. I will also be releasing a tool which allows people to easily calculate and record global BGP changes using Route Views' data. The tool compares BGP data for user-specified Autonomous Systems in two-hour intervals, and records the changes in a variety of formats. Attendees will learn how to perform BGP monitoring for censorship detection and other research efforts on the countries of their choice with a spare machine or cheap VPS.

As a Senior Security Analyst at Bishop Fox (formerly Stach & Liu), Zach Julian focuses on Web application and enterprise security. He specializes in consulting with businesses of all sizes to develop both technical and policy solutions. He has a strong interest in the relationship between technology and civil liberties.

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