Herdict users report their Web site problems anonymously -- numeric Internet addresses are recorded but only general location is displayed -- so people can post more freely, encouraging reports about sensitive topics like HIV and AIDS-related sites, and from people in countries with possible government repercussions.
The site doesn't investigate reports, though, so there's no way to know for sure that an outage is related to government meddling rather than a cut cable or other problem unrelated to censorship. Although surges in reports do suggest a government role, a widespread technical glitch can also produce a similar spike.
Web site inaccessibility can also result from network or server errors, firewalls at schools or offices or a new phenomenon called "reverse filtering," in which companies block access to copyright-protected material outside a specific country.
Zittrain, law professor and cofounder of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said Herdict does not aim to present a flawless picture of online filtering, but to let patterns of accessibility speak for themselves.
"The goal ... is to gather the kind of raw data from which people can then start to gain insight and come to conclusions," he said. "With enough people asking, you start to get a sense of where there are blockages in the network."
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