If you surf the internet in Cuba, you can be pretty sure a government spy is watching you.

Private internet connections are banned, forcing most people into internet cafes where software monitors their every click, according to a report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on 19 October. Cafe users must also hand over their name and address.

While few websites are blocked outright, if a user types in a potentially subversive word, the name of a known dissident, say, a pop-up appears saying the document has been blocked for "state security reasons", and the application shuts down. "The authorities control the web not through censorship but by limiting the number of people accessing it and by spying on communications," says Julien Pain of the RSF.