Kiran Jonnalagadda ([info]jace) wrote,
2006-07-17 12:10:00
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Censorship: here we go again

They’re at it again. A gag order was passed over the weekend. Most (all?) of BlogSpot is off the map for users of several ISPs in India, as is TypePad. I’m keeping track of what I can. Shivam Vij’s busy ferreting out the list of sites being blocked and source of the order.

Yawn! Time for some action, folks.

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  • 35 comments

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[info]jace

July 17 2006, 07:14:55 UTC 5 years ago

They try again, they'll come out looking like losers again. At least they back down after bad publicity in India.

[info]deponti

July 17 2006, 07:00:48 UTC 5 years ago

I didn't know they did this in India!!

[info]jace

July 17 2006, 07:09:46 UTC 5 years ago

It's not the first time.

Last time, they ordered blocking the yahoo group of some eastern state extremists who had 5 messages or so, and the ISPs blocked all of yahoo groups. Ironically, the group's page itself (Kyn Hun?) was accessible via Google's cache.

They'll come out of this looking extremely stupid once again. This time we have a larger population online.

[info]tushar

July 17 2006, 07:26:43 UTC 5 years ago

Is this still a problem? I'm on a VSNL leased link, and I can access blogspot fine. Will check from cellphone too.

[info]patrodz

July 17 2006, 07:28:15 UTC 5 years ago

Same here.

[info]jace

5 years ago

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[info]fatmuttony

5 years ago

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[info]madhav

5 years ago

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[info]fatmuttony

5 years ago

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[info]fatmuttony

5 years ago

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[info]patrodz

July 17 2006, 07:27:58 UTC 5 years ago

Looks like its up and running now. Been able to get through a couple of Blogspot blogs.

[info]cyberscorpion

July 17 2006, 08:56:32 UTC 5 years ago

I cant access blogspot from Office.. I'm on TouchtelIndia.. tats was tracert says....

[info]fatmuttony

July 17 2006, 12:17:30 UTC 5 years ago

Hey, I linked to your seacrow post. Hope that's ok.

[info]cashewfeni

July 17 2006, 15:00:13 UTC 5 years ago

yep since today around 16:30 blogspot is off BSNL too. this is outrageous...

[info]tsk1979

July 17 2006, 15:11:58 UTC 5 years ago

Last time this thing happened, I used ssh tunnel to circumvent that. I guess these monkeys dont reaslize that a real terrorist can always use encrption and tunneling to communicate, but such blocks will harm only ordinary people, no terrorists etc.,

[info]umang

July 17 2006, 16:58:00 UTC 5 years ago

True. I can just route all my http traffic through any public proxy server and access all the blogspot/geocities/typepad sites.

(came here through [info]amoghavarsha's post)

[info]ilunatech

July 17 2006, 18:48:24 UTC 5 years ago

ssh -D 1020 user@example.com

:-)

[info]jace

July 17 2006, 18:56:53 UTC 5 years ago

Yeah, I know that's clever, but the trick is to ensure every Internet user in India knows how to do this. Only when we can send a clear message that censorship is a pointless effort will the government stop wasting our time.

[info]latelyontime

5 years ago

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[info]latelyontime

July 17 2006, 19:03:29 UTC 5 years ago

the researcher in me just went Oh, Joy! :)

[info]jace

July 18 2006, 08:18:52 UTC 5 years ago

The BloggersCollective group is going nuts. 300+ messages in a day.

[info]latelyontime

5 years ago

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[info]jace

5 years ago

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[info]achitnis

July 18 2006, 04:48:49 UTC 5 years ago

I recommend a visit to http://torpark.nfshost.com/ for uninterrupted browsing if your "internet is broken". If you want to read about it first, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpark is your friend.

[info]jace

July 18 2006, 08:17:40 UTC 5 years ago

Torpark only has a Windows edition. Testing it now.

[info]achitnis

5 years ago

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[info]jd_knight

July 18 2006, 11:50:12 UTC 5 years ago

Tried it. Worked fine for me :) Thanks

[info]coreid

5 years ago

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Anonymous

July 18 2006, 12:04:40 UTC 5 years ago

Greasemonkey Script

For Firefox users, try the script linked to at the bottom of the post:

http://www.pkblogs.com/doesthisthat/2006/07/1984.html

or

http://doesthisthat.blogspot.com/2006/07/1984.html

[info]appaji

July 18 2006, 14:33:19 UTC 5 years ago

Censorship?

I don't think this is a plot to curb free-speech etc. it is just some people who don't understand how the net works and a few incompetent asses at ISPs.

[info]jace

July 18 2006, 16:23:55 UTC 5 years ago

Re: Censorship?

Aren't you concerned that the government chooses to gag anyone they want, without having to be accountable for it?

[info]appaji

5 years ago

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[info]tushar

July 19 2006, 10:16:00 UTC 5 years ago

I suspect that a major chunk of the government machinery -- those that would have any stake in this matter -- simply don't know that this cannot be done, or why. I'm able to browse the net at large through Tor, but after this blinkered stupidity, I wouldn't be surprised if Tor users were suspect, or visitors to the mumbaihelp blog.

Conspiracy theory apart, I just saw an updated post on boingboing listing some of the websites that have been blocked. The names smell like xenophobic bullshit, and as we well know, that particular flavour of bullshit flows free and fast on the net. The censorship action is probably just bad execution, like VSNL was known for before they learned about shadowing passwords.

[info]jace

July 19 2006, 10:19:56 UTC 5 years ago

I'm still trying to get my hands on the actual letters that were sent out. Everyone's got a different list and different count of how many websites were ordered silenced.

Getting them unblocked isn't the end of the deal. We have to press for ensuring this doesn't happen again. I, frankly, have no idea how that will be achieved.

[info]coreid

July 24 2006, 04:53:20 UTC 5 years ago

Thanks for keeping track of this event, your page is very useful for folks like me who need to catch up.
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