Blogs Blocked - Indian Isps Block Blogspot, Typead & Geocities Blogs !

[Arun 795]

India blocks Blogger, TypeAd and Geocities blogs

- MoneyControl.com / Rediff.com

Tuesday July 18th 2006, 12:08 am

The Indian Government has issued an order to all Indian ISPs for a ban on various blogging sites. While no official release has been made on this front, the reasons being attributed to this ban range from it being a preventive measure to stop sleeper terrorist cells from accessing instructions contained in blogs, to a new measure to try and control the spread of information through blogs. The order was issued by Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The known list of blocked domains is *.blogspot.com, *.typepad.com and geocities.com/*.

It leads me to wonder if this is a case of ISPs overreacting, which would not be the first. Three years ago, they had rather zealously blocked groups.yahoo.com in a similar manner when all they wanted to actually do was to block a particular group. As of now most of the large ISPs have already complied with the DoT order and a large population of Indian bloggers has been cut off from their own blogs.

Bloggers in India are getting together to protest against the sudden blocking of popular Google-owned blog-hosting site Blogger by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Spectranet, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), Reliance Powersurfer, Airtel Broadband and Sify.

On July 15, Mridula Dwivedi, a teacher of management studies in Gurgaon first discovered that visiting any blogspot blog -- such as, say Mumbai Help -- returned the message, 'Site Blocked!' Her ISP, Spectranet, confirmed they had blocked some sites based on government directives.

J Grewal, Spectranet's Delhi representative at the National Internet exchange of India, told this reporter that, on July 15, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sent ISPs a list of sites to be blocked. R H Sharma, senior engineer with MTNL, said the list ran into some 22 pages.

Now, several bloggers have organised themselves into a Bloggers' Collective and are planning to file a Right To Information application to obtain the list.

Anil Saxena of Spectranet confirmed that the list sent by the DoT contained names of particular blogs, but added that Blogspot as a whole had not been blocked. This is contrary to the experience of customers like Dwivedi, who are still unable to view sites hosted on Blogspot, in addition to those on Typepad and Yahoo!'s Geocities. "The list is confidential and I can't make it public," said Saxena.

Under the Information Technology Act, 2000, a body called the Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT-IN, was created along the lines of similar authorities the world over. Although its main task is in the domain of Internet security, it also oversees Internet censorship under a clause that seeks to ensure 'balanced flow of information.' Any government department seeking a block on any web site has to approach CERT-IN, which then instructs the DoT to block the site after confirming the authenticity of the complaint.

Web sites can be blocked if they contain pornography, speeches of hate, contempt, slander or defamation, or if they promote gambling, racism, violence or terrorism.

"Such sites may be blocked within the provisions of the Fundamental Right to free speech and expression, granted in India's Constitution," said cyber-law expert Praveen Dalal, adding, "If, however, the blocking is arbitrary, unreasonable and unfair, it would be in violation of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India."

The trouble is bloggers don't even know which sites the DoT wants blocked. To make matters worse, ISPs seem to be blocking entire domains on which these blogs are hosted.

In 2003, one of the first things CERT-IN did was to approve the blocking of an obscure mailing list run by a banned militant outfit, the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) of the Khasi tribe in Meghalaya. Ironically, the popularity and visibility of the list went up by leaps and bounds, despite it being blocked by all ISPs. Many could still see the list via email or proxy surfing.

This time, something similar seems to have happened, to not one but three domains. However, CERT-IN's Director, Dr Gulshan Rai, said he was unaware of the problem and would not be able to respond "off-hand". In a telephone interview, he told this reporter, "Somebody must have blocked some sites. What is your problem?"

Bloggers certainly think of it as a problem though, and are all set to react.

Click here for a list of ISP's who are blocking the domains and more details about them. Please add yours too if your ISP blocks too and not listed there.

I'm on TATA Indicom broadband and it seems blogspot blogs are blocked (getting timed out) for me now. Hope they won't start blocking forums next. Reminds me of the yahoo groups block earlier !

[vmsanghrajka 0]

Its really wierd..I think govt. is bankrupt on ideas n hence followin this suite.. it should b strongly protested.. Anyways these things wont do any harm to terrorist (or evil forces)..it ll only b problematic for ppl in general..

congress govt.. BAD!

Edited July 17, 2006 by vmsanghrajka

[amitstg 0]

all my blogs at blogspot are blocked, i am not able to open them, but if i use some proxy IP (like anonymouse.org) i am able to see that.

[abhay 0]

yup most bolgs i visit are blocked

but i think its a good move in a way @least govt is realizing the power of Internet!!

but i think it should be a big no no to forums because they are generally moderated!!

[ashoksoft 83]

Or host ur own blogs on ur site

thatz the suggestive alternative ! :@!

hehe ... where theres a will theres a way !! so if the govt. blocks the sites, we always have proxy's... if they try anything funkier - we get the funkiest ???

what are they gonna do? block the proxy servers ??? Block a redirection page ???? nice dreams!

[adwait 0]

I can access blogger on MTNL......wierd

[rEdshiFt 1]

i had problems too.. in the morning from the hospital lan.seemed to work a while later.

Now (b)logging in correctly from home.

strange s*it

[Arun 795]

looks as though the government did officially order to the ISPs for blocking certain websites in the wake of the terrorist attack in Mumbai.

DoT asks Indian ISPs to block 20 websites & blogs, post-Mumbai blasts

Press Trust of India

New Delhi, July 18:

In the wake of reported shooting up of terror and hate messages on the internet following the deadly Mumbai serial blasts, the Telecom Department has directed all the 150 operational Internet Service Providers to block 18 websites.

The 20 websites, according to the Government, could be used by terror groups to communicate and spread provocative messages.

'sex.in', ‘bloodspot.com’, ‘dalitstan.org’, ‘hinduhumanrights.org’, ‘hinduunity.org’ and ‘clickatell.com’ figure among the other blocked sites. It is not immediately clear till what time period this blockade will be in force.

Although DoT and Department of Information Technology officials declined to comment on the issue in, which DoT issued notices to ISPs, Deepak Maheshwari, secretary, Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said the Association has received the instructions from the Government.

"The instructions have been received from the Government and the sites have been blocked accordingly", Maheshwari said.

Meanwhile the software industry has flayed the decision to block the sites.

"The Centre's decision to block some blogs and websites in the wake of last week's serial blasts in Mumbai was "neither desirable nor feasible," NASSCOM President Kiran Karnik said in Chennai today.

"The Internet should be a free media. Any attempts to block out some websites is not desirable. "If you stop the media, rumours float very fast and it is not desirable," he said.

Meanwhile, soon after bloggers came to know that the government had jammed some blog sites, signs of protests were seen as large-scale discussions started on the Internet.

'The government cannot curb freedom of expression of the people and jamming of blog sites would lead to protests by the bloggers. We are discussing the future course of action,' said Kajal Basu, a web journalist.

He added that a lot of bloggers are also hackers and they might try to hack into government websites as a way of protest.

He said there are several websites which the bloggers could use to access the blogs and 'hardcore' bloggers would use these websites to continue blogging.

'Most of the websites that have been jammed are harmless blog sites and the information posted on these sites are open for public viewing,' Basu told IANS.

He added that all these blog sites were accessible outside India and only Indians were unable to access these sites.

[solanky 0]

I have checked today and my blog on wordpress is also blocked. This is a very bad either I say foolish decision and it should be protested strongly.

[linuxguy 0]

hehe. you guys noticed it now? This has been going on since the past week! But its pretty simple to get around this

[Arun 795]

Yeah, there are a lot of other means to access them, proxies (like pkblogs.com). If the motive of the government was to prevent terrorists from using the blogs/websites, then its a dumb decision as terrorists would certainly find a way out using these proxies (thats extra protection for them since they can't be traced through proxies !). Instead, other normal bloggers/publishers are being punished by blocking traffic to their blog sites !

[KingofKalyan 0]

Im glad to know that our govt is aware of blogging stuff !!

Good Job babus and pandus... Im proud of u fellows !

[cracker 0]

but i am able to open it on both rconnect and airtel gprs?? how?

[Arun 795]

hmmm, interesting that R-Connect and AirTel GPRS have not blocked it yet !

And when it rains, it pours...

Ban `illegal' voice calls: ISPAI

Messenger-based telephony services offered by Skype, Yahoo, MSN under the scanner

The Hindu Business Lince

New Delhi , July 18 2006

After hauling up ISPs for enabling allegedly illegal long-distance calls, the Department of Telecom (DoT) now plans to bring messenger-based telephony services such as those offered by Skype, Yahoo, MSN, and Net2Phone, under the scanner.

The Indian ISPs have themselves urged the Government to ban these services or ask them to obtain appropriate licence.

The move is a fallout of the Government's decision to make Internet telephony services part of the long-distance licence with entry and licence fees.

Prior to January 2006, ISPs were offering Internet telephony at no cost but now the Government has asked them to pay a fee to offer the service even as messenger-based telephony services such as Skype offer voice calls without any licence from India.

In a letter to the DoT, the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said: "Internet telephony services can be offered in India either by an ISP specifically permitted to do so or by a unified access service licensee. However, several service providers such as Skype, Net2Phone, Yahoo, and MSN, are providing Internet telephony services to people in India. Most of these foreign service providers do offer termination in Indian fixed-line telephones as well."

The letter, sent on July 13, also said that these service providers do not possess the requisite licence as mandated by the Government of India, thus vitiating the level playing field for bona fide licensees, such as Indian ISPs.

"Moreover, such service offering is resulting in loss of revenue to the Government by way of licence fee as well as by way of service tax," said the letter.

Senior DoT officials said that they were looking into the issue and would take a view soon.

"We are aware of the issues involved. The Government will take appropriate steps, taking into consideration the security concerns as well as the interest of the consumers," said a DoT official. A larger number of Internet users take advantage of the messenger-based telephony services, which offer international long-distance calls at local call charges.

The Indian ISPs have pointed to a recent ban imposed on Skype by the South Korean Government for offering voice service without a licence.

The ISPs also said that the service could prove to be a threat to national security with no monitoring being done.

The DoT had earlier put on hold applications of at least 18 Indian ISPs seeking licence for Internet telephony for allegedly being unable to crack down on grey market operators who were using their network.

The Government has been plugging security loopholes in the telecom sector, including the mobile segment and the Internet.

[KingofKalyan 0]

F*** O** With Govt..

[linuxguy 0]

this government is nothing but a nuisance. it must go. :/

[Arun 795]

well, the Government says its not their fault, but the ISP's inefficiency !

Govt blames ISPs, bloggers protest

Hindustan Times

New Delhi, July 18 2006

The latest attempt by the department of telecom to block access to 17 websites on grounds of national security has gone spectacularly wrong.

First, it has ended up blocking not 17 but thousands of sites or weblogs (or blogs) hosted by popular hosting services like Google's Blogspot and Yahoo's Geocities. Second, the ban has been effected in a manner that can be skirted with ease. So anyone who wants to access them can still do so. Also, some bloggers in Delhi and Mumbai are now planning to invoke the Right to Information Act to clear some of the haze that the matter is behind right now. For their part, the government officials responsible for implementing the order are washing their hands off the brouhaha the action has caused.

Dr Gulshan Rai, director of the Computer Emergency Response Team, the apex organisation under the IT Ministry responsible for the nation's cyber-security, told HT: "There's no attempt to block www.blogspot.com from our side. The order issued by the DoT has four blogs hosted on Blogspot.com. The order didn't ask the whole site to be banned."

Then why isn't any Blogspot site opening on most computers? The answer lies in the way our internet service providers -- like Tata, Airtel, Sify and Reliance -- have implemented the order.

"Indian ISPs don't have the technology to block individual name servers -- say a particular blog hosted on Blogspot. So they had no choice but to block the root servers of major blogging networks -- blogspot, geocities and typepad," said a senior official in the IT Ministry. A senior official from an ISP confirmed this.

Sarbajit Roy, a cyber-law expert, said: "This block is a mindless exercise and shows that our bureaucrats don't understand technology at all."

[Nirvana 4]

well... the government's reasoning is the fault here. As far as terrorists using blogs to exchange messages goes, it doesn't make much sense. Surely, they can find better safer ways, like some of you said. Besides, if they do want to exchange messages on a blog, they can still continue doing that very easily. Perhaps asking www.blogger.com to shut themselves down would have been wiser.

I'm not asking them to do this, but if their logic was to stop terrorists (that too internet savvy terrorists!) from using the internet to exhange messages and hatred, then they should be banning the whole internet, which makes more sense, in my opinion

Even more foolish is the Indian ISP community. They get instructed to block two or three blogs. And they block all of blogspot.com !

[Arun 795]

Ah, atlast they are back on their senses...

Blog blockade will be lifted in 48 hours

- Rediff.com

July 19, 2006 22:13 IST

The blocking of blogs hosted by sites such as Blogspot, Typepad and Yahoo! Geocities by Internet Service Providers is likely to be lifted within 48 hours.

At least that is what Amitabh Singhal, a spokesperson of the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) told this correspondent on Wednesday.

Singhal said representatives of various ISPs met on Wednesday to discuss the issue after the media took it up earlier this week. He acknowledged that some ISPs -- he insisted it wasn't all -- mistook the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) notice and blocked entire blog domains, adding that it was technically feasible to block a sub-domain and leave others still accessible.

If, for instance, DoT wanted a certain blog -- say shivam.blogspot.com --blocked, it was feasible to just block that URL, without restricting access to other blogs with the blogspot.com extension.

"An advisory is being sent from ISPAI to member ISPs saying they should configure their Domain Name Servers (DNS) in such a way that they block only the sub-domains DoT wants blocked," said Singhal, adding, "It would help if, in future, DoT could also mention the mechanism by which sites should be blocked."

The advisory is a result of a meeting held on Wednesday between executive members of ISPAI, representatives of DoT and the Department of Information Technology. "We expect the problem to be resolved within 48 hours," said Singhal.

As news of the blockade spread to the national and international media, Indian bloggers -- organised under the Bloggers Against Censorship banner -- continued to devise a strategy to counter it. Some have filed Right to Information applications, while others are considering a Public Interest Litigation. They say they are against any kind of censorship, even that of non-blog Web sites such as HinduUnity.org

Interestingly, the Indian consulate in New York has also sought to explain the ban. According to e-mail sent by A R Ghanashyam, deputy consul general, to a representative of the South Asian Journalists Association, a write up containing derogatory references to Islam and had the potential to inflame religious sensitivities, had appeared on a blog.

DoT took up the matter but, because of a technological error, ISPs went beyond what was expected of them, resulting in 'the unfortunate blocking of all blogs.'

HinduUnity.org and HinduHumanRights.org are among 17 sites sought to be blocked, on the grounds that they are spreading Hindu nationalist propaganda. Accessed through an anonymizer, HinduUnity.org was found to have articles against Congress party President Sonia Gandhi and Indian Muslims. It also had a 'hit list' of people it considered anti-Hindu.

Another site on the list is Rahulyadav.com, set up by a US-based person who calls himself a member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Dalitstan.org, on the other hand, calls itself a 'human rights organisation working for the upliftment of Dalits.'

None of the sites seem to possess any direct security threat to India, or have any connection with the recent Mumbai blasts. Even more bizarre are the blogs sought to be blocked. 'Princess Kimberley' is a defunct blog with just two postings in 2004 about an American teenager's depressing life. 'Commonfolk Commonsense' is a Chinese language blog, while 'Exposing the Left' is written by someone in Southern Illinois!

DoT has not explained why these sites need to be restricted from viewing by Indians. Amitabh Singhal said the ISPs were not in favour of Internet censorship, but were bound by terms and conditions of the license granted to them by the government.

LIST OF 17 BLOCKED SITES

1. www .hinduunity.org

2. mypetjawa.mu.nu

3. pajamaeditors.blogspot.com

4. exposingtheleft.blogspot.com

5. thepiratescove.us

6. commonfolkcommonsense.blogspo t.com

7. bamapachyderm.com

8. princesskimberley.blogspot.com

9. merrimusings.typepad.com

10. mackers-world.com

11. www.dalistan.org

12. www .hinduhumanrights.org/hindufocus.html

13. www .nndh.com

14. bloodroyaltriped.com

15. imagesearchyahoo.com

16. www .imamali8.com

17. www .rahulyadav.com

[KingofKalyan 0]

Following Government orders Internet Service Providers have blocked some websites. This has enraged the Internet community, which feels this amounts to putting a gag on freedom of expression. If you feel strongly against the decision, join this signature campaign.

http://clients.ibnlive.com/features/blogger/index.php

Edited July 20, 2006 by KingofKalyan