Techdirt. Stories filed under "blocks"

AT&T Continues To Mock The Concept Of Net Neutrality; This Time With Google Hangouts Block

Mike Masnick — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:52:53 PDT

The big telcos (AT&T and Verizon) have been trying to move more and more to wireless networks over wired networks, in large part because they've realized that, for whatever reason, the FCC more or less gave them pretty free rein to completely ignore net neutrality concepts on their wireless networks. So it really shouldn't come as much of a surprise to see that AT&T has responded to the latest Google Hangouts app, which replaces the standard Google Talk app, by blocking video while on a cellular connection on Android phones (oddly, it works on iPhones). As you may recall, AT&T actually got into trouble for doing the same thing with FaceTime on the iPhone. AT&T's statement about this, as given to The Verge, parses its words very carefully, as if they think everyone is a complete moron:

All AT&T Mobility customers can use any video chat app over cellular that is not pre-loaded on their device, but which they download from the Internet. For video chat apps that come pre-loaded on devices, we offer all OS and device makers the ability for those apps to work over cellular for our customers who are on Mobile Share, Tiered and soon Unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices. It's up to each OS and device makers to enable their systems to allow pre-loaded video chat apps to work over cellular for our customers on those plans.

The whole focus on "pre-loaded" apps was how AT&T tried to tap dance around net neutrality questions last year with FaceTime. And it's completely made up and bogus.

Basically, they're saying if you want to do video, you have to ask permission. That's a broken system. It goes against what makes the internet good and useful: the fact that you can innovate without permission. A mobile carrier -- one who may see video chat apps as competition, for example -- being able to act as a gatekeeper to block the usefulness of such apps is a dangerous situation for those who believe in promoting innovation. We shouldn't stand for an internet where one company gets to pick what you're allowed to do.

And, just to cut this off before anyone brings up a really silly argument to defend AT&T: yes, bandwidth on mobile broadband networks is somewhat more limited (though not as limited as they would have you believe). But, these networks, for the most part, have all done away with unlimited accounts anyway. So if people use up all their broadband quota on video calls, that should be their own decision. AT&T has already made pricing decisions that limit bandwidth to consumers, so further limiting their choice in apps makes no sense on top of that.

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UK Recording Industry Looks To Censor More Sites With No Trial Or Conviction

Mike Masnick — Thu, 16 May 2013 07:38:00 PDT

Once the UK recording industry realized that UK courts would order ISPs to block websites it didn't like, it appears that the industry, led by BPI and PPL began putting together a list of over two dozen sites that they're asking to have blocked by all UK ISPs, even though many of the sites on the list have never been tried in a court of law or convicted of copyright infringement. Included on the list, for example, is Grooveshark, who has been sued, but has not yet been found to violate copyright laws. It may very well be true that there is infringement on many, if not all of those sites. But, generally speaking, there's this thing called due process that allows a site to defend itself before being censored from an entire country. Just because a site has some infringing content does not mean that the entire site should be blocked -- or you'd have absolutely no user generated content sites online, because the liability would be too high. The UK courts started down this slippery slope by allowing sites to be blocked, and now the record labels are just going to keep piling the list higher and higher.

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UK Lets The Recording Industry Decide What Websites To Censor

Mike Masnick — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:05:40 PST

Having already kicked down the internet censorship door by ordering that ISPs block access to The Pirate Bay, the UK's High Court has expanded the list of sites to block based on complaints from BPI about which sites it believes are responsible for piracy. And, so, just like that, those in the UK will find Kickass Torrents, H33T and Fenopy blocked. I don't know anything about these three sites. So, for all I know, they could be horrible, horrible actors in all of this, but even so, having a court order them completely blocked from access based on statements from BPI -- a commercial party who clearly would have a bias against upstart, disruptive competitors -- seems crazy. Again, take a look at the history of the entertainment industry attacking every single new type of distribution technology. And now the UK High Court is allowing them to do this to the level of flat out censoring sites.

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Pakistan Briefly Raises Youtube Banhammer; Reinstates It Three Minutes Later

Tim Cushing — Wed, 2 Jan 2013 20:04:38 PST

Pakistan's love/hate relationship with the internet seems to be mostly "hate" these days. Over the past couple of years, the Pakistani government has done as much as it can to cripple local access to the web, including seeking a nationwide web filtering system that would block off access to 50 million websites.

More recently, it joined a variety of nations which imposed a Youtube ban (or at least complained loudly and violently) because of Google's refusal to block or remove the "Innocence of the Muslims" video. Reacting to violent protests, Pakistan cut off Youtube, much to the dismay of its estimated 25 million internet users.

After the protests switched from decrying the offending video to decrying the offending censorious government, Pakistan decided to lift the ban... only to put it back in less time than it takes to sing [insert viral pop tune title here]:

A ban on YouTube, which Pakistan imposed after an anti-Islam video caused riots in much of the Muslim world, was lifted Saturday, only to be reinstated — after three minutes — when it was discovered that blasphemous material was still available on the site.

Much to the censor's dismay, the offending video remained just where the uploader had left it. The government stated it had "taken steps" to block offending content, but somehow the very thing that had prompted the shutdown had eluded the blockade, putting Muhammed directly in the path of badly-dubbed criticism.

This three-minute unbanning prompted another round of government-aimed criticism, this time with a bit more of a sarcastic edge, as a Pakistani journalist compared interior minister Rehman Malik to a kid playing with the light switch and pointed out that the same government that couldn't handle a website wants to be entrusted with stopping terrorism.

Unfortunately, part of the collateral damage of the Youtube ban is one of Pakistan's own -- Mohammed Shahid Nazir, a fishmonger whose song "One Pound Fish" has gone viral on the video service, racking up over eight million views.

The Nation’s report gave a sense of how famous Mr. Nazir managed to become, despite the ban on the video-sharing site in his home country: “Around 250 people, including local politicians met him at the airport, showering him with rose petals and chanting ‘Long Live One Pound Fish!’ while TV networks interrupted coverage of the fifth anniversary of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination to show his return live.”

Of course, that's the danger of blocking or taking down content viewed as dangerous, blasphemous, heretical or just plain infringing -- very often, legitimate, non-dangerous, non-offensive content gets caught in the sticky webs of overreaching entities.

I suppose the government has to be grateful that this past weekend's up-and-down action managed to leave the rest of the internet intact. It has to be tough living down a surreptitious Youtube blockade that manages to kill your own country's internet service while blocking the Youtube connection of a handful of unrelated (except by ISP) countries.

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European Court Of Human Rights Reinforces Right To Access Online Content

Glyn Moody — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 03:42:56 PST

Back in 2010, Techdirt reported on Turkey's habit of blocking Google over certain holdings on its various sites. Mostly these were YouTube videos it took exception to, but other services were banned too. An earlier case, from 2009, received less attention at the time, but has now led to a precedent-setting ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that could have a big impact on future cases in Europe, and maybe even beyond.

The case was brought by a Turkish PhD student named Ahmet Yildirim, who complained that he had faced "collateral censorship" when his Web pages hosted on Google Site were shut down by the authorities in 2009 as a result of a court action aimed at another set of pages held there. Open Society Foundations, which had filed a brief with the European Court of Human Rights in support of the applicant's claim, explains the background:

Yildirim's academically-focused site was blocked by the Turkish regulator, TiM, as a result of a court injunction that ordered it to close down local access to the entire Google Sites domain. The move was supposedly aimed at a single website hosted by Google which included content deemed offensive to the memory of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, in breach of Turkish law.

Yildirim's appeals against the injunction were turned down by the Turkish courts, which argued that the blanket ban was reasonable because it was not possible for the authorities to block a single Google-hosted site.

In its judgment, the ECHR noted that the regulator had not attempted to contact Google to seek the closure of the offending site, and that the 2007 law that allowed the regulator to close down foreign-hosted sites did not permit blocking an entire domain such as Google Sites.

As this makes clear, the problem was the over-blocking that resulted in all Google Sites being taken down, even though only one of them was accused of insulting modern Turkey's founder. The court's judgment (pdf) explains that such blocks are only compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights if they fulfil various strict conditions: The Court reiterated that a restriction on access to a source of information was only compatible with the Convention if a strict legal framework was in place regulating the scope of a ban and affording the guarantee of judicial review to prevent possible abuses. However, when the Denizli Criminal Court had decided to block all access to Google Sites, it had simply referred to an opinion from the TiB without ascertaining whether a less far-reaching measure could have been taken to block access specifically to the site in question. The Court further observed that there was no indication that the Criminal Court had made any attempt to weigh up the various interests at stake, in particular by assessing whether it had been necessary to block all access to Google Sites. In the Court's view, this shortcoming was a consequence of the domestic law, which did not lay down any obligation for the courts to examine whether the wholesale blocking of Google Sites was justified. The courts should have had regard to the fact that such a measure would render large amounts of information inaccessible, thus directly affecting the rights of Internet users and having a significant collateral effect.
The broader importance of this decision is explained in a comment quoted by the Open Society Foundations press release: Darian Pavli, a lawyer at the Justice Initiative who worked on the submission, said: "This is the first ruling by an international tribunal on wholesale blocking of internet content, and a very significant precedent. The court made clear that access to online content is a fundamental right, and that it can only be restricted in exceptional cases, subject to full judicial review."
Although there is a three-month period in which the ruling can be appealed, the fact that the court's verdict was unanimous among the seven judges, one of whom is from Turkey, suggests that any such appeal is unlikely to stand much chance of overturning this important decision.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

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Iran's Latest Aggressive Censorship Plan: Block All Audio & Video Files

Mike Masnick — Mon, 8 Oct 2012 09:49:07 PDT

It's no secret that the Iranian government has a bit of an uncomfortable relationship with the internet. First of all, it's trying to build its own internet, at which point it supposedly would like to block out that "other" internet completely. It's also pretty aggressive in censoring various sites it doesn't like. Over the past few days, it's apparently gone a step further. While there were plenty of reports about it blocking YouTube, someone who prefers to remain anonymous sent over this story, saying that Iran's Filtering Committee (IFC) has started blocking all kinds of audio-visual files, based on filetype:

Then, on October 4, 2012, the IFC began preventing files hosted on servers outside Iran from entering the country by blocking specific file extensions. At the time of writing, this policy applies to all MP3, MP4, AVI and SWF files. This kind of filtering was used after the controversial presidential elections of 2009, amidst harsh crackdowns on freedom of information, and coincides with Iran's current economic crisis and the ensuing protests.

Apparently, those blocks do not apply to those files hosted within the country -- just those from foreign sites. Still, that's a pretty extreme move: blocking all of those files takes away a significant part of the audio-visual part of the web. The article highlights a number of Iranians complaining on Twitter about how these blocks are having a severe negative impact on what they do. Still, it's yet another warning for what happens when a government can aggressively filter the internet in extreme ways.

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Dutch ISPs Refuse To Block The Pirate Bay Without A Direct Order

Mike Masnick — Wed, 1 Feb 2012 05:33:34 PST

While some Dutch ISPs have been ordered by a court to block access to The Pirate Bay (after fighting it in court for years), the order only applied directly to two ISPs: xs4all and Ziggo. BREIN, the local anti-piracy group, had then demanded that other ISPs also start blocking access. However, it appears that KPN and T-Mobile are refusing, saying that they will not do so without a direct court order:

“KPN sees the blocking of websites as a drastic measure for which a court order is required,” KPN said in a statement, adding that innovation is needed to curb piracy.

“KPN doesn’t believe a blockade is the right solution. What is needed are robust, attractive business models that are easy to use and offer a fair deal to both producers and consumers of content.”

T-Mobile also said that it will only respond to court orders, while it emphasized the value of an open Internet.

“T-Mobile strongly supports an open Internet and is fundamentally against shutting off access to websites. Dutch law is very clear when it comes to blocking access to the Internet. T-Mobile will only respond to a court ruling, not to demands from a private party such as BREIN.”

It's good to see that these ISPs are standing up for the right to an open internet. Of course, I do wonder how such block orders work under Netherlands' (first of its kind) net neutrality law.

In the meantime, the two ISPs who were subject to the court order have begun the blockade, with Ziggo pointing users to an information page... in which they tell users that it's easy to get around the blockade.

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Attempts To Censor File Sharing Sites In The UK Demonstrate The Pointlessness Of SOPA's Blocks

Mike Masnick — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 03:32:53 PST

As the UK has ramped up its own "Great Firewall" by requiring ISPs to block access to sites deemed infringing, we get a bit of a preview of what life in the US would be like under SOPA, which has provisions for similar censorship. And, thanks to submissions from Butcherer79, we quickly learn two things. First, for those who want to infringe, easy paths will be found to get around the blocks. In this case, new software is apparently out that routes around the block easily. Thus, there's no stopping of infringement, but this will stifle plenty of legitimate users.

Second, as soon as any blacklist is in place, the copyright holders will push for more. Witness the record labels immediately pushing for BT to block access to other sites, including the Pirate Bay, on their say so alone, rather than any court order. And here, again, we see the natural state of things for copyright maximalists. They'll never stop trying to expand what they control. If the law gives them an inch, they'll try to claim a mile.

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Argentine ISPs Block Over A Million Blogs In Response To Court Order To Block Two

Mike Masnick — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 08:12:28 PDT

And people wonder why we worry about plans to censor websites. Every time it happens, the censorship ends up being much broader than planned. The latest example comes from Argentina, where a court order to block two specific sites -- leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com -- actually resulted in over a million blogs being blocked. That's because some ISPs, in order to cut off the blogspot site, simply blocked the IP address 216.239.32.2, which is used across Blogger's blogspot offering. As the EFF notes:

IP blocking is a blunt method of filtering content that can erase from view large swaths of innocuous sites by virtue of the fact that they are hosted on the same IP address as the site that was intended to be censored. One such example of overblocking by IP address can be found in India, where the IP blocking of a Hindu Unity website (blocked by an order from Mumbai police) resulted in the blocking of several other, unrelated sites.

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Pakistan Hasn't Banned Facebook Yet... But It Might Soon

Mike Masnick — Wed, 18 May 2011 01:09:00 PDT

Last year, we reported on an attempt to ban Facebook throughout all of Pakistan, due to a group on the site that some Muslims found offensive (the group was supporting an "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" following a controversy on that subject). It seemed positively silly to ban an entire site based on how one small group of people used that site, but we've seen it happen in a number of countries. Apparently there was a ruling on this that was made back in February, but was just released, which, while sympathetic to the idea of banning Facebook, decided not to issue the ban. Of course, the EFF report on this also notes that a new petition to ban Facebook is going to be heard later this week anyway, so there will be yet another chance to completely block the site due to how a few folks used it. That original post from last year got a bunch of comments from Pakistan defending the idea of blocking Facebook, but I'm still at a loss to see how it makes sense to block an entire site over a single particular use.

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Chicago Politicians Say Mobile Phones Should Block Kids From Texting While Driving

Mike Masnick — Thu, 5 May 2011 12:10:00 PDT

A few years back, there were some reports of tools that would "block" people from texting while driving by simply disabling the feature if the phone was moving over a certain speed. It was targeted at parents to put on their kids' phones, but we haven't seen much of an indication that it's gained any traction. No worries, politicians to the rescue. Gregil10 points us to the news that "an influential group of Chicago aldermen," are pushing for a law that would require such software be placed on any mobile phone sold in Chicago, which could then be enabled by the parents (or, I guess, by the user themselves).

Of course, the same problems that we discussed a few years back apply (and haven't been solved). If you think kids won't figure out how to get around such things, you haven't seen kids and their mobile phones lately. They understand the devices better than parents. Even if a parent can figure out how to enable the software, you can bet kids will figure out how to disable it.

An even bigger issue is that blocking texting based on the speed of travel is a really broad brush for trying to stop texting while driving. Speed of travel isn't a very good proxy for whether or not someone is driving. It may be a good indication that someone is travelling in a vehicle, but that hardly means they're controlling the vehicle. And, it really doesn't make sense to block texting for passengers. In fact, allowing passengers to communicate in this way often serves as a good way to stop drivers from texting, because they can ask a passenger to handle the texting instead. Or if someone's on a bus or a train, should they really be stopped from texting? Often, that's when people use such functionality the most, letting others (such as parents!) know that they got on the bus or train and would be arriving on time/late/early/etc.

I certainly recognize the risks of texting and driving. And it's no secret that many, many kids do engage in this incredibly risky and stupid behavior. But laws like this don't solve the real problem. Instead, they just create even more problems.

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India's Plan To Block .xxx Shows The Pointlessness Of Specialized TLDs

Mike Masnick — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 01:21:00 PDT

For many years, we've wondered about the wisdom of ICANN slowly doling out totally pointless new top level domains (TLDs) -- like .jobs and .mobi -- that seemed much more focused on getting companies to pay up for domains they didn't need, rather than serving any useful purpose. With the recent approval of .xxx, the same thing is happening. Various porn companies feel the need to buy up .xxx domain names, even though they already have domains they're happy with. And making things even worse is that various countries, with India taking the lead, have declared plans to block all access to the .xxx domain anyway.

Of course, this is kind of silly. It's as if they're pretending that porn doesn't exist elsewhere on the web. But, the other silly thing this highlights is the idea of slowly rolling out specialized TLDs. For years, we've been asking why ICANN doesn't just do away with specialized TLDs and let anyone register anything.anyTLD. It really would not be that difficult to set up a system to allow that, and then you get away from this idea of having to set up all these expensive special TLDs. It also makes it silly for any country to target a specific TLD to block. But, of course, it won't happen, because it doesn't involve the companies wishing to be registrars of these new TLDs getting tons of cash.

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DoD Blocking Access To Techdirt Because It's About 'Computers And Internet'?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 15:57:32 PST

Sent in by an anonymous person in the Defense Department is the notice that they were unable to read our recent story about customs and border patrol harassing Wikileaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum as he flew into Seattle from a vacation in Iceland. What struck me, however, was the hilarious wording explaining the block:

This Page Cannot Be Displayed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Based on DOD access policies, access to this web site ( http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110112/16054412641/customs-hamfisted-attempts-to-intimidate-wikileaks-volunteers.shtml ) has been blocked because the web category "Computers and Internet" is not allowed, your IP address and username have been recorded and forwarded to your IA staff for review.

As the reader notes: "Who'd have thought that "Computers and Internet" would be banned when they give me one, and an Internet connection, to work with?" Nice to see that the DoD is so concerned that DoD workers see what their own government is up to.

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Apple The Latest To Convict Wikileaks Despite No Charges Or Trial; Kills Wikileaks App For Violating Unnamed Laws

Mike Masnick — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:01:58 PST

There's been a lot of attention paid this morning to the fact that Apple, in its typically arbitrary manner, has pulled a Wikileaks app from its iTunes store just days after it was approved. While there was a variety of speculation as to why it did so -- from the claim that it was useless to the claim that it allowed users to donate money, Apple released a statement giving similar reasons as Visa, MasterCard and Paypal did before, falsely claiming that Wikileaks obviously violated the law:

"We removed the WikiLeaks app from the App Store because it violated our developer guidelines. Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or targeted group in harm's way."

The thing is, Wikileaks hasn't even been charged with a crime yet, let alone found guilty of one, so it's not clear why all these companies claim that the app does not comply with he law. Also, while we're still waiting for evidence of anyone actually put in "harm's way" due to Wikileaks, that reasoning doesn't make any sense either. The information found on Wikileaks is being written about in all sorts of major news publications -- so if a Wikileaks app is putting people in harm's way, then so is the Safari browser on the iPhone that can be used to access all the same information. And, before anyone says it, yes, Apple is absolutely free to do whatever it wants with the iTunes store, including blocking apps if it doesn't like them. I'm just pointing out that it's stated reason for doing so doesn't make much sense.

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UK Politicians Want People To Have To Apply For A Porn License Before Viewing Online Porn

Mike Masnick — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:37:58 PST

Just as France is looking to implement an internet blacklist, it appears that politicians in the UK are pressuring ISPs to create a blacklist themselves, blocking all porn sites, and not letting anyone access them unless they "specifically request access." In other words, if you want to view porn, you have to first get your porn viewing license. The reasoning, of course, like that behind all clueless internet legislation, is to "protect the children." What's ignored is that if filters really work (and they don't), parents already have the opportunity to use them themselves, without the government stepping in.

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Bank Of America -- Thought To Be Wikileaks Next Target -- Suddenly Tries To Block Payments To Wikileaks

Mike Masnick — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 07:28:58 PST

This is pretty amusing. Back at the end of November, Wikileaks had indicated that its next leak involved a very large US bank that was apparently doing some bad things -- and many people zeroed in on Bank of America as the target. And then, just a few weeks later, Bank of America announces (late on a Friday night, in an attempt to hide it) that it will join Paypal, Visa and Mastercard in trying to block all payments to Wikileaks.

Of course, I don't quite see how Bank of America does that. Is Bank of America really saying that it can block you from spending your money the way you want to? About the only thing it can really do is stop direct wire transfers, but I'd imagine not too many people are doing that. As for systems like Flattr, which is currently a way of supporting Wikileaks financially, I really don't see how any of the above firms can block people from using Flattr to support Wikileaks. All anyone knows with Flatter is that they're supporting Flattr, so you can use Visa or MasterCard via Paypal to pay Flattr, and then Flattr Wikileaks, and those financial firms won't know the difference.

It seems like all these financial firms are really doing is highlighting how they, too, don't quite understand the nature of a distributed internet, and a distributed payment infrastructure -- even if they think they power it.

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Congressional Research Service Analysts Complaining About Blocked Access To Wikileaks

Mike Masnick — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 09:41:37 PST

With the Library of Congress blocking access to Wikileaks over some misguided notion of what its legal responsibilities are, Copycense points us to a report about how librarians across the nation are now arguing over whether or not this was the right move, with many feeling that it was decidedly a bad move.

However, perhaps more interesting is the claim, in the middle of the article, that analysts at the Congressional Research Service are negatively impacted by this as well:

"Since the Congressional Research Service is a component of the Library, this means that CRS researchers will be unable to access or to cite the leaked materials in their research reports to Congress. Several current and former CRS analysts expressed perplexity and dismay about the move, and they said it could undermine the institution’s research activities."

"It's a difficult situation," one unidentified CRS analyst told Aftergood. "The information was released illegally, and it's not right for government agencies to be aiding and abetting this illegal dissemination. But the information is out there. Presumably, any Library of Congress researcher who wants to access the information that WikiLeaks illegally released will simply use their home computers or cell phones to do so. Will they be able to refer directly to the information in their writings for the Library? Apparently not, unless a secondary source, like a newspaper, happens to have already cited it."

In other words, as expected, all the block is really doing is making it more difficult for our government to do its job. That's what you get when your reaction to information like this getting out is to pretend it's not actually out.

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Air Force In Super Denial Mode: Blocks Access To News Sites Covering Wikileaks

Mike Masnick — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:41:37 PST

And we thought the Library of Congress was in denial mode for blocking access to Wikileaks. It appears the Air Force has gone a step further into denial, as it's now blocking access to over 25 sites, including major news publications covering Wikileaks, such as the NY Times and The Guardian. Apparently, anyone on an Air Force computer who goes to the NY Times is being told: "ACCESS DENIED. Internet Usage is Logged & Monitored," Along with a notice warning people that anyone accessing an "unauthorized" site may be punished. Apparently none of the other branches of the military have the same thing in place, though we've heard from others in the military that Defense Department computers are blocking websites with "Wikileaks" in the title.

As Jeffrey Toobin notes in the CNN link above: "Our enemies can see the documents, but not those whom we trust to defend our country." How does that make sense?

And, of course, to make matters even more ridiculous, this is the Air Force... the supposed "cyber" expert branch of the military, these days. A little while back, the Defense Department announced that "cyber" issues were to be handled by the Air Force. Yet, they can't figure out that blocking their own access to mainstream media news sites is a dumb idea? These are the guys we've tapped to handle our country's "cyber defense"?

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Defense Department Blocking Any Website With Wikileaks In The Title?

Mike Masnick — Tue, 7 Dec 2010 13:54:45 PST

Given the Library of Congress' silly decision to block Wikileaks' website, we've been informed by a reader at the Defense Department that filters of DoD computers currently seem to be blocking access to any website that has "Wikileaks" in the title. The reader (who acknowledges this policy is pretty freaking stupid) was wondering if we might stop using Wikileaks in post titles so that he can continue to read our coverage -- since the filters do allow him to access stories with Wikileaks in the text, rather than the title. First off, we're not going to do that (if you want, try using an RSS reader or reading the stories via the front page) but more importantly, what is the Defense Department thinking? What a hamfisted attempt to block access to information that's widely available.

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Did Library Of Congress Lie? White House Says No Requirement To Block Wikileaks

Mike Masnick — Mon, 6 Dec 2010 11:15:00 PST

On Friday, we wrote about how the Library of Congress, in an act of pure denial, had blocked Wikileaks, saying that it was required by law to block access to the site. As we noted at the time, this seemed silly, since the documents were widely available all over the internet and press reports were covering most of the details anyway. We got a few folks in the comments to respond with statements along the lines of "the law is the law, they have to block it." Of course, that misses the point. Even if there was such a law, the only way to "block" such information is to shut off the internet entirely, which is pretty pointless. However, a few folks also responded by asking what law, and the answer might be none.

In an article about how different parts of the government have been warning government workers that these documents are still considered classified and to treat them accordingly, the White House officially stated that it is not advising government agencies to block Wikileaks. In other words, it sounds like someone at the Library of Congress is overreacting -- interpreting rules about dealing with classified documents to mean that it needs to block access to the website, when that doesn't appear to be the case.

Either way, the whole thing is pretty silly. It's about time the government stops using a reality-denying definition of "classified" documents. In the business world, something is no longer considered a trade secret once it's out there. If the government wants to respond to actual conditions out in the world, it should do the same. If a classified document is leaked like this, it's downright silly to still consider it classified or confidential. Just admit that it's now public info and move on.

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Why Is Verizon Wireless Blocking OpenDNS?

Mike Masnick — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:45:00 PST

The Washington Post recently ran an interview with OpenDNS founder David Ulevitch, where he notes that Verizon Wireless appears to be blocking OpenDNS, such that users cannot easily route around Verizon Wireless' own DNS services. This seems like an odd decision for Verizon Wireless -- especially at a time when the government is seriously considering network neutrality regulations. You would think that the company would recognize that blatantly blocking a competing service from being used might attract some attention. Perhaps Verizon Wireless is hoping that people won't care because "OpenDNS" sounds boring? Or perhaps they're still working on this belief that "wireless" plays by different rules?

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If Google TV Has To Pay To Make Hulu Available To Viewers, Will Mozilla Have To Pay To Access Hulu Via Firefox?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 08:29:51 PDT

Ah, Hulu. The online TV streaming service has been leading a life of contradiction from day one. It's been trying to build a service that can successfully "compete with free," while being owned by the TV companies, who are scared to death of cannibalizing their own business. We've discussed in the past how this puts Hulu in an impossible position. The fact that it regularly has to have its engineers block access to any device or software that surfs the web over a TV is just one ridiculous example. Danny Sullivan perhaps sums it up best in his review of Google TV, after discovering that Hulu is (of course) blocking access to anyone using Google TV:

Hey Hulu -- you kind of suck. I'm not trying to access you from Google TV. I'm trying to access you using a web browser, which just happens to run through Google TV. Explain to me again why if I hook my computer up to my TV, and navigate to Hulu to watch the shows you offer for free, that's OK. But if I use my Google TV computer, that same free content is verboten -- and the only way for me to get to it is if in the future, you decide to make the free content available through your not-so-free $10 per month Hulu Plus service that's not even available beyond special invites on your own site.

Here's a thought. Enough of blocking Google TV and apparently other services like Boxee. Either block EVERYONE on the web or block no one, because in the end, you turn people who love you when they reach you on their computers (like me) into people who hate you when they're blocked in other places (like me).

Admittedly, Hulu is apparently getting pressure from the TV companies to do these blocks, but it still makes no sense. All things like Boxee and Google TV are doing is providing a browser. As Danny notes, if I just hooked up my laptop to the same TV, I could watch Hulu just fine. Why is it a problem if it's using a different piece of hardware? It makes no sense.

Of course, Google is now negotiating with the networks to "allow" their content to be viewed on Google TV. Is it just me or is this extremely troubling? How would people react if, say, the New York Times suddenly announced that it would not be viewable on Dell computers or in Firefox, unless Dell or Mozilla paid up? People would go nuts. Yet, that's exactly what is happening here.

In the meantime, we've already covered Hulu's ridiculous paywall plans, which even the company admits completely suck. Rumors are now spreading that so few people are interested in getting pretty much nothing for $10/month, that Hulu is now planning to cut the fee in half. Of course, if they're blocking access to random browsers for whatever ridiculous reason (and still not going ad free), then why would anyone pay?

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French Court Orders ISPs To Block Gambling Websites

Mike Masnick — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:10:33 PDT

While there's a lot of attention being paid to the French "three strikes law," and the organization, Hadopi, that is planning a system for implementing it, it appears that another form of internet censorship is happening via the courts in France. Reader JJ sends over the news that ISPs in France are being ordered to block access to certain "unauthorized" gambling websites. The country's gambling regulator, Arjel, ordered the ISPs to block certain gambling sites, and after a court battle, it appears Arjel has won. Effectively, the court has ruled that the French government can order ISPs to censor the internet, which seems like the sort of story that should be getting more attention.

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Afghanistan Follows Pakistan In Demanding ISPs Censor The Internet

Mike Masnick — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:12:47 PDT

Last week we noted that Pakistan had chosen to start censoring a bunch of big websites, including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon. And now the EFF notes that Afghanistan has created new rules for the internet, saying that ISPs need to start filtering websites that fall under the following categories:

Alcohol
Dating/Social Networking
Gambling
Pornography

Because it's not easy to properly filter, reports coming out of the country suggest that ISPs are just choosing to block Facebook, Gmail, YouTube, and Twitter outright. It looks like more and more countries are deciding to censor the internet. This may not be a surprise, but it is a little upsetting if you believe in the importance of free expression.

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Pakistan Orders Internet Ban On Google, Yahoo, Bing, Hotmail, YouTube, Amazon & MSN

Mike Masnick — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:02:56 PDT

Perhaps Pakistan should just turn off its internet connection? We've already had stories recently about how courts have ordered that both Facebook and YouTube be blocked -- but supposedly both bans had been lifted. Then came the news that there were attempts to put Facebook's founders on trial, potentially for a death sentence, because some users had posted stuff people in Pakistan didn't like. The latest, sent in by Ali, is that a Pakistani court has ordered a whole bunch of popular websites be blocked from access. You may have heard of a few of these: Google, Yahoo, Bing, MSN, YouTube, Amazon and Hotmail. Who are they missing? Ebay? Twitter? I'm sure those will be blocked soon enough...

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