Mighty Blighty filter tilter causes communications chaos The Great Firewall of Britain, aka the content filters operated by telcos Vodafone and Three, has blocked access to German hacker party the Chaos Communications Congress (CCC) ahead of its annual confab. The block, presumably made in error, prevented punters from accessing the website, buying tickets and perusing the …
" I can skip past their filters?"
Generally yes, but absolutely, don't be so sure. I use Google public DNS on my one machine, whilst having the Virgin Media grumble filter enable to (try and) ensure the kids don't stumble on the wrong sorts of things. Most of the time my browsing is unaffected, but there's some fairly inocuous adult content (eg some Tumblr hosted) that seems to be blocked by the VM filters despite not using the Virgin DNS. Another thing is that it looks like there's a degree of automated dynamic response on this non-DNS filter, so that you can visit a site, and a few moments later revisiting it produces a VM web block page.
I'm sure this is being fixed as I'm typing but for commentard readers who missed it :- "Vulture South....does not suspect the conference was legitimate and intentional." surely a subject modifier "the blocking of" should be placed before "the conference" or can I presume the Register along with Three and Vodaphone are questioning the legitimacy of this conference.
Russell Brand as I do not suspect him of legitimate English usage - is he the Man from Mars??:-)??
They've also decided that the Saracens rugby club website is verboten - it's been like that for years and no explanation forthcoming.
Even if you're not a rugby fan, if you want to be in Watford on a Saturday it's worth knowing if there's a game on as it affects parking availability.
>Most potential visitors would be capable of finding their way through.
That's not really the point though is it? Adding DNS filtering to the mix is hardly difficult. The cynical might suggest that filtering is being done badly to start with so not too many people will object.
Yeah, we need to block kiddie porn. And fake kiddie porn, and any promotion thereof... and that Wikipedia article with that dubious album cover, can't be too careful you know.
Of course we'll be blocking really weird hardcore adult porn, you don't have a problem with that, do you?
We need to block piracy sites now, wouldn't want people depriving musicians of their hard-earned. And hacking-related sites, obviously. We might as well block warez sites too, while we're at it.
We might as well block all the porn you can't buy on DVD too, why anyone would want to look at that filth is beyond us. Again, you don't have a problem with that, do you? Good.
Apparently on some forums and 'news' sites people are saying we're blocking too much stuff, we might as well block those forums too, for the sake of social harmony.
We've found there's some sites spouting dubious political ideas out there, fundamentalist Islam, socialism, libertarianism and so on. Hardly Lib/Lab/Con, is it? Blocked in the interests of stability, of course.
Hmm, we've logged that you've been trying to circumvent the blocks. You do realise they're for your own protection? We can only assume you've been trying to look at kiddie porn. A white van will be along shortly.
Yes, but that's nothing!
The valiant police have started to charge people for fraudulently pretending to be terrorists, or so it seems: Counter-terrorism police charge two people with fraud offences
Hmm, we've logged that you've been trying to circumvent the blocks. You do realise they're for your own protection? We can only assume you've been trying to look at kiddie porn. A white van will be along shortly.
They'd probably shit a brick if they analysed my outgoing traffic at home, 2 VPNs and a TOR connection established on a semi-permanent basis. One of the VPN's goes to an endpoint outside the UK - and it goes without saying that I control the VPN endpoints (rather than paying arandomprovider)
I've nothing to hide, but I also don't see any reason to let my ISP see every minute detail of the traffic I'm generating (there are also practical reasons for one of the VPN's - I don't have a static IP at home so allowing myself through various firewalls can be a pain).
There's likely not much you can do to stop the G Men looking at your traffic, but I'm buggered if BT and EE (my phone connects the VPN when not at home) are going to get a free peek too.
"Hmm, we've logged that you've been trying to circumvent the blocks. You do realise they're for your own protection? We can only assume you've been trying to look at kiddie porn. A white van will be along shortly."
Heh, when I was in a country that did *heavy* filtering (think Persian Gulf), I leased a virtual server, slapped a VPN on it and washed the VPN exit through squid.
I then happily and safely surfed sites that wouldn't get me a white van, they'd get me a black helicopter. :)
The national telecom then tried to proclaim VPN's were illegal (without any codified law to back that up), which resulted in three major international banks threaten to close their offices immediately, as they would not transmit financials in the clear.
The telecom then STFU.
"Internet filters simply do not work"
Actually, most of the furore is over the fact that they do work. Too well. Probably what happened here is that somebody tried to block something on the same server/hosting domain & got it wrong. If somebody accidentally blocked a government site and refused to remove it, they would go away pretty quick like.
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