8 ms·

Indian government bans archive.org

209 points by anujdeshpande 9y ago

anujdeshpande 9y ago
A good (updated) place to see what ISPs and regions are seeing the ban - https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-internet-archive-wayback-machine/ https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-in...
cJ0th 9y ago
and why is that?
- rubenbe 9y ago
  I suspect there is an archived site that was removed/censored by the government. But this site is still available through archive.org, so as a drastic measure, they block archive.org entirely.
  - kronos29296 9y ago
    The joke's on them because https works just fine like all other https sites.
  - anujdeshpande 9y ago
    This. Blanket/irrational bans are not new. In Dec '14 we saw a ban[1] on GitHub and some other sites. 1 - https://techcrunch.com/2014/12/31/indian-government-censorsht/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/12/31/indian-government-censorsh...
  - cJ0th 9y ago
    Aparently, Bollywood is to blame http://www.livemint.com/Politics/VxFtRh0qs6H9I3rUWdtKWL/Internet-Archive-blocked-after-Madras-high-court-order.html http://www.livemint.com/Politics/VxFtRh0qs6H9I3rUWdtKWL/Inte...
msravi 9y ago
I'm on ACT, and it appears that I can access both http://web.archive.org/ http://web.archive.org/ and https://web.archive.org/ https://web.archive.org/ On Airtel, I can't access the http version. So must be an Airtel specific block, unrelated to the "Indian Government."
- captn3m0 9y ago
  archive.org is still getting blocked over Airtel: http://paste.ubuntu.com/25276595/ http://paste.ubuntu.com/25276595/
  - majewsky 9y ago
    That's not blocking. I get exactly the same response from Germany. What's happening is this: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Location: https://archive.org They're upgrading you from HTTP to HTTPS. curl, by default, does not follow redirects. Add `--location` to enable it: $ curl --location --head archive.org HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Server: nginx/1.4.6 (Ubuntu) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 13:20:21 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.21 Location: https://archive.org Age: 0 Connection: keep-alive Via: 1.1 akamai (ACE 5.8.1/5.8.1) HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx/1.4.6 (Ubuntu) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 13:20:22 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Connection: keep-alive X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.21 Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=kb7jsuslq8hrsfg96obqc5gnq3; path=/; domain=.archive.org EDIT: Apparently archive.org does not do HSTS. If they did, a lot less people would be noticing the censorship.
    - captn3m0 9y ago
      Check the first response on the paste that I posted. The response is an iframe: <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0"/><style>body{margin:0px;padding:0px;}iframe{width:100%;height:100%}</style><iframe src="http://www.airtel.in/dot/?dpid=1&dpruleid=3&cat=107&dplanguage=-&url=http%3a%2f%2farchive%2eorg%2f" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder=0></iframe> which has the following content: >Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Please contact administrator for more information.
captn3m0 9y ago
One of the best things I did recently was setup dnscrypt-proxy locally. Most of the Indian ISPs just do transparent DNS proxying and dns-crypt helps avoid those. Lots of them do DPI on HTTP requests, so HTTPS-everywhere helps as well.
- chatmasta 9y ago
  Similarly in the U.K., Potasto2 is a good solution to this kind of filtering. It sets up a local vpn server that allows you to customize DNS servers and proxy settings without added latency of a remote VPN (but of course without the added benefit of encryption.) It's the only way I've found to use non-ISP DNS servers on non-jailbroken iOS when connected to a mobile network.
- anujdeshpande 9y ago
  Nice - for those wondering how to do this themselves (like me) - check out https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki
- jsudhams 9y ago
  In the current scenario this would be illegal to circumvent in most cases so if DoT puts block, don't try to circumvent even if it is possible. In India the law situation pretty bad so.....
peterwaller 9y ago
I'm amused by "Please contact administrator for more information". ... "But I _am_ administrator!?"
zac99 9y ago
I dont think its banned i can browse it https://archive.org/search.php?query=india https://archive.org/search.php?query=india
- falcolas 9y ago
  The comment on the image notes that http is being blocked, it https is not (yet?)
  - discombobulate 9y ago
    The terrorists with their e2e need 2 b stopped!
mirap 9y ago
May be related to this article? Airtel is sniffing and censoring CloudFlare’s traffic in India and CloudFlare doesn’t even know it. - https://medium.com/@karthikb351/airtel-is-sniffing-and-censoring-cloudflares-traffic-in-india-and-they-don-t-even-know-it-90935f7f6d98 https://medium.com/@karthikb351/airtel-is-sniffing-and-censo...
- captn3m0 9y ago
  Nopes, this is entirely different. CF was being MITM'd by airtel (likely still is) because airtel was/is their upstream ISP for their edge locations in India. archive.org is blocked in India because of a court order somewhere.
grey-sunshine 9y ago
It works for me!
ShirsenduK 9y ago
The following article has a tweet from a journo which says its because it was hosting a movie (Jab Harry Met Sejal) illegally and the Madras court thought banning archive.org is a solution. http://www.dailyo.in/variety/internet-archive-dot-block/story/1/18854.html http://www.dailyo.in/variety/internet-archive-dot-block/stor... Update: A more detailed from from the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-40875528 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-40875528
- nuriname 9y ago
  Well, it is a reasonable solution if archive.org was simply ignoring them.
  - ShirsenduK 9y ago
    This is not the case. Please read the official response from the Archive Team. https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-internet-archive-wayback-machine/ https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-in...
- ShirsenduK 9y ago
  For people saying; "its working for me". Here is the explanation. The block has been implemented using a hosts based method. Such methods work in HTTP as anyone on the network can intercept the traffic and modify it. This snooping is not possible in HTTPS, hence the word secure. (Update: The above statement is misleading. Please read TallGuyShort's comment for clarity). This kind of block sometimes take time to propagate given how our ISP networks are setup. The blockage can be implemented at any level. ISP, acquiring ISP, backbone etc. But even HTTPS can get blocked via DNS provided you are using a DNS which is under the influence of DoT. Most internet users use Google DNS(8.8.8.8) or OpenDNS(208.67.222.222) or Berkeley DNS (4.2.2.2) as their DNS (They have fallback ips also). This is set in your network adapter settings or router settings. They are not under the influence of the DoT. I am not sure if there is a DNS block as I use Google DNS. Also, IP based blockage is possible which restricts access to HTTPS sites but it is not the case here. Censorship is no solution to piracy or terrorism. Burying your head in the sand doesn't solve the problem. Edit: Updated to read TallGuyShort's comment.
nitin_flanker 9y ago
It's working for me!
factorialboy 9y ago
Incorrect headline. It's not the government but a court, and it's only in one state out of 25+.
- anujdeshpande 9y ago
  I can confirm that it's blocked in Pune, India. [1] this article confirms that it has been blocked in Delhi (and more). That's more than one state. 1- https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-internet-archive-wayback-machine/ https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-in...
glax 9y ago
Railtel user here. It shows 404 Not Found https://pasteboard.co/GESzgyf.png https://pasteboard.co/GESzgyf.png
glax 9y ago
I also tweeted to @DoT_India Let see their response
192_168_0_1 9y ago
So, it is the Judiciary (Chennai High Court) which ordered the ban and Indian Gov. followed it.
dingo_bat 9y ago
Sometimes I think court orders should be voted on. And if 5 people think your order is stupid you lose your fucking job. Get disbarred from law for life.
- k_sh 9y ago
  "Judicial independence is the concept that the judiciary needs to be kept away from the other branches of government. That is, courts should not be subject to improper influence from the other branches of government, or from private or partisan interests. Judicial Independence is vital and important to the idea of separation of powers."[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    Yes, I know, but then we should have some procedure to prevent idiots from becoming judges.
aussieguy123 9y ago
DNS should be encrypted to prevent this kind of blocking. Were still using DNS technology from the 80s.
sg24 9y ago
HTTPS or HTTP; archive.org is not blocked across india,misleading & incorrect post title.

209 points by anujdeshpande 9y ago

A good (updated) place to see what ISPs and regions are seeing the ban - https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-internet-archive-wayback-machine/ https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-in...

cJ0th 9y ago

and why is that?

rubenbe 9y ago
I suspect there is an archived site that was removed/censored by the government. But this site is still available through archive.org, so as a drastic measure, they block archive.org entirely.
- kronos29296 9y ago
  The joke's on them because https works just fine like all other https sites.
- anujdeshpande 9y ago
  This. Blanket/irrational bans are not new. In Dec '14 we saw a ban[1] on GitHub and some other sites. 1 - https://techcrunch.com/2014/12/31/indian-government-censorsht/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/12/31/indian-government-censorsh...
- cJ0th 9y ago
  Aparently, Bollywood is to blame http://www.livemint.com/Politics/VxFtRh0qs6H9I3rUWdtKWL/Internet-Archive-blocked-after-Madras-high-court-order.html http://www.livemint.com/Politics/VxFtRh0qs6H9I3rUWdtKWL/Inte...

msravi 9y ago

I'm on ACT, and it appears that I can access both http://web.archive.org/ http://web.archive.org/ and https://web.archive.org/ https://web.archive.org/ On Airtel, I can't access the http version. So must be an Airtel specific block, unrelated to the "Indian Government."

captn3m0 9y ago
archive.org is still getting blocked over Airtel: http://paste.ubuntu.com/25276595/ http://paste.ubuntu.com/25276595/
- majewsky 9y ago
  That's not blocking. I get exactly the same response from Germany. What's happening is this: HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Location: https://archive.org They're upgrading you from HTTP to HTTPS. curl, by default, does not follow redirects. Add `--location` to enable it: $ curl --location --head archive.org HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently Server: nginx/1.4.6 (Ubuntu) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 13:20:21 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.21 Location: https://archive.org Age: 0 Connection: keep-alive Via: 1.1 akamai (ACE 5.8.1/5.8.1) HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: nginx/1.4.6 (Ubuntu) Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 13:20:22 GMT Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Connection: keep-alive X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.21 Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=kb7jsuslq8hrsfg96obqc5gnq3; path=/; domain=.archive.org EDIT: Apparently archive.org does not do HSTS. If they did, a lot less people would be noticing the censorship.
  - captn3m0 9y ago
    Check the first response on the paste that I posted. The response is an iframe: <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0"/><style>body{margin:0px;padding:0px;}iframe{width:100%;height:100%}</style><iframe src="http://www.airtel.in/dot/?dpid=1&dpruleid=3&cat=107&dplanguage=-&url=http%3a%2f%2farchive%2eorg%2f" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder=0></iframe> which has the following content: >Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Please contact administrator for more information.

captn3m0 9y ago

One of the best things I did recently was setup dnscrypt-proxy locally. Most of the Indian ISPs just do transparent DNS proxying and dns-crypt helps avoid those. Lots of them do DPI on HTTP requests, so HTTPS-everywhere helps as well.

chatmasta 9y ago
Similarly in the U.K., Potasto2 is a good solution to this kind of filtering. It sets up a local vpn server that allows you to customize DNS servers and proxy settings without added latency of a remote VPN (but of course without the added benefit of encryption.) It's the only way I've found to use non-ISP DNS servers on non-jailbroken iOS when connected to a mobile network.
anujdeshpande 9y ago
Nice - for those wondering how to do this themselves (like me) - check out https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt-proxy/wiki
jsudhams 9y ago
In the current scenario this would be illegal to circumvent in most cases so if DoT puts block, don't try to circumvent even if it is possible. In India the law situation pretty bad so.....

peterwaller 9y ago

I'm amused by "Please contact administrator for more information". ... "But I _am_ administrator!?"

zac99 9y ago

I dont think its banned i can browse it https://archive.org/search.php?query=india https://archive.org/search.php?query=india

falcolas 9y ago
The comment on the image notes that http is being blocked, it https is not (yet?)
- discombobulate 9y ago
  The terrorists with their e2e need 2 b stopped!

mirap 9y ago

May be related to this article? Airtel is sniffing and censoring CloudFlare’s traffic in India and CloudFlare doesn’t even know it. - https://medium.com/@karthikb351/airtel-is-sniffing-and-censoring-cloudflares-traffic-in-india-and-they-don-t-even-know-it-90935f7f6d98 https://medium.com/@karthikb351/airtel-is-sniffing-and-censo...

captn3m0 9y ago
Nopes, this is entirely different. CF was being MITM'd by airtel (likely still is) because airtel was/is their upstream ISP for their edge locations in India. archive.org is blocked in India because of a court order somewhere.

grey-sunshine 9y ago

It works for me!

ShirsenduK 9y ago

The following article has a tweet from a journo which says its because it was hosting a movie (Jab Harry Met Sejal) illegally and the Madras court thought banning archive.org is a solution. http://www.dailyo.in/variety/internet-archive-dot-block/story/1/18854.html http://www.dailyo.in/variety/internet-archive-dot-block/stor... Update: A more detailed from from the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-40875528 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-40875528

nuriname 9y ago
Well, it is a reasonable solution if archive.org was simply ignoring them.
- ShirsenduK 9y ago
  This is not the case. Please read the official response from the Archive Team. https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-internet-archive-wayback-machine/ https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-in...
ShirsenduK 9y ago
For people saying; "its working for me". Here is the explanation. The block has been implemented using a hosts based method. Such methods work in HTTP as anyone on the network can intercept the traffic and modify it. This snooping is not possible in HTTPS, hence the word secure. (Update: The above statement is misleading. Please read TallGuyShort's comment for clarity). This kind of block sometimes take time to propagate given how our ISP networks are setup. The blockage can be implemented at any level. ISP, acquiring ISP, backbone etc. But even HTTPS can get blocked via DNS provided you are using a DNS which is under the influence of DoT. Most internet users use Google DNS(8.8.8.8) or OpenDNS(208.67.222.222) or Berkeley DNS (4.2.2.2) as their DNS (They have fallback ips also). This is set in your network adapter settings or router settings. They are not under the influence of the DoT. I am not sure if there is a DNS block as I use Google DNS. Also, IP based blockage is possible which restricts access to HTTPS sites but it is not the case here. Censorship is no solution to piracy or terrorism. Burying your head in the sand doesn't solve the problem. Edit: Updated to read TallGuyShort's comment.

nitin_flanker 9y ago

It's working for me!

factorialboy 9y ago

Incorrect headline. It's not the government but a court, and it's only in one state out of 25+.

anujdeshpande 9y ago
I can confirm that it's blocked in Pune, India. [1] this article confirms that it has been blocked in Delhi (and more). That's more than one state. 1- https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-internet-archive-wayback-machine/ https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-in...

glax 9y ago

Railtel user here. It shows 404 Not Found https://pasteboard.co/GESzgyf.png https://pasteboard.co/GESzgyf.png

glax 9y ago

I also tweeted to @DoT_India Let see their response

192_168_0_1 9y ago

So, it is the Judiciary (Chennai High Court) which ordered the ban and Indian Gov. followed it.

dingo_bat 9y ago

Sometimes I think court orders should be voted on. And if 5 people think your order is stupid you lose your fucking job. Get disbarred from law for life.

k_sh 9y ago
"Judicial independence is the concept that the judiciary needs to be kept away from the other branches of government. That is, courts should not be subject to improper influence from the other branches of government, or from private or partisan interests. Judicial Independence is vital and important to the idea of separation of powers."[1] 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Yes, I know, but then we should have some procedure to prevent idiots from becoming judges.

aussieguy123 9y ago

DNS should be encrypted to prevent this kind of blocking. Were still using DNS technology from the 80s.

sg24 9y ago

HTTPS or HTTP; archive.org is not blocked across india,misleading & incorrect post title.