8 ms·

How many URLs/Websites are blocked in India? Government gives different answers

91 points by hnyk 9y ago

forkLding 9y ago
The rationale for blocking websites is pretty convoluted, what are they saying? I mean aside from the usual censorship justification
- nischalsamji 9y ago
  "Objectionable content", "Hurting religious sentiments" are the reasons given when github/ vimeo/ pastebin etc., were banned few years ago. The rationale is pretty vague and it's often tough to understand on what info a certain site gets blocked.
  - derefr 9y ago
    I would assume it's much the same as Canada's law against publishing hate speech. Just with a very wide net on what constitutes hate speech.
    - keganunderwood 9y ago
      I think someone mentioned that politicians in India enjoy wide freedoms due to generous libel laws as well.
nsomaru 9y ago
I've found non-https archive.org (!) to be blocked in India on a government ISP. Interestingly it seems to depend on the ISP used. Same site worked fine on a mobile connection.
- nitin_flanker 9y ago
  Yes, as far as I've tried, it entirely is ISP dependent. Here's the message that my ISP show when a website is blocked: http://ibb.co/mvSMRR http://ibb.co/mvSMRR. I can access it however using my Wifi instead. Similarly, few website that are blocked by one are accessible on others carriers.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
senthilnayagam 9y ago
during a major movie release, court backed banning of thousands of torrent and media sharing sites happen
shubhamjain 9y ago
Indian state wields too much power over everything. I guess it's remnant of a socialistic past. Consider this: CBFC is film certification board that can block a movie's release until appropriate cuts are made subject to their whims and fancies. This makes no logical sense. Why should the Govt. interfere in whatever the movie wants to show? The max stipulation should be on what content is appropriate to which age group. Websites can be blocked by people who have zero clue what they are about. Television programmes can be asked to censor everything from expletives to kissing scenes. (Try seeing Kill Bill with all violent scenes removed). Hell, Karnataka Govt. even tried to cap the price of movie tickets. [1] The fact that a random litigation can persuade a judge to order to block 1000+ sites is downright scary. I don't see anything changing near future. Politicians (and even judiciary) rarely want to do away with any power they have. [1]: http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/karnataka-caps-movie-ticket-prices-in-cinemas-multiplexes-at-rs-200-117050201455_1.html http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/kar...
- confounded 9y ago
  Many countries have film certification boards with similar powers, though they tend to be lenient. Same for web and television censorship. While you may consider these powers authoritarian, there’s nothing inherently “socialistic” about them. In the UK and US for example, censorship laws are often bundled into anti-terror legislation, which generally has its strongest proponents on the political right.
  - shubhamjain 9y ago
    Maybe not "socialistic" in the traditional sense but if you see India's history, from 50s to 90s, you'll see how it all evolved. Govt. ran everything (Banks, Telecoms, Automobile manufacturing) and installed thousands of institutions to regulate everything. Even after liberalisation, there's a strong tendency to regulate and feeble support to give a free-hand.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    Socialistic may not be the right word but the idea of central authority and planning is there.
gainsurier 9y ago
it is a pretty thing when it is compared to the fucking Chinese Great Wall.
therealmarv 9y ago
I heard once that Cloudflare is widely blocked in some countries. Does somebody know any specifics?
- prashnts 9y ago
  Particular to India, Cloudflare edge data-centres use Airtel network — which is notorious for using MITM for arbitrary bans. If cloudflare fetches your site without SSL then Airtel can and does block it and even inject ads; this is regardless if you use cloudflare's https to serve content to your clients. More info here [1], and hn discussion here [2]. [1] 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... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12091900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12091900
  - jgrahamc 9y ago
    This has nothing to do with Cloudflare, though. If you use HTTP instead of HTTPS then you are at risk on any network (India or elsewhere) of the things you describe. Use HTTPS.
    - bubblethink 9y ago
      This is a more subtle point about how cloudflare's flexible ssl works. The linked post describes a situation where the end user sees the ssl padlock, but the traffic is still getting MITM'ed between cloudflare and origin because it is not over https.
      - jgrahamc 9y ago
        There's no reason to use Flexible SSL. Cloudflare will support any certificate on the origin server (e.g. Let's Encrypt if you don't want to pay someone), or will give you a free "Origin CA" certificate.
        9y ago
akerro 9y ago
OONIProble is a project from TorProject group, that tests your network connection for possible censorship, MITM and network manipulation https://f-droid.org/packages/org.openobservatory.ooniprobe/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.openobservatory.ooniprobe/
timthelion 9y ago
Aren't there few enough urls that are registered that it should be easy to figure out which ones are blocked? It looks like there are only about a billion http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/ http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/ With 1000 connections at 1 dns lookup per second that would be just 12 days. Anyone want to spin up some AWS instances in India and find out?
- zuron7 9y ago
  Not worth it. The blocking that the government uses blocks only the http version of the sites. Append an s manually and access is restored. But to the uninitiated that block poses enough of a challenge.
  - timthelion 9y ago
    But if we are speculating on what sort of websites are blocked, that method would reduce the uncertainty. It might even lead to the uncovering of something scandalous, like the discovery of a website being blocked for revealing evil truths about the current government.
  - wav-part 9y ago
    Not true anymore. https are getting blocked too. Last few lines of `curl --trace - https://thepiratebay.org/` https://thepiratebay.org/` on Jio ISP. Full log https://gist.github.com/anonymous/27ddfa674233d8d17a007f1b3fc1106e https://gist.github.com/anonymous/27ddfa674233d8d17a007f1b3f... => Send SSL data, 5 bytes (0x5) 0000: 15 03 03 00 1a ..... == Info: TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS alert, Server hello (2): => Send SSL data, 2 bytes (0x2) 0000: 02 46 .F == Info: error:1408F10B:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_RECORD:wrong version number == Info: Closing connection 0 So TLS handshake is being interrupted. If you think about it, https blocking is actually more efficient. curl log does not show the last fake rcvd packet. Anyone know how to do that ?
Ravisg 9y ago
Blocked sites can easily be accessed using proxy or vpn. I end up doing that on a regular basis :)

91 points by hnyk 9y ago

The rationale for blocking websites is pretty convoluted, what are they saying? I mean aside from the usual censorship justification

nischalsamji 9y ago
"Objectionable content", "Hurting religious sentiments" are the reasons given when github/ vimeo/ pastebin etc., were banned few years ago. The rationale is pretty vague and it's often tough to understand on what info a certain site gets blocked.
- derefr 9y ago
  I would assume it's much the same as Canada's law against publishing hate speech. Just with a very wide net on what constitutes hate speech.
  - keganunderwood 9y ago
    I think someone mentioned that politicians in India enjoy wide freedoms due to generous libel laws as well.

nsomaru 9y ago

I've found non-https archive.org (!) to be blocked in India on a government ISP. Interestingly it seems to depend on the ISP used. Same site worked fine on a mobile connection.

nitin_flanker 9y ago
Yes, as far as I've tried, it entirely is ISP dependent. Here's the message that my ISP show when a website is blocked: http://ibb.co/mvSMRR http://ibb.co/mvSMRR. I can access it however using my Wifi instead. Similarly, few website that are blocked by one are accessible on others carriers.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

senthilnayagam 9y ago

during a major movie release, court backed banning of thousands of torrent and media sharing sites happen

shubhamjain 9y ago

Indian state wields too much power over everything. I guess it's remnant of a socialistic past. Consider this: CBFC is film certification board that can block a movie's release until appropriate cuts are made subject to their whims and fancies. This makes no logical sense. Why should the Govt. interfere in whatever the movie wants to show? The max stipulation should be on what content is appropriate to which age group. Websites can be blocked by people who have zero clue what they are about. Television programmes can be asked to censor everything from expletives to kissing scenes. (Try seeing Kill Bill with all violent scenes removed). Hell, Karnataka Govt. even tried to cap the price of movie tickets. [1] The fact that a random litigation can persuade a judge to order to block 1000+ sites is downright scary. I don't see anything changing near future. Politicians (and even judiciary) rarely want to do away with any power they have. [1]: http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/karnataka-caps-movie-ticket-prices-in-cinemas-multiplexes-at-rs-200-117050201455_1.html http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/kar...

confounded 9y ago
Many countries have film certification boards with similar powers, though they tend to be lenient. Same for web and television censorship. While you may consider these powers authoritarian, there’s nothing inherently “socialistic” about them. In the UK and US for example, censorship laws are often bundled into anti-terror legislation, which generally has its strongest proponents on the political right.
- shubhamjain 9y ago
  Maybe not "socialistic" in the traditional sense but if you see India's history, from 50s to 90s, you'll see how it all evolved. Govt. ran everything (Banks, Telecoms, Automobile manufacturing) and installed thousands of institutions to regulate everything. Even after liberalisation, there's a strong tendency to regulate and feeble support to give a free-hand.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  Socialistic may not be the right word but the idea of central authority and planning is there.

gainsurier 9y ago

it is a pretty thing when it is compared to the fucking Chinese Great Wall.

therealmarv 9y ago

I heard once that Cloudflare is widely blocked in some countries. Does somebody know any specifics?

prashnts 9y ago
Particular to India, Cloudflare edge data-centres use Airtel network — which is notorious for using MITM for arbitrary bans. If cloudflare fetches your site without SSL then Airtel can and does block it and even inject ads; this is regardless if you use cloudflare's https to serve content to your clients. More info here [1], and hn discussion here [2]. [1] 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... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12091900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12091900
- jgrahamc 9y ago
  This has nothing to do with Cloudflare, though. If you use HTTP instead of HTTPS then you are at risk on any network (India or elsewhere) of the things you describe. Use HTTPS.
  - bubblethink 9y ago
    This is a more subtle point about how cloudflare's flexible ssl works. The linked post describes a situation where the end user sees the ssl padlock, but the traffic is still getting MITM'ed between cloudflare and origin because it is not over https.
    - jgrahamc 9y ago
      There's no reason to use Flexible SSL. Cloudflare will support any certificate on the origin server (e.g. Let's Encrypt if you don't want to pay someone), or will give you a free "Origin CA" certificate.
      - 9y ago

akerro 9y ago

OONIProble is a project from TorProject group, that tests your network connection for possible censorship, MITM and network manipulation https://f-droid.org/packages/org.openobservatory.ooniprobe/ https://f-droid.org/packages/org.openobservatory.ooniprobe/

timthelion 9y ago

Aren't there few enough urls that are registered that it should be easy to figure out which ones are blocked? It looks like there are only about a billion http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/ http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/ With 1000 connections at 1 dns lookup per second that would be just 12 days. Anyone want to spin up some AWS instances in India and find out?

zuron7 9y ago
Not worth it. The blocking that the government uses blocks only the http version of the sites. Append an s manually and access is restored. But to the uninitiated that block poses enough of a challenge.
- timthelion 9y ago
  But if we are speculating on what sort of websites are blocked, that method would reduce the uncertainty. It might even lead to the uncovering of something scandalous, like the discovery of a website being blocked for revealing evil truths about the current government.
- wav-part 9y ago
  Not true anymore. https are getting blocked too. Last few lines of `curl --trace - https://thepiratebay.org/` https://thepiratebay.org/` on Jio ISP. Full log https://gist.github.com/anonymous/27ddfa674233d8d17a007f1b3fc1106e https://gist.github.com/anonymous/27ddfa674233d8d17a007f1b3f... => Send SSL data, 5 bytes (0x5) 0000: 15 03 03 00 1a ..... == Info: TLSv1.2 (OUT), TLS alert, Server hello (2): => Send SSL data, 2 bytes (0x2) 0000: 02 46 .F == Info: error:1408F10B:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_RECORD:wrong version number == Info: Closing connection 0 So TLS handshake is being interrupted. If you think about it, https blocking is actually more efficient. curl log does not show the last fake rcvd packet. Anyone know how to do that ?

Ravisg 9y ago

Blocked sites can easily be accessed using proxy or vpn. I end up doing that on a regular basis :)