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It intrigues me to wonder, in this day and age, what the legal meaning of "blocking" is. In any given nation with a default-open Internet, what are the ramific

It intrigues me to wonder, in this day and age, what the legal meaning of "blocking" is. In any given nation with a default-open Internet, what are the ramifications of a court or legal process "blocking" a service? Protonmail is clearly more than a mere website; it's a full-featured communications platform; I'm sure it has a mobile app or at least access via the typical POP/IMAP interfaces. So, "blocking" Protonmail could mean all sorts of things: - Excise it from DNS - Demand removal from Play Store, Apple Store, other mobile OS providers - filter any IP traffic attempting to connect to service via web, IMAP, POP3 - inhibit or interfere with SMTP traffic to/from Protonmail servers, e.g. mail sending and delivery (MTA activity) - expel/prohibit colocation of physical servers, VPS systems, or middleware that may be within jurisdiction - deal legally with any physical office presence or employee contingent within the jurisdiction Now within the Great Firewall of China and other default-deny Internet services, it's not difficult to see that Protonmail could easily be blackholed. But what if you're accustomed to open access like the USA? There are so many considerations here. A simple court order to "block" an Internet service introduces quite a few layers to peel back. The USA's action against TikTok was fraught with confusion and ambiguity. Because TikTok is likewise a powerful communications service. So, tech people like us need more insight on what it means to "block" a service when a court says so!

air3y 1y ago
Probably the ISPs would be required to block a given list of domains, and they will do it at DNS requests. Porn sites and torrent sharing sites used to be blocked this way. Some ISPs wont even do it properly. A decade or more ago, when these were banned, I could circumvent it by simply moving to using encrypted dns protocol by running dnscrypt. It is rarely implemented with a zeal, unlike chinese GFW reportedly does.

air3y 1y ago

Probably the ISPs would be required to block a given list of domains, and they will do it at DNS requests. Porn sites and torrent sharing sites used to be blocked this way. Some ISPs wont even do it properly. A decade or more ago, when these were banned, I could circumvent it by simply moving to using encrypted dns protocol by running dnscrypt. It is rarely implemented with a zeal, unlike chinese GFW reportedly does.