6 ms·

A New HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles

202 points by johns 14y ago

Osiris 14y ago
At the bottom of the page, "Thanks also to Ray Bradbury." It appears they deliberately chose 451 in homage to the great Fahrenheit 451 (or more specifically, to the dystopian future presented in the book).[1] [1] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120725/06093819827/truth-erroring-ietf-proposal-includes-new-451-censorship-error-code.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120725/06093819827/truth-...
- popee 14y ago
  So, when will they start burning urls?
  - redblacktree 14y ago
    They're hard to set alight.
  - buzzkills 14y ago
    they do it at the firewall...
  - gojomo 14y ago
    The job now falls to the Writermen. They excerpt, rewrite & aggressively-SEO... so that no original, true, or subversive ideas ever rank in top 450 search results (unless wrapped in neutralizing snark). It's "SearchRank-451".
- niggler 14y ago
  the word is dystopian
- anonymous 14y ago
  Fahrenheit 451 isn't about censorship, though. People often mistake it as a book against censorship, but in reality it's a book against television. You can read more about it here http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/ http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenh... and listen to bradbury (quicktime required, sorry) here http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html Edit: Also, paper burns at 451 degrees Celsius, not Fahrenheit.
  - hawleyal 14y ago
    > censorship You're interpretation is disingenuous. Yes, the larger story is about the decay of intellect in society. However, it's a forced conversion, so that's where the censorship comes into play. > 451 degrees Celsius Your source is an extreme outlier.
deepblueocean 14y ago
This reminds me very much of the TCP Evil Bit [1]. That is, it seems like the issue of whether anybody would actually set this is essential to the question of whether or not it would work. One could even imagine that governments would want people to live in ignorance of the existence of restrictions. It's 100% the Ethan Zuckerman Cute Cat Theory of Internet Censorship [2]. The government would rather that you have all of YouTube except the subversive content, because then you might not notice the restriction and so will learn not to care. Indeed, from the document: "The use of the 451 status code implies neither the existence nor non-existence of the resource named in the request. That is to say, it is possible that if the legal demands were removed, a request for the resource still might not succeed." That suggests to me that the author is also aware of this problem. It should be noted that Google has done an amazing job in trying to fix this problem by trying to force whole services to be blocked when that's feasible and by transparently explaining (in the UI itself!) when content is unavailable for legal reasons. Kudos to them. For that reason, I would say such an effort is worthwhile even if it won't have much impact: it's quite likely that it will help further the norm that when censorship exists it should exist transparently. That's a cause worth fighting for, even if every step is going to be a huge challenge. [1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt [2] http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-t...
- pekk 14y ago
  People will set this to indicate that they had to censor something. Obviously if you don't want the censorship to be detected, you will not use this code.
- ewbuoi 14y ago
  The FBI replaces websites it takes down with a graphic containing their logo, they might use the 451 code if it becomes standardized.
dewitt 14y ago
Discussion from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4099751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4099751
izietto 14y ago
"This request may not be serviced in the Roman Province of Judea due to the Lex Julia Majestatis, which disallows access to resources hosted on servers deemed to be operated by the People's Front of Judea." Ave Caesar, moritURI te salutant
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
c0ur7n3y 14y ago
I think if these types of messages were as jarring as possible instead discreetly displayed in the existing interface it would heighten people's awareness of these issues.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, you're right that people should be made distinctly aware when something is being censored. On the other hand, you have to be careful not to convey the sense that the user is in the wrong or frighten anyone into self-censorship by giving the impression that the user could be sold out to an oppressive regime by the service provider.
- alexwright 14y ago
  There's no reason a site couldn't serve content along with the 451 code, just as HTTP200 is served with content. In fact, that's a SHOULD in the RFC: Responses using this status code SHOULD include an explanation, in the response body, of the details of the legal demand: the party making it, the applicable legislation or regulation, and what classes of person and resource it applies to.
  - fennecfoxen 14y ago
    Or how HTTP 404 is served with content.... (e.g. http://github.com/xyzzyeieio http://github.com/xyzzyeieio - there's a good 134KB text/html with your 404 error code)
dochtman 14y ago
Mozilla is apparently using this in their AMO/Marketplace codebase: http://firefox-marketplace-api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/topics/submission.html#get--api-v1-apps-app-(int-id)|(string-slug)- http://firefox-marketplace-api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/top...
xentronium 14y ago
Already used by LiveJournal in Russia: Example: http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3712998.html http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3712998.html (slightly NSFW) — if you visit this URL from Russian IP address, you'll see something like this: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s72/sh/6e76310b-daec-454c-a66b-abf9fb366db4/43b5e2c128e0bf4c6d439f2f64b528ed/res/60f8b86d-0431-415e-8c79-d347743139bc/skitch.png https://www.evernote.com/shard/s72/sh/6e76310b-daec-454c-a66... Allegedly, this page and photos are used to propagandize suicide.
- drakeandrews 14y ago
  Warning, the link contains pictures of a man on fire.
Svip 14y ago
Damn it, not more HTTP status codes, I want 402 to work all ready!
EzGraphs 14y ago
This perhaps would top HTTP Response Code 418 "I'm a teapot" http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324
zyglobe 14y ago
China: "451 all the things"
- ttflee 14y ago
  The GFW generally works on the TCP layer, resetting the session which delivers some sensitive-keyword-containing payloads, both in and out of the boundary.
ger_phpmagazin 14y ago
The draft was published on Jan 11. Why is it relevant, today?
kumarharsh 14y ago
The most startling clause is this: The 451 status code is optional; clients cannot rely upon its use. It is possible that certain legal authorities may wish to avoid transparency, and not only demand the restriction of access to certain resources, but also avoid disclosing that the demand was made. It seems this clause, as highlighted by deepblueocean in his "TCP Evil Bit" comment, is what is most disturbing... Shouldn't it be made mandatory? Can it be made mandatory?
hawleyal 14y ago
I prefer my internet without legal interference.

202 points by johns 14y ago

At the bottom of the page, "Thanks also to Ray Bradbury." It appears they deliberately chose 451 in homage to the great Fahrenheit 451 (or more specifically, to the dystopian future presented in the book).[1] [1] http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120725/06093819827/truth-erroring-ietf-proposal-includes-new-451-censorship-error-code.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120725/06093819827/truth-...

popee 14y ago
So, when will they start burning urls?
- redblacktree 14y ago
  They're hard to set alight.
- buzzkills 14y ago
  they do it at the firewall...
- gojomo 14y ago
  The job now falls to the Writermen. They excerpt, rewrite & aggressively-SEO... so that no original, true, or subversive ideas ever rank in top 450 search results (unless wrapped in neutralizing snark). It's "SearchRank-451".
niggler 14y ago
the word is dystopian
anonymous 14y ago
Fahrenheit 451 isn't about censorship, though. People often mistake it as a book against censorship, but in reality it's a book against television. You can read more about it here http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/ http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenh... and listen to bradbury (quicktime required, sorry) here http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html http://www.raybradbury.com/at_home_clips.html Edit: Also, paper burns at 451 degrees Celsius, not Fahrenheit.
- hawleyal 14y ago
  > censorship You're interpretation is disingenuous. Yes, the larger story is about the decay of intellect in society. However, it's a forced conversion, so that's where the censorship comes into play. > 451 degrees Celsius Your source is an extreme outlier.

deepblueocean 14y ago

This reminds me very much of the TCP Evil Bit [1]. That is, it seems like the issue of whether anybody would actually set this is essential to the question of whether or not it would work. One could even imagine that governments would want people to live in ignorance of the existence of restrictions. It's 100% the Ethan Zuckerman Cute Cat Theory of Internet Censorship [2]. The government would rather that you have all of YouTube except the subversive content, because then you might not notice the restriction and so will learn not to care. Indeed, from the document: "The use of the 451 status code implies neither the existence nor non-existence of the resource named in the request. That is to say, it is possible that if the legal demands were removed, a request for the resource still might not succeed." That suggests to me that the author is also aware of this problem. It should be noted that Google has done an amazing job in trying to fix this problem by trying to force whole services to be blocked when that's feasible and by transparently explaining (in the UI itself!) when content is unavailable for legal reasons. Kudos to them. For that reason, I would say such an effort is worthwhile even if it won't have much impact: it's quite likely that it will help further the norm that when censorship exists it should exist transparently. That's a cause worth fighting for, even if every step is going to be a huge challenge. [1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt [2] http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-t...

pekk 14y ago
People will set this to indicate that they had to censor something. Obviously if you don't want the censorship to be detected, you will not use this code.
ewbuoi 14y ago
The FBI replaces websites it takes down with a graphic containing their logo, they might use the 451 code if it becomes standardized.

dewitt 14y ago

Discussion from last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4099751 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4099751

izietto 14y ago

"This request may not be serviced in the Roman Province of Judea due to the Lex Julia Majestatis, which disallows access to resources hosted on servers deemed to be operated by the People's Front of Judea." Ave Caesar, moritURI te salutant

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

c0ur7n3y 14y ago

I think if these types of messages were as jarring as possible instead discreetly displayed in the existing interface it would heighten people's awareness of these issues.

AnthonyMouse 14y ago
I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, you're right that people should be made distinctly aware when something is being censored. On the other hand, you have to be careful not to convey the sense that the user is in the wrong or frighten anyone into self-censorship by giving the impression that the user could be sold out to an oppressive regime by the service provider.
alexwright 14y ago
There's no reason a site couldn't serve content along with the 451 code, just as HTTP200 is served with content. In fact, that's a SHOULD in the RFC: Responses using this status code SHOULD include an explanation, in the response body, of the details of the legal demand: the party making it, the applicable legislation or regulation, and what classes of person and resource it applies to.
- fennecfoxen 14y ago
  Or how HTTP 404 is served with content.... (e.g. http://github.com/xyzzyeieio http://github.com/xyzzyeieio - there's a good 134KB text/html with your 404 error code)

dochtman 14y ago

Mozilla is apparently using this in their AMO/Marketplace codebase: http://firefox-marketplace-api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/topics/submission.html#get--api-v1-apps-app-(int-id)|(string-slug)- http://firefox-marketplace-api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/top...

xentronium 14y ago

Already used by LiveJournal in Russia: Example: http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3712998.html http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3712998.html (slightly NSFW) — if you visit this URL from Russian IP address, you'll see something like this: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s72/sh/6e76310b-daec-454c-a66b-abf9fb366db4/43b5e2c128e0bf4c6d439f2f64b528ed/res/60f8b86d-0431-415e-8c79-d347743139bc/skitch.png https://www.evernote.com/shard/s72/sh/6e76310b-daec-454c-a66... Allegedly, this page and photos are used to propagandize suicide.

drakeandrews 14y ago
Warning, the link contains pictures of a man on fire.

Svip 14y ago

Damn it, not more HTTP status codes, I want 402 to work all ready!

EzGraphs 14y ago

This perhaps would top HTTP Response Code 418 "I'm a teapot" http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324

zyglobe 14y ago

China: "451 all the things"

ttflee 14y ago
The GFW generally works on the TCP layer, resetting the session which delivers some sensitive-keyword-containing payloads, both in and out of the boundary.

ger_phpmagazin 14y ago

The draft was published on Jan 11. Why is it relevant, today?

kumarharsh 14y ago

The most startling clause is this: The 451 status code is optional; clients cannot rely upon its use. It is possible that certain legal authorities may wish to avoid transparency, and not only demand the restriction of access to certain resources, but also avoid disclosing that the demand was made. It seems this clause, as highlighted by deepblueocean in his "TCP Evil Bit" comment, is what is most disturbing... Shouldn't it be made mandatory? Can it be made mandatory?

hawleyal 14y ago

I prefer my internet without legal interference.