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Twitter is blocked in Turkey

236 points by aacanakin 13y ago

boolean 13y ago
Earlier today "Turkey’s Erdogan Now Says He’ll Shut Down Twitter, Too" http://time.com/32339/turkey-erdogan-twitter/ http://time.com/32339/turkey-erdogan-twitter/
- cclogg 13y ago
  Wow: “I don’t care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic.” Did he actually say that? In regards to shutting down twitter to stop a scandal? If you truly weren't responsible for w/e scandal, then wouldn't you just not care? Edit: Also that line seems perfect for a James Bond villain lol.
  - ctekin 13y ago
    He did say that. He's out of control unfortunately.
  - aytekin 13y ago
    He is really one of those James Bond villains. The sentence describes his state of mind: He is the best thing for the country, so any resistance, corruption news, and protest cannot come from people of this country. It must be a conspiracy of the west. So, by blocking twitter, he is blocking west's conspiracy. He started believing his own propaganda. The truth is people who vote for him is mostly poorer Turks, and those people don't care about twitter.
    - archagon 13y ago
      It seems there are a couple of countries with the same problem in their leadership. How the F do these people get into power?
      - theverse 13y ago
        Please don't call it leadership, it's dictatorial power.
      - randomafrican 13y ago
        Many of them actually get power-hungry while in power. Especially the ones who get elected after spending some time in the opposition under not-so-democratic regimes.
gokhan 13y ago
DNS based block at the moment, IP based one will follow for sure. Please remember that YouTube was also banned for a couple of years in the past [1]. This is related to the corruption scandal in Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan's government is trying to stop the release of leaked tapes on social media. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube#.C2.A0Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube#.C2.A0Tur...
- aalpbalkan 13y ago
  That's old. IP and URL based censorship methods (with TCP packet inspection) is in place already in Turkey. We have seen various individual URLs getting blocked related to the the bribery and corruption leaks of PM and other ministers in past few months. So don't be so hopeful. DNS is not a permanent solution, they can block it entirely just tomorrow.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- aacanakin 13y ago
  there exist a cross platform solution namely spotflux (a free vpn service). also, tor browser could be a way
  - spotflux 13y ago
    thanks for the shout-out :)
- gokhan 13y ago
  Hotspot shield, or any other VPN.
- beyti 13y ago
  you can use hotspot shield, it's also available in mobile devices. http://www.hotspotshield.com/ http://www.hotspotshield.com/
- Jugurtha 13y ago
  SSH tunneling.
- remzisenel 13y ago
  Excuse me, pasting in Turkish, trying to help out. http://i.imgur.com/DBIvTh0.png http://i.imgur.com/DBIvTh0.png
guard-of-terra 13y ago
Internet is falling apart. I think that appreciation for free speech, press and freedom of expression is lower today than it was for a long time of recent history. "They" just push and push on it and we're helpless. Not even constrained by paying it lip service. Do we still have non-violent ways to counter this and make our voice heard? Because otherwise violent ways become aspired.
- egeozcan 13y ago
  I'm getting depressed by these kind of news. My votes do not seem to change anything and I feel hopeless. I can't find anything meaningful to say and I just want to ignore the whole situation but keeping silent just feels wrong.
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    This is funny thing you mentioned because my votes never did anything ever. Victory always goes to that other default side. So much for mock democracy.
  - jliechti1 13y ago
    Don't despair completely. Not Internet related, but there are some large students going on in Taiwan right now [0] based on concerns on how a new trade agreement with China was passed. The bill was passed in a legal way, but many of the discussions around it were behind closed doors and the Taiwanese people feel that the government is no longer "representing the people." The response against has been pretty described as "unprecedented", people who are normally not interested in politics are getting involved to see how they can help. "We do not want to clash with the police...we just have to let the government know that never try to fool the people."[1] I find their vigilance inspiring. This level of spontaneous organization seems difficult to carry out in the US though. Taiwan is considerably smaller than the US, and I think that makes a large difference unfortunately. [0]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-19/taiwan-students-occupy-legislature-over-china-trade-pact-vote.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-19/taiwan-students-occ... [1]: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/taiwan-student-protests/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/taiwan-student-prot... EDIT (to respond to guard-of-terra): > "Turns out they just sit in their office and pretend nothing happens." Definitely a valid point. We shall see how long this sustains for.To clarify, when I say "getting involved" I mean many people are taking to the streets, not just armchair activism.
elwell 13y ago
Just when you think Turkey is a 1st world country...
- Nux 13y ago
  Yeah, like the UK, right?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
sentientmachine 13y ago
Imagine if government had the power to flick a switch place perfect earplugs and blinders on every human everywhere for a time for some political agenda. I wonder how far men would go (short of just killing people) to suppress the right for people to think, in order to suppress some information floating around in the public space. Would you flick that switch, to power down an entire nation of drones, just to prevent them from finding out that you did something evil? Take care you NEVER give other men the right to shut down your brain from afar. It WILL be used against you.
kayman 13y ago
sad to see sites being blocked. Can you use Tor to get around this restriction?
- bit2pixel 13y ago
  some can, the majority can't.
- transitionality 13y ago
  Technically, yes. Usability-wise, no. Most Turkish internet users are mobile-based, anyway.
  - jjh42 13y ago
    See https://guardianproject.info/apps/orbot/ https://guardianproject.info/apps/orbot/ for some easy to use Tor apps for Android.
kosso 13y ago
Many people would see this as a good thing. It's just a big site run by some American company. Amazingly, there are other ways to communicate.
- prawn 13y ago
  Maybe there are local social networks favoured by those in Turkey, but if they are blocked what are the chances the rest of the world hears about it or cares?
  - kosso 13y ago
    true
- theverse 13y ago
  Turks doesn't have fanaticism towards domestic good. It's a central communication channel that is known to run by people who seems to be fair, them being American is obviously not relevant to them.
  - kosso 13y ago
    I agree. My post was rather tongue-in-cheek actually. Call me cynical, but it just sometimes strikes me as odd how so many people around the world now rely on a company designed to make money by selling your information to communicate with the rest of the world. Especially in today's post-Snowden-revelations world. It's 'free', but that's how you 'pay'. It turns out it's a simple DNS block which setting to Google's DNS is fixing for people.
thisiswrong 13y ago
Then use Twister [1]. Twister is NSA-proof, censorship reistant, and based on the bitcoin protocol. [1] http://twister.net.co/ http://twister.net.co/
- transitionality 13y ago
  It is nontrivial to switch millions of people over to a completely new platform and reestablish the literally billions of connections among them, nor is Twister's infrastructure ready to handle the influx. For now, Twitter over VPN/TOR is the only workable solution.
bit2pixel 13y ago
Something has to be done before this sets an example for other governments. Freedom cannot be taken away from anyone.
- alkank 13y ago
  Considering the fact that I'm seeing #TwitterisblockedinTurkey as a worldwide trend despite of the ban I would say they are far from being able to take away the freedom at all. They will also probably realize that not far from now.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    The rest of the world tweeting about it doesn't mean that much to Turkish people as they won't be seeing the trend lists, and their government doesn't seem to care that the rest of the world is paying attention.
    - alkank 13y ago
      Apparently 8 or 9 of the trending topics are about the ban in Turkey too: http://imgur.com/9Etk4fd http://imgur.com/9Etk4fd
    - mrtksn 13y ago
      Actually, censorship is nothing new for Turkey so some serious portion of the population knows how to overcome it. Probably these tweets are sent mostly by Turks in Turkey :) However, this is not the whole story. The current ruling party has huge support from the uneducated and/or religious masses that may not be that informed about the technology. Since 3 months new corruption documents are leaked through twitter, which puts pressure on the PM. Just yesterday there was a phone conversation of one of the Ministers leaked and apparently the guy was mocking Islam when he was trying to look like as devoted muslim in front of the public.
izelnakri 13y ago
Reminds me of this scene from Pirates of Silicon Valley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b27Mf6wTZ3w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b27Mf6wTZ3w "It’s about power. It’s like those weird countries man where the army guys overthrow the president. The first thing that they take over is the way people communicate; radio, tv, newspapers. Information is power." Turkish army has nothing to do with this case of course.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  In this case I'm not so sure. They just say: we can take things from you, and you can't do anything about that. They'll just say that you had them "elected" - as if someone voting for them gave them rights to take what is not theirs. They're just trying to teach the young generation helplessness. You can't do anything, better learn your VPN, feel fear and don't touch politics. You're a minority anyway compared to an army of aged citizens so no point in trying. They're vote for any extortion for a small share of profits.
- darkhorn 13y ago
  Well in Turkey, the president overthrow the army guys, police, and prosecutors. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/22/turkey-military-officers-arrested http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/22/turkey-military... http://www.todayszaman.com/news-340380-120-police-officers-reassigned-in-southeastern-turkey.html http://www.todayszaman.com/news-340380-120-police-officers-r...
poulsbohemian 13y ago
I was there on business in 2010 and I said "man, this is a country on the move! We need to set up an office here." English is taught from early grades, there is good infrastructure in the western part of the country, a young, educated population with a relatively small domestic economy - great place to outsource and a bridge between europe and asia. Things have fallen apart so quickly since then - wouldn't touch it now. Hope things get back on track, as there is so much potential.
- egari 13y ago
  it was an illusion. yes i am from istanbul.
  - sunberries 13y ago
    I am from Istanbul too and I agree on this. Only 3-4 of the larger cities look like they're more modern.
    - theverse 13y ago
      Istanbul is modern? Sorry but Istanbul is a shithole when compared to some of the other Turkish western coast cities. What makes it interesting in the global scale is the level of its diversity. An ex Istanbul resident.
      - sunberries 13y ago
        I did say it was "more modern". I lived there for 22 years as a minority and have been treated like an animal in the zoo, and don't think I'll ever live in Turkey again.
- ebiester 13y ago
  It still is, so long as this is a momentary blip. Corruption happens everywhere. By and large, commerce hasn't been affected. What I wouldn't do is touch anything with media around there. Note: I lived there for 8 months in 2012, and am partnered to a Turk.
berkay 13y ago
Many sites including Youtube did get blocked in the past, but safe to say this one is different. It is an explicit attempt to silence non-traditional media by the government. They have been working on controlling the traditional media (TV, newspapers, etc.) for a long time. Recently, social media has been making a bigger impact, hence the explicit play. Current administration sees itself in an existential struggle and willing to do anything to stay in power. The model that they aspire seems to have switched from the west to Russia/China. Whether they will be able to succeed in silencing social media will have implications beyond Turkey.
- etunescafe 13y ago
  I think you are absolutely right.
aurora72 13y ago
For the time being, Twitter is accessable from within Turkey using the DNS of the biggest ISPs of Turkey, 195.175.39.39
- mrtksn 13y ago
  nope, unfortunately it's just your DNS cache.
devindotcom 13y ago
I just tried pinging twitter with this tool, the turkey server seems to work: http://cloudmonitor.ca.com/en/ping.php?vtt=1395356295&varghost=twitter.com&vhost=_&vaction=ping&ping=start http://cloudmonitor.ca.com/en/ping.php?vtt=1395356295&vargho... but china, egypt, and interestingly panama don't. I'd love to report on this but it's hard to prove this kind of thing. any ideas? (i'm also contacting twitter) edit: here's my story - http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-blocked-nationwide-turkey-reports-n58276 http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-blocked-nat... please let me know if you see anything wrong. (we're aware of the turkish character issues...sigh)
- mrtksn 13y ago
  Hi, The method for blocking websites in Turkey is through ISP's DNS servers. So when you don't use a Turkish ISP DNS server you are all good with most of the blocked sites. Some websites, especially popular porn sites are blocked through the IP. In such cases you need a VPN or proxy. The tool you are using to check Twitter servers probably don't use a Turkish DNS server. If you don't believe, check the website status from the Informational Technology and Communication presidency of Turkey website: http://eekg.tib.gov.tr/ http://eekg.tib.gov.tr/ The court orders are displayed both in English and Turkish.
  - devindotcom 13y ago
    Thanks for the information, I'll try to include this in my report.
    - mrtksn 13y ago
      You are welcome. If you have any questions feel free to ask, you can reach me by twitter too: @mrtksn this is how the DNS Look-up for twitter looks like at the moment: http://i.imgur.com/yKmmDYc.jpg http://i.imgur.com/yKmmDYc.jpg I used TTNET's DNS server for this. It's the biggest ISP in the country.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
syscortech 13y ago
We covered it, please share and help the users in Turkey. http://www.syscortech.net/twitter-is-blocked-in-turkey/ http://www.syscortech.net/twitter-is-blocked-in-turkey/
makmanalp 13y ago
Background info: This is hypothesized to be a reaction to a series of audio recordings that were anonymously released over time. These were ridiculously damning, clearly someone is tapping phones without anyone else's knowledge. Previously: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/turkish-pm-corruption-youtube-recep-tayyip-erdogan http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/turkish-pm-corr... http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/iw/contents/articles/originals/2014/02/erdogan-corruption-audio-bilal-graft-probe-police-money.html http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/iw/contents/articles/origina... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turk... Some highlights from the "alleged" recordings so far: - PM calling to get news about an opposing party removed from a TV channel multiple times - Modifying political poll results to manipulate public opinion - Getting people of opposing opinions fired - Buying a large paper shredder to destroy documents - PM calling son to ask how much money there is at home, son replies saying about 1 trillion, then switches to 3-5 kurush (cents in turkish). - PM calling son to say "they're raiding the houses, zero out the money". Son says there's only 30 million euros left. - Call to order the judges to be fixed, and says that a specific person is to be imprisoned. - Trying to manipulate who goes on the supreme court. - Says "ignore the prosecutor who's running the corruption investigations". Orders documents ripped up. (source: http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yazarlar/25981622.asp http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yazarlar/25981622.asp) The official reason for the shutdown is that there were sexual photos of some poor citizen released on twitter against her will, and she complained but twitter refused to take them down. So they decided to shut down the entire website. Yeah, right. Of course this is ominous that at the end of this month, the local elections will take place. No coincidence. It's surreal how all this is going down. It's like watching a conspiracy theory movie. Blatant shills everywhere, media manipulation abounds, blatant lies heard on TV from the horse's mouth. We were all skeptical already, it's inevitable when you live in a third world country for years, but wow. When you hear the insiders actually talking to each other, it's a whole new level. more news on this specific event: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-blocks-twitter-after-erdogan-vowed-eradication.aspx?pageID=238&nID=63884&NewsCatID=338 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-blocks-twitter-after... http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/03/turkey-erdogan-threatens-ban-twitter-2014320165956732467.html http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/03/turkey-erdogan-... Related old post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7189577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7189577 edit: Erdogan stated a few days ago that he didn't care what the world thought, and he would eradicate twitter. He said "how dare they listen to our encrypted phone conversations". It's expected that on the 25th, something huge is going to be released that might sway the elections bigtime. Whoever is posting these are doing it slowly and deliberately, a few days at a time, building up anticipation. So people think that twitter getting shut down is probably related to this. edit2: All recordings were put on youtube by someone: https://www.youtube.com/user/haramzadeler333 https://www.youtube.com/user/haramzadeler333
nighthawk24 13y ago
^ Requesting namecoin based app
tomphoolery 13y ago
This is so ridiculous. As if someone can't just set up a domain themselves and release the shit.
- transitionality 13y ago
  How do you promote the domain? That's the real question. Twitter makes it quick, effortless and free to disseminate really interesting information. It's slower, more cumbersome, possibly more expensive with other methods, even with something like email.
  - tatar 13y ago
    I think this is why we need an open source twitter / equivalent. Just to enable people to communicate even in local networks.
alkank 13y ago
Irony: Twitter ban being spread to the world via Twitter itself. A perfect example of how powerful the internet is despite of the governments.
mullingitover 13y ago
Ah, blocking twitter, the last refuge of despots[1]. http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/25/twitter-blocked-egypt/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/25/twitter-blocked-egypt/
shn 13y ago
There are two sides of the coin. 1) In this day and age shutting down Twitter wholesale is simply a silly and undemocratic move. Information can not be blocked and will find its way around anyway. Like many people I am against it. 2) There is a blatant violation of personal rights of people by fabricated phone-tapes. You take it to the court and court decides that these are illegal, and ask the service provider (in this case Twitter) to take down those specific twits. They don't comply. What do you do? Say there's a link for a fabricated phone conversation of Obama betraying the country disseminated using Twitter. The administration take it to the court and win the legal battle. Could Twitter afford not to comply? Can this happen? This is the gist of the problem people are having over there.
- shn 13y ago
  So far this comment got downvoted twice. I bet those who downvote are Turkish. They are not explaining why did they downvote. They are as good as those that blocked Twitter in Turkey.
  - mrtksn 13y ago
    I've down voted you because you claim that the leaked phone conversations are fabricated. few things about it: 1) some of the people involved accepted the authenticity of these recordings(some directly, some logically) 2) the recordings that were denied being authentic were investigated by audio forensic experts and they reported that these are real. 3) the pro-government media tried to scam US based audio studios to get reports to falsify these recordings. for an example, the mainstream pro-akp media used a report by Kaleidoscope Sound which was later denied by the studio. You can read their public statement here: https://www.facebook.com/KaleidoscopeSound https://www.facebook.com/KaleidoscopeSound 4) Other evidence brought to light by the opposition party supports the authenticity of these recordings. 5) These recordings are part of the legal prosecution. Though there were some recordings that were made illegally, the fact that the ruling party actively blocked the legal prosecution lives no choice for the public to learn about the accusations from the whistleblower. If the legal process was not blocked it would have been better to wait for the outcome of the prosecution, but in this case we don't have choice.
cturhan 13y ago
Unfortunately Erdogan is out of control, they use DNS based blocking. I'm using a VPN service so I can access Twitter, Youtube and other services easily but in our country probably 0.01% has VPN so this is serious.
drawkbox 13y ago
Lots of things happening around the Black Sea these days. Sochi Olympics, Crimea and now Turkey.
midas007 13y ago
Crucial services that can be choked off need to be made seamlessly (zero thinking UX) available via overlay networks (tor, etc). IOW, if twitter is blocked, there should be a browser plugin / standard thing that fires itself up and automatically reconnects through said overlay network. Because right now, a single domain is a SPoF that govts can flick a switch and neuter most of their populace's communication.
midas007 13y ago
Does anyone know how it's currently blocked? twitter IP's, BGP or DNS?
- bdd 13y ago
  Implemented via DNS, for now... You can see the court orders about sites from TIB's (The Presidency of Telecommunication) query site. http://eekg.tib.gov.tr/ http://eekg.tib.gov.tr/ It's a system where every ISP with a license has to abide. They download a list of domains that needs to be forwarded to a server operated by TIB to explain the reason of access blocking. They add these to their recursive DNS servers so traffic goes there. People using another DNS server other than their ISP's (e.g. Google Public DNS, OpenDNS, etc.) are currently able to access.
  - midas007 13y ago
    Thanks. Just confirmed through channels also. Highly recommended that people, regardless of location, use encrypted DNS like OpenDNS to prevent monitoring, malicious in-flight modifications and DNS-based censorship.
- mrtksn 13y ago
  Right now Turkish ISP's block twitter through their DNS. People using OpenDNS or Google DNS, or any other DNS service other than Turkish ISP's can access Twitter. However it's expected to see Twitter's IP's blocked anytime soon. In Turkey some websites, especially porn websites are also blocked by IP. Here is the DNS look-up result: http://i.imgur.com/yKmmDYc.jpg http://i.imgur.com/yKmmDYc.jpg
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
qwerta 13y ago
Bullshit. I was tweeting from Istanbul just 3 days ago.
- chippy 13y ago
  This is an interesting comment. I think comments similar to this should be looked at and at least the message evaluated and at most the user profile examined. I may start browsing comments which have been downvoted the most to create a list on political-heavy threads. However it may be difficult to determine whether the user is a shill or just stupid.
kendall__ 13y ago
Sitting in Ataturk airport right now and twitter is working fine.
- inanov 13y ago
  sorry then, we are mistaken.
kyriakos 13y ago
turkey made a lot of progress recently. too bad it will all go down the drain like this.
mertdumenci 13y ago
I'm from Istanbul, and I love how this block makes my pro-govt friends say "Why did they do this?". Twitter is (was?) used extensively in Turkey, and I feel like this block will end up with the government shooting itself in the foot by showing their supporters how sad the things they do are. There's no explanation for this block, and there can't ever be.
enscr 13y ago
Twitter has been playing a pivotal role in connecting people and getting the word out via an unbiased medium. The effect of twitter has been phenomenal over the past few years in countries that have undergone political revolution. Much of the reality that the citizens need to know are blacked out by mainstream media because it's controlled by the government & corporations who are hand in glove. Unfortunately, many countries have resorted to a simple fix of policing twitter. Second unfortunate thing is that twitter is still restricted to the tech savvy crowd. There's still a sizable population outside third world that don't know what it is & how to use it. But as long as we have un-policed social media tools, we might see large scale cleaning in the coming decades.
rstml 13y ago
The real question is why Erdogan took risk an blocked Twitter just 10 days before elections? The only reason I see is this Twitter account with almost 500.000 followers who is revealing government corruption: https://twitter.com/FuatAvni https://twitter.com/FuatAvni For English version of his tweets see: https://twitter.com/FuatAvniEng https://twitter.com/FuatAvniEng (usually translation is delayed 1-2 weeks)
etunescafe 13y ago
This is really a shocking news for all the twitter users from Turkey. They should raise voice against it. by http://www.etunescafe.com http://www.etunescafe.com

236 points by aacanakin 13y ago

Earlier today "Turkey’s Erdogan Now Says He’ll Shut Down Twitter, Too" http://time.com/32339/turkey-erdogan-twitter/ http://time.com/32339/turkey-erdogan-twitter/

cclogg 13y ago
Wow: “I don’t care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic.” Did he actually say that? In regards to shutting down twitter to stop a scandal? If you truly weren't responsible for w/e scandal, then wouldn't you just not care? Edit: Also that line seems perfect for a James Bond villain lol.
- ctekin 13y ago
  He did say that. He's out of control unfortunately.
- aytekin 13y ago
  He is really one of those James Bond villains. The sentence describes his state of mind: He is the best thing for the country, so any resistance, corruption news, and protest cannot come from people of this country. It must be a conspiracy of the west. So, by blocking twitter, he is blocking west's conspiracy. He started believing his own propaganda. The truth is people who vote for him is mostly poorer Turks, and those people don't care about twitter.
  - archagon 13y ago
    It seems there are a couple of countries with the same problem in their leadership. How the F do these people get into power?
    - theverse 13y ago
      Please don't call it leadership, it's dictatorial power.
    - randomafrican 13y ago
      Many of them actually get power-hungry while in power. Especially the ones who get elected after spending some time in the opposition under not-so-democratic regimes.

gokhan 13y ago

DNS based block at the moment, IP based one will follow for sure. Please remember that YouTube was also banned for a couple of years in the past [1]. This is related to the corruption scandal in Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan's government is trying to stop the release of leaked tapes on social media. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube#.C2.A0Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube#.C2.A0Tur...

aalpbalkan 13y ago
That's old. IP and URL based censorship methods (with TCP packet inspection) is in place already in Turkey. We have seen various individual URLs getting blocked related to the the bribery and corruption leaks of PM and other ministers in past few months. So don't be so hopeful. DNS is not a permanent solution, they can block it entirely just tomorrow.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

aacanakin 13y ago
there exist a cross platform solution namely spotflux (a free vpn service). also, tor browser could be a way
- spotflux 13y ago
  thanks for the shout-out :)
gokhan 13y ago
Hotspot shield, or any other VPN.
beyti 13y ago
you can use hotspot shield, it's also available in mobile devices. http://www.hotspotshield.com/ http://www.hotspotshield.com/
Jugurtha 13y ago
SSH tunneling.
remzisenel 13y ago
Excuse me, pasting in Turkish, trying to help out. http://i.imgur.com/DBIvTh0.png http://i.imgur.com/DBIvTh0.png

guard-of-terra 13y ago

Internet is falling apart. I think that appreciation for free speech, press and freedom of expression is lower today than it was for a long time of recent history. "They" just push and push on it and we're helpless. Not even constrained by paying it lip service. Do we still have non-violent ways to counter this and make our voice heard? Because otherwise violent ways become aspired.

egeozcan 13y ago
I'm getting depressed by these kind of news. My votes do not seem to change anything and I feel hopeless. I can't find anything meaningful to say and I just want to ignore the whole situation but keeping silent just feels wrong.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  This is funny thing you mentioned because my votes never did anything ever. Victory always goes to that other default side. So much for mock democracy.
- jliechti1 13y ago
  Don't despair completely. Not Internet related, but there are some large students going on in Taiwan right now [0] based on concerns on how a new trade agreement with China was passed. The bill was passed in a legal way, but many of the discussions around it were behind closed doors and the Taiwanese people feel that the government is no longer "representing the people." The response against has been pretty described as "unprecedented", people who are normally not interested in politics are getting involved to see how they can help. "We do not want to clash with the police...we just have to let the government know that never try to fool the people."[1] I find their vigilance inspiring. This level of spontaneous organization seems difficult to carry out in the US though. Taiwan is considerably smaller than the US, and I think that makes a large difference unfortunately. [0]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-19/taiwan-students-occupy-legislature-over-china-trade-pact-vote.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-19/taiwan-students-occ... [1]: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/taiwan-student-protests/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/taiwan-student-prot... EDIT (to respond to guard-of-terra): > "Turns out they just sit in their office and pretend nothing happens." Definitely a valid point. We shall see how long this sustains for.To clarify, when I say "getting involved" I mean many people are taking to the streets, not just armchair activism.

elwell 13y ago

Just when you think Turkey is a 1st world country...

Nux 13y ago
Yeah, like the UK, right?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

sentientmachine 13y ago

Imagine if government had the power to flick a switch place perfect earplugs and blinders on every human everywhere for a time for some political agenda. I wonder how far men would go (short of just killing people) to suppress the right for people to think, in order to suppress some information floating around in the public space. Would you flick that switch, to power down an entire nation of drones, just to prevent them from finding out that you did something evil? Take care you NEVER give other men the right to shut down your brain from afar. It WILL be used against you.

kayman 13y ago

sad to see sites being blocked. Can you use Tor to get around this restriction?

bit2pixel 13y ago
some can, the majority can't.
transitionality 13y ago
Technically, yes. Usability-wise, no. Most Turkish internet users are mobile-based, anyway.
- jjh42 13y ago
  See https://guardianproject.info/apps/orbot/ https://guardianproject.info/apps/orbot/ for some easy to use Tor apps for Android.

kosso 13y ago

Many people would see this as a good thing. It's just a big site run by some American company. Amazingly, there are other ways to communicate.

prawn 13y ago
Maybe there are local social networks favoured by those in Turkey, but if they are blocked what are the chances the rest of the world hears about it or cares?
- kosso 13y ago
  true
theverse 13y ago
Turks doesn't have fanaticism towards domestic good. It's a central communication channel that is known to run by people who seems to be fair, them being American is obviously not relevant to them.
- kosso 13y ago
  I agree. My post was rather tongue-in-cheek actually. Call me cynical, but it just sometimes strikes me as odd how so many people around the world now rely on a company designed to make money by selling your information to communicate with the rest of the world. Especially in today's post-Snowden-revelations world. It's 'free', but that's how you 'pay'. It turns out it's a simple DNS block which setting to Google's DNS is fixing for people.

thisiswrong 13y ago

Then use Twister [1]. Twister is NSA-proof, censorship reistant, and based on the bitcoin protocol. [1] http://twister.net.co/ http://twister.net.co/

transitionality 13y ago
It is nontrivial to switch millions of people over to a completely new platform and reestablish the literally billions of connections among them, nor is Twister's infrastructure ready to handle the influx. For now, Twitter over VPN/TOR is the only workable solution.

bit2pixel 13y ago

Something has to be done before this sets an example for other governments. Freedom cannot be taken away from anyone.

alkank 13y ago
Considering the fact that I'm seeing #TwitterisblockedinTurkey as a worldwide trend despite of the ban I would say they are far from being able to take away the freedom at all. They will also probably realize that not far from now.
- corin_ 13y ago
  The rest of the world tweeting about it doesn't mean that much to Turkish people as they won't be seeing the trend lists, and their government doesn't seem to care that the rest of the world is paying attention.
  - alkank 13y ago
    Apparently 8 or 9 of the trending topics are about the ban in Turkey too: http://imgur.com/9Etk4fd http://imgur.com/9Etk4fd
  - mrtksn 13y ago
    Actually, censorship is nothing new for Turkey so some serious portion of the population knows how to overcome it. Probably these tweets are sent mostly by Turks in Turkey :) However, this is not the whole story. The current ruling party has huge support from the uneducated and/or religious masses that may not be that informed about the technology. Since 3 months new corruption documents are leaked through twitter, which puts pressure on the PM. Just yesterday there was a phone conversation of one of the Ministers leaked and apparently the guy was mocking Islam when he was trying to look like as devoted muslim in front of the public.

izelnakri 13y ago

Reminds me of this scene from Pirates of Silicon Valley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b27Mf6wTZ3w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b27Mf6wTZ3w "It’s about power. It’s like those weird countries man where the army guys overthrow the president. The first thing that they take over is the way people communicate; radio, tv, newspapers. Information is power." Turkish army has nothing to do with this case of course.

guard-of-terra 13y ago
In this case I'm not so sure. They just say: we can take things from you, and you can't do anything about that. They'll just say that you had them "elected" - as if someone voting for them gave them rights to take what is not theirs. They're just trying to teach the young generation helplessness. You can't do anything, better learn your VPN, feel fear and don't touch politics. You're a minority anyway compared to an army of aged citizens so no point in trying. They're vote for any extortion for a small share of profits.
darkhorn 13y ago
Well in Turkey, the president overthrow the army guys, police, and prosecutors. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/22/turkey-military-officers-arrested http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/22/turkey-military... http://www.todayszaman.com/news-340380-120-police-officers-reassigned-in-southeastern-turkey.html http://www.todayszaman.com/news-340380-120-police-officers-r...

poulsbohemian 13y ago

I was there on business in 2010 and I said "man, this is a country on the move! We need to set up an office here." English is taught from early grades, there is good infrastructure in the western part of the country, a young, educated population with a relatively small domestic economy - great place to outsource and a bridge between europe and asia. Things have fallen apart so quickly since then - wouldn't touch it now. Hope things get back on track, as there is so much potential.

egari 13y ago
it was an illusion. yes i am from istanbul.
- sunberries 13y ago
  I am from Istanbul too and I agree on this. Only 3-4 of the larger cities look like they're more modern.
  - theverse 13y ago
    Istanbul is modern? Sorry but Istanbul is a shithole when compared to some of the other Turkish western coast cities. What makes it interesting in the global scale is the level of its diversity. An ex Istanbul resident.
    - sunberries 13y ago
      I did say it was "more modern". I lived there for 22 years as a minority and have been treated like an animal in the zoo, and don't think I'll ever live in Turkey again.
ebiester 13y ago
It still is, so long as this is a momentary blip. Corruption happens everywhere. By and large, commerce hasn't been affected. What I wouldn't do is touch anything with media around there. Note: I lived there for 8 months in 2012, and am partnered to a Turk.

berkay 13y ago

Many sites including Youtube did get blocked in the past, but safe to say this one is different. It is an explicit attempt to silence non-traditional media by the government. They have been working on controlling the traditional media (TV, newspapers, etc.) for a long time. Recently, social media has been making a bigger impact, hence the explicit play. Current administration sees itself in an existential struggle and willing to do anything to stay in power. The model that they aspire seems to have switched from the west to Russia/China. Whether they will be able to succeed in silencing social media will have implications beyond Turkey.

etunescafe 13y ago
I think you are absolutely right.

aurora72 13y ago

For the time being, Twitter is accessable from within Turkey using the DNS of the biggest ISPs of Turkey, 195.175.39.39

mrtksn 13y ago
nope, unfortunately it's just your DNS cache.

devindotcom 13y ago

I just tried pinging twitter with this tool, the turkey server seems to work: http://cloudmonitor.ca.com/en/ping.php?vtt=1395356295&varghost=twitter.com&vhost=_&vaction=ping&ping=start http://cloudmonitor.ca.com/en/ping.php?vtt=1395356295&vargho... but china, egypt, and interestingly panama don't. I'd love to report on this but it's hard to prove this kind of thing. any ideas? (i'm also contacting twitter) edit: here's my story - http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-blocked-nationwide-turkey-reports-n58276 http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-blocked-nat... please let me know if you see anything wrong. (we're aware of the turkish character issues...sigh)

mrtksn 13y ago
Hi, The method for blocking websites in Turkey is through ISP's DNS servers. So when you don't use a Turkish ISP DNS server you are all good with most of the blocked sites. Some websites, especially popular porn sites are blocked through the IP. In such cases you need a VPN or proxy. The tool you are using to check Twitter servers probably don't use a Turkish DNS server. If you don't believe, check the website status from the Informational Technology and Communication presidency of Turkey website: http://eekg.tib.gov.tr/ http://eekg.tib.gov.tr/ The court orders are displayed both in English and Turkish.
- devindotcom 13y ago
  Thanks for the information, I'll try to include this in my report.
  - mrtksn 13y ago
    You are welcome. If you have any questions feel free to ask, you can reach me by twitter too: @mrtksn this is how the DNS Look-up for twitter looks like at the moment: http://i.imgur.com/yKmmDYc.jpg http://i.imgur.com/yKmmDYc.jpg I used TTNET's DNS server for this. It's the biggest ISP in the country.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]

syscortech 13y ago

We covered it, please share and help the users in Turkey. http://www.syscortech.net/twitter-is-blocked-in-turkey/ http://www.syscortech.net/twitter-is-blocked-in-turkey/

makmanalp 13y ago

Background info: This is hypothesized to be a reaction to a series of audio recordings that were anonymously released over time. These were ridiculously damning, clearly someone is tapping phones without anyone else's knowledge. Previously: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/turkish-pm-corruption-youtube-recep-tayyip-erdogan http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/turkish-pm-corr... http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/iw/contents/articles/originals/2014/02/erdogan-corruption-audio-bilal-graft-probe-police-money.html http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/iw/contents/articles/origina... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turk... Some highlights from the "alleged" recordings so far: - PM calling to get news about an opposing party removed from a TV channel multiple times - Modifying political poll results to manipulate public opinion - Getting people of opposing opinions fired - Buying a large paper shredder to destroy documents - PM calling son to ask how much money there is at home, son replies saying about 1 trillion, then switches to 3-5 kurush (cents in turkish). - PM calling son to say "they're raiding the houses, zero out the money". Son says there's only 30 million euros left. - Call to order the judges to be fixed, and says that a specific person is to be imprisoned. - Trying to manipulate who goes on the supreme court. - Says "ignore the prosecutor who's running the corruption investigations". Orders documents ripped up. (source: http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yazarlar/25981622.asp http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yazarlar/25981622.asp) The official reason for the shutdown is that there were sexual photos of some poor citizen released on twitter against her will, and she complained but twitter refused to take them down. So they decided to shut down the entire website. Yeah, right. Of course this is ominous that at the end of this month, the local elections will take place. No coincidence. It's surreal how all this is going down. It's like watching a conspiracy theory movie. Blatant shills everywhere, media manipulation abounds, blatant lies heard on TV from the horse's mouth. We were all skeptical already, it's inevitable when you live in a third world country for years, but wow. When you hear the insiders actually talking to each other, it's a whole new level. more news on this specific event: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-blocks-twitter-after-erdogan-vowed-eradication.aspx?pageID=238&nID=63884&NewsCatID=338 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-blocks-twitter-after... http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/03/turkey-erdogan-threatens-ban-twitter-2014320165956732467.html http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/03/turkey-erdogan-... Related old post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7189577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7189577 edit: Erdogan stated a few days ago that he didn't care what the world thought, and he would eradicate twitter. He said "how dare they listen to our encrypted phone conversations". It's expected that on the 25th, something huge is going to be released that might sway the elections bigtime. Whoever is posting these are doing it slowly and deliberately, a few days at a time, building up anticipation. So people think that twitter getting shut down is probably related to this. edit2: All recordings were put on youtube by someone: https://www.youtube.com/user/haramzadeler333 https://www.youtube.com/user/haramzadeler333

nighthawk24 13y ago

^ Requesting namecoin based app

tomphoolery 13y ago

This is so ridiculous. As if someone can't just set up a domain themselves and release the shit.

transitionality 13y ago
How do you promote the domain? That's the real question. Twitter makes it quick, effortless and free to disseminate really interesting information. It's slower, more cumbersome, possibly more expensive with other methods, even with something like email.
- tatar 13y ago
  I think this is why we need an open source twitter / equivalent. Just to enable people to communicate even in local networks.

alkank 13y ago

Irony: Twitter ban being spread to the world via Twitter itself. A perfect example of how powerful the internet is despite of the governments.

mullingitover 13y ago

Ah, blocking twitter, the last refuge of despots[1]. http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/25/twitter-blocked-egypt/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/25/twitter-blocked-egypt/

shn 13y ago

There are two sides of the coin. 1) In this day and age shutting down Twitter wholesale is simply a silly and undemocratic move. Information can not be blocked and will find its way around anyway. Like many people I am against it. 2) There is a blatant violation of personal rights of people by fabricated phone-tapes. You take it to the court and court decides that these are illegal, and ask the service provider (in this case Twitter) to take down those specific twits. They don't comply. What do you do? Say there's a link for a fabricated phone conversation of Obama betraying the country disseminated using Twitter. The administration take it to the court and win the legal battle. Could Twitter afford not to comply? Can this happen? This is the gist of the problem people are having over there.

shn 13y ago
So far this comment got downvoted twice. I bet those who downvote are Turkish. They are not explaining why did they downvote. They are as good as those that blocked Twitter in Turkey.
- mrtksn 13y ago
  I've down voted you because you claim that the leaked phone conversations are fabricated. few things about it: 1) some of the people involved accepted the authenticity of these recordings(some directly, some logically) 2) the recordings that were denied being authentic were investigated by audio forensic experts and they reported that these are real. 3) the pro-government media tried to scam US based audio studios to get reports to falsify these recordings. for an example, the mainstream pro-akp media used a report by Kaleidoscope Sound which was later denied by the studio. You can read their public statement here: https://www.facebook.com/KaleidoscopeSound https://www.facebook.com/KaleidoscopeSound 4) Other evidence brought to light by the opposition party supports the authenticity of these recordings. 5) These recordings are part of the legal prosecution. Though there were some recordings that were made illegally, the fact that the ruling party actively blocked the legal prosecution lives no choice for the public to learn about the accusations from the whistleblower. If the legal process was not blocked it would have been better to wait for the outcome of the prosecution, but in this case we don't have choice.

cturhan 13y ago

Unfortunately Erdogan is out of control, they use DNS based blocking. I'm using a VPN service so I can access Twitter, Youtube and other services easily but in our country probably 0.01% has VPN so this is serious.

drawkbox 13y ago

Lots of things happening around the Black Sea these days. Sochi Olympics, Crimea and now Turkey.

midas007 13y ago

Crucial services that can be choked off need to be made seamlessly (zero thinking UX) available via overlay networks (tor, etc). IOW, if twitter is blocked, there should be a browser plugin / standard thing that fires itself up and automatically reconnects through said overlay network. Because right now, a single domain is a SPoF that govts can flick a switch and neuter most of their populace's communication.

midas007 13y ago

Does anyone know how it's currently blocked? twitter IP's, BGP or DNS?

bdd 13y ago
Implemented via DNS, for now... You can see the court orders about sites from TIB's (The Presidency of Telecommunication) query site. http://eekg.tib.gov.tr/ http://eekg.tib.gov.tr/ It's a system where every ISP with a license has to abide. They download a list of domains that needs to be forwarded to a server operated by TIB to explain the reason of access blocking. They add these to their recursive DNS servers so traffic goes there. People using another DNS server other than their ISP's (e.g. Google Public DNS, OpenDNS, etc.) are currently able to access.
- midas007 13y ago
  Thanks. Just confirmed through channels also. Highly recommended that people, regardless of location, use encrypted DNS like OpenDNS to prevent monitoring, malicious in-flight modifications and DNS-based censorship.
mrtksn 13y ago
Right now Turkish ISP's block twitter through their DNS. People using OpenDNS or Google DNS, or any other DNS service other than Turkish ISP's can access Twitter. However it's expected to see Twitter's IP's blocked anytime soon. In Turkey some websites, especially porn websites are also blocked by IP. Here is the DNS look-up result: http://i.imgur.com/yKmmDYc.jpg http://i.imgur.com/yKmmDYc.jpg

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

qwerta 13y ago

Bullshit. I was tweeting from Istanbul just 3 days ago.

chippy 13y ago
This is an interesting comment. I think comments similar to this should be looked at and at least the message evaluated and at most the user profile examined. I may start browsing comments which have been downvoted the most to create a list on political-heavy threads. However it may be difficult to determine whether the user is a shill or just stupid.

kendall__ 13y ago

Sitting in Ataturk airport right now and twitter is working fine.

inanov 13y ago
sorry then, we are mistaken.

kyriakos 13y ago

turkey made a lot of progress recently. too bad it will all go down the drain like this.

mertdumenci 13y ago

I'm from Istanbul, and I love how this block makes my pro-govt friends say "Why did they do this?". Twitter is (was?) used extensively in Turkey, and I feel like this block will end up with the government shooting itself in the foot by showing their supporters how sad the things they do are. There's no explanation for this block, and there can't ever be.

enscr 13y ago

Twitter has been playing a pivotal role in connecting people and getting the word out via an unbiased medium. The effect of twitter has been phenomenal over the past few years in countries that have undergone political revolution. Much of the reality that the citizens need to know are blacked out by mainstream media because it's controlled by the government & corporations who are hand in glove. Unfortunately, many countries have resorted to a simple fix of policing twitter. Second unfortunate thing is that twitter is still restricted to the tech savvy crowd. There's still a sizable population outside third world that don't know what it is & how to use it. But as long as we have un-policed social media tools, we might see large scale cleaning in the coming decades.

rstml 13y ago

The real question is why Erdogan took risk an blocked Twitter just 10 days before elections? The only reason I see is this Twitter account with almost 500.000 followers who is revealing government corruption: https://twitter.com/FuatAvni https://twitter.com/FuatAvni For English version of his tweets see: https://twitter.com/FuatAvniEng https://twitter.com/FuatAvniEng (usually translation is delayed 1-2 weeks)

etunescafe 13y ago

This is really a shocking news for all the twitter users from Turkey. They should raise voice against it. by http://www.etunescafe.com http://www.etunescafe.com