A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Blocked websites

Keith Parkins | 18.08.2009 16:33 | Other Press | Repression | Technology

Hampshire County Council has of this week blocked access to bit.ly on the grounds that the website is malicious!

Blocking of websites by Hampshire County Council is is getting to be more and more of a problem, blanket blocking of websites without rhyme nor reason. As library users are finding, censorship of the net is getting worse and worse. There is total ban on Google images!

Monday bit.ly was blocked on the grounds that it is a malicious website. It is not a malicious website, it is a url shortening service. All it does is reduce a long web address to a shorter web address. If you are a member, it also provides access statistics. Click on the short url and you are redirected to the original url.

http://bit.ly

http://bit.ly/Czlq1

By blocking access to this website, at a stroke twitter has been rendered useless, a large part of the net has been blocked off.

http://twitter.com/keithpp

http://twitter.com/campaigncc

http://twitter.com/withouthotair

http://twitter.com/ecointernet

By calling the website malicious, HCC has opened itself up to a very expensive defamation case.

A useful plug in for firefox is provided by bit.ly that shows where a link goes before the user goes there.

If bit.ly is blocked, it begs the question, are other such websites blocked?

http://tinyurl.com

Cambridge Professor David MacKay in his excellent book Sustainable Energy uses these tiny urls for his references, in order that they may easily be embedded in the text. Is his book to be rendered unreadable?

'The text also contains pointers to web resources. When a web-pointer is monstrously long, I've used the TinyURL service, and put the tiny code in the text like this – [yh8xse] – and the full pointer at the end of the book on page 344. yh8xse is a shorthand for a tiny URL, in this case:

http://tinyurl.com/yh8xse. A complete list of all the URLs in this book is provided at

http://tinyurl.com/yh8xse.'

Keith Parkins
Homepage: http://twitter.com/keithpp

Comments

Hide the following 12 comments

Well this is just one of many examples

18.08.2009 18:14

This sort of thing is happening more and more. Goverments, both central and local are understanding that a free uncensored internet is the single biggest threat to their power. Sadly most activists are stuck in the past where this is concerned and as such are doing nothing to resist.

Anonymous

But ...

19.08.2009 07:40

no one's trying to censor the internet. Hampshire Council is allowed to do whatever it likes with its own computers. Don't like it - don't use them.

ada

but but but

19.08.2009 09:17

hampshire council own nothing.

everything belongs to the people, hampshire council is run by and on behalf of the people.

the people want to use their computers ... sometimes, even, to keep tags on the likes of hampshire council, who want to stop people from using their own computers for this type of thing.

are you saying their 'right' to control the peoples computers is greater than the peoples right to control hampshire council?

if so [insert abuse here]

mild manered

Deep waters here ...

19.08.2009 10:16

Local and national government is for the people, by the people etc, and the government makes all sorts of regulations about what you can and can't do. If you don't like a particular policy or regulation, then there's no point in coming onto Indymedia and whinging about it. What does Mr Parkin expect you and I to do about it? If he wants to whinge, then let him whinge at is elected representatives. If he gets no joy from them, he's quite entitled to vote for someone else.

ada

Shouldn't be a problem.

19.08.2009 11:26

Assuming you can plug a flash drive into the computer you want to use you shouldn't have a problem bypassing internet censorship. From an uncensored computer go to

http://sourceforge.net/ and download Portable Tor onto a flash drive. Then go to

http://portableapps.com/ and download Portable Firefox. Launch Portable Firefox. Go to

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ and download the Torbutton extension. Configure Firefox to run via the Tor network and that is it. Go back to the censored computer, plug in your flash drive, launch Portable Tor then launch Portable Firefox and away you go.

Ah!

19.08.2009 11:33

I see, a political nihilist.

What's the point of you coming on here whining about us coming on here whining about ...?

Bored of you.

Dewy Decimal

Just get the internet at home?

19.08.2009 22:57

Most people have broadband surely.

mike

public libraries

20.08.2009 14:11

If a private company is blocking access, that is different, it is their system they can dictate how it is used.

Public libraries are what it says on the label, public libraries, and yet the public has little or no say in what they do, how they are run or for what purpose is the building used. They should be a public resource under direct control of the public.

There is the danger they will be stocked with rubbish best-sellers, but that is happening anyway. Periodically, Farnborough Library sells off its best sellers, to make shelf space to stock yet more populist trash.

The Internet access in Hampshire is the People's Network. For the people, paid for by the people, therefore it should be people who decide how it is run and are free to decide what they access.

Irrespective of the censorship, the software installed is now so outdated, that many websites are now either inaccessible or do not work properly.

Blocking of websites, net censorship is a growing problem. Strange that sites blocked tend to be radical or activist sites, sites that help hold authority to account, better still help to overthrow authority, thus seen as a direct threat to those in power.

One of the sites blocked in the past and maybe still blocked is RAWA, a women's rights group in Afghanistan fighting fascist Muslims.

The block on bit.ly has been lifted.

Libraries have to be open and accessible to all shades of opinion. Where would Karl Marx have been without the British Library?

Keith

Sorry, Keith

20.08.2009 20:53

but your analogy as to public vs private doesn't work.

May I suggest that next time you see a police car, you flag it down, ask the driver for the keys, and take it for a spin? The car's yours, after all - you're a member of the public and have paid for it.

Don't think the coppers will agree. Nor will the magistrate.

Similarly, you can't walk into a library and say, I am a member of the public, and I pay your wages, and I want you to buy some better books, and, while you're at it, just unblock those websites, will you?

ada

If I do not like government use of computers

20.08.2009 22:11

Then quite simply, by your argument, I refuse to pay taxes - because it is my private money and I can do with it whatever I wish.

You have an ideological axe to grind that equates anything to do with speaking up against authority as being bad, negative and infeasible.

You are wrong. You fail to understand the purpose taxation is used to provide in Libraries: access to information. Failure to provide that information can be due to crapness of computers or wilful obstruction. The analogies with private companies and police cars are quite vacuous. You are wrong.

ada lovelace

Wrong again.

21.08.2009 06:25

It is not your private money, I regret to say. The Government has taken it from you, and you have absolutely no say in how it spends it. You could try refusing to pay your taxes, but the Government would still take them from you one way or another - their powers are very considerable! And they are under no obligation whatsoever to provide information in libraries. In fact, if they wished, they could close them all down, and there is nothing that you as an individual could do about it.

ada

yes we get the idea ...

04.09.2009 12:17

... you are a political nihilist ... next!

Lady Grey

UK Indymedia

Blocked websites

Comments

Well this is just one of many examples

But ...

but but but

Deep waters here ...

Shouldn't be a problem.

Ah!

Just get the internet at home?

public libraries

Sorry, Keith

If I do not like government use of computers

Wrong again.

yes we get the idea ...

Global IMC Network