Argentina Censors Over a Million Blogs

In his first accepted submission, bs0d3 writes "A judge in Argentina ordered ISPs to block two websites — leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com. According to Google, many ISPs have simply blocked the IP 216.239.32.2 instead of using a targeted DNS filter. Over a million blogs are hosted by Blogger at this IP. Freedom of speech advocate Jillian York wrote, 'IP blocking is a blunt method of filtering content that can erase from view large swaths of innocuous sites by virtue of the fact that they are hosted on the same IP address as the site that was intended to be censored. One such example of overblocking by IP address can be found in India, where the IP blocking of a Hindu Unity website (blocked by an order from Mumbai police) resulted in the blocking of several other, unrelated sites."

Comments

Wrong headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong headline: a judge ordered two websites blocked, not "over a million blogs".

Re:Wrong headline

[Darkness404]

But in effect a million blogs were censored in Argentina. The headline is correct.

Re:Wrong headline

[AngryDeuce]

Yes but it doesn't seem like it was malicious, i.e., they were censored for content. They were censored because the ISPs are fucking retarded. Still worthy of getting angry about, for sure, but it's certainly not the government's fault, and the headline certainly comes across like it's the government doing the censoring.

Of course, if the government is involved for some reason in some shadowy way, then by all means, burn that mother down...

Re:Wrong headline

[Anonymous Coward]

Which isn't feasible to do without impacting performance and wrecking havoc. IP blocking is the only thing that won't impact performance. However minor it may be to you I don't want that order to negatively impact my connection and I also certainly don't want other web sites blocked. The law should forbid blocking. Period. That may lead to users having access to undesirable information or other resources. I can accept that. People will be hurt. What the government does to rectify that should be more along the lines of what Britan did with setting up independent non-profit news organisations. I'm referring to the BBC. Ideally these outlets would be the primary source of information for the general population. Those outlets should have ethical guidelines which bar them from reporting certain things. They should not be barred from reporting on government even where the country or people running and/or defending the country are harmed. Soldiers should accept that they are fighting for freedom and anything that requires censorship should be frowned upon. The government needs to take a proactive approach and prevent governmental employees and contractors from leaking damaging information. Once it is leaked anyone who it has been leaked to should not be negatively impacted regardless of what they do or don't do with that newly obtained information. Individuals may be negatively impacted by the revelation of information true or untrue. It is unfair to completely censor that bad information. It is better to offset it with better news entities not reliant on commercial and ideally even government money. Reporting incorrect information or having a plug-in preloaded on computer which notify users of bad information would be better. Then users could judge for themselves the merits of this negative or false information. Such a warning might read "Some or all of the information contained here is in legal dispute and may not be accurate or true."

Re:Wrong headline

[The Dawn Of Time]

But I heard the government is smart and should be trusted to run everything for me. Clearly no government would ever be involved in something like this.

Re:Wrong headline

[countertrolling]

Um.. censorship is ALWAYS malicious... And the authorities are always willing to sink an entire ship to get one guy.

Re:Wrong headline

[Darkness404]

The censorship of anything is alarming. Especially government censorship. Censorship of anything, no matter how much you disagree with the content should be tolerated in any society. Now, of course there should be laws to prevent the leaking of information, and any government employee who leaks information should be fired on the spot and perhaps subjected to a fine or imprisonment based on the contract they signed, but the actual websites that post the leaked information should be 100% protected.

Re:Wrong headline

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* Yes, you're right, all governments are purely evil and in for your blood, or soul, or whatever ambiguous Evil(tm) the comics you read say they're up to this generation. We get it already, smartass. Don't trust anyone, anywhere, for any reason. You go do that, we'll catch up later.

Re:Wrong headline

[AngryDeuce]

Yes but the headline is written in such a way as to imply that the Argentinian Government is censoring a million blogs. That's not true, the AG is censoring two blogs, and the idiot ISPs just said fuck it and shut down everything, not because they were trying to kill a "million blogs", but because they're stupid asses and either didn't know what they were doing or didn't care to do it right. The headline is deliberately written to make it seem like a Great Firewall of Argentina just went up or something, which is what I was saying...the fact that the headline is deliberately sensational.

Re:Wrong headline

[countertrolling]

No, you don't understand.. I don't care if the Argentinian Government (or any other pirate) censors a million blogs, or just one, the other 999,999 are just collateral damage.. So what? It is still malicious... regardless of the damn numbers. Don't be distracted by fanciful writing..

Re:Wrong headline

[Spazmania]

They were censored because the ISPs are fucking retarded.

You wouldn't say that had you ever worked as a network engineer at a large ISP.

First, you'd have to route IP packets for the impacted address to an internal filtering machine. What filtering machine? Well, that's a rub too... you'd have to build one and while it's possible with open source, it isn't easy or particularly cheap.

Then once you've "transparently proxied" the HTTP requests you want to block, you have to somehow send those packets merrily on their way... except the route for that IP address leads back to you. So, you have to tunnel it out to an system beyond your routing domain. Which means you'll need to NAT the source for anything that isn't outright proxied. That's more money.

And then you have to very strongly log the proxied and/or NATed packets because any abuse is going to lead back to your filter machine instead of back to the customer and when the policia come knocking, by God they're going to want to know who did it and they're not going to accept the answer that the Judge-ordered filtering obscured the activity near the site ordered filtered.

The ISPs aren't retarded here. The judge ordering an ISP to filter on a criteria ISPs aren't equipped to filter on is the retarded one.

Re:Wrong headline

[ultranova]

The headline is deliberately written to make it seem like a Great Firewall of Argentina just went up or something, which is what I was saying...

Yes, the Great Firewall of Argentina did just go up. That's what censoring means.

Still, who cares? All countries will censor the Internet, for all countries have their own lies to defend; and their citizens will get around that censorship and access whatever content they desire. And in the end, the content actually accessed by said citizens will be mostly circuses. Thus a country that censors the Internet is simply hastening its own downfall.

Re:Wrong headline

[AngryDeuce]

The government didn't censor the other blogs, though, the stupid ISP did when they put up the blanket filter that blocks a million websites in order to comply with an order to block two. That being said, the courts didn't say block a million blogs, they said block two blogs. The only people censoring the other 999,998+ blogs are the ISPs, not the government, and the government never told them to block those blogs, either. They're not even censoring those 999,998 blogs for content reasons, obviously. Those 2 blogs that are being censored are a different matter.

I'm not arguing for censorship. I'm not even really talking about censorship at all...my original post was in response to someone saying that the headline was accurate, i.e., the Argentinian Government is censoring a million blogs. That's not true at all, that's a headline being spun to make it look like Argentina is pulling an Egypt or something. Censorship is always wrong, but the AG didn't censor a million blogs, and I'm not arguing about censorship at all, Argentina's really fucked up, ok, I get that. I'm arguing that the headline to this story is fucking retarded and sensationalist. It should read "Argentina judge orders two blogs censored, ISPs censor a million" not "Argentina Censors Over a Million Blogs" You can see the difference, right? Unless, of course, the ISPs are government run. TFA certainly doesn't make it seem like they are.

Re:Wrong headline

[countertrolling]

"Argentina judge orders two blogs censored, ISPs censor a million"

That doesn't fit into the banner. However, since now I'm playing this game:

"A Million Blogs Blocked in Argentina" would fit and avoid being such a diversion. Feel better?

Re:Wrong headline

[AngryDeuce]

"A Million Blogs Blocked in Argentina" would fit and avoid being such a diversion. Feel better?

Yes, that headline would actually be representative of the situation. Much better.

Re:Wrong headline

[Gideon Wells]

Right headline, I say.

Argentina has censored "over a million blogs". That is the de facto occurrence. They ordered two to be censored, correct. However, the article is about how two were targeted and massive overkill was done. The ISPs saw it fit to block the best and most certain way they could to minimize their own headaches.

Re:Wrong headline

[tqk]

I'm arguing that the headline to this story is fucking retarded and sensationalist.

I get what you're saying and mostly agree, but on the other hand, the Argentinian gov't did resort to censorship, and perhaps ought to have realized there would be collateral damage. It's a fairly blunt weapon. You reap what you sow. You censor, you should expect bad press at the very least for instigating it.

However, yeah, "Doofuses attempting to carry out gov't decree ..." would have been more accurate.

Re:Wrong headline

[MrL0G1C]

The BBC is an absolute propaganda tool, it is the best propaganda tool in the world because so many people think it is impartial when it is clearly not.

The BBC glorify war, they glorify soldiers, they deify economy over quality of life.

They always have politicians comment and then for the opposing comment they deliberately pick some member of the public who looks stupid or some other person who is not interview savvy rather than pick someone from a relevant organisation who would give a good argument against the politician or corporate mouth piece.

BBC journalists are often highly opinionated rather than neutral

When the BBC doesn't wish to cover a situation properly, they ask stupid irrelevant questions.

The BBC outright censors - usually war related .

They twist facts. They lie by omission. They lie by suggestion. They lie by insinuation.

I've even seen them character assassinate, not by directly rubbishing the character being assassinated but by interviewing a politician and members of the public who's quotes where all selectively picked to say the politician being rubbished is mad. (this politician had decided the middle east wars were wrong).

The BBC hide stories about war, political moral corruption and corporate wrong doing by burying them in pointless stories about individual people being killed either by accident or by murder and with other pointless fluff pieces about animals, weather, shopping, celebrities etc.

I Personally would like to see the BBC outright scrapped along with the license fee.

But wait, here's some important news:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-14606654

Re:Wrong headline

[puto]

Actually argentina has sued yahoo and google successully on numerous occasions to block local access to sites that talked poorly about famed soccer star Maradona and several other famous Argentines.

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from argentina. I've lived here all my life and I'm in Buenos Aires as I write this.

If the state is guilty of something regarding internet and new technology here, is barely knowing of its existance. This is not the result of "censorship" as this dumb summary claims.

This is a fuckup, nothing more.

Of course, emos and other trash from Taringa will blow it out of proportion claiming it's wide-spread censorship, and try to politicize the hell out of it.

Re:Bullshit

[bs0d3]

wasnt the order to stop leakymails a form of censorship

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

It was, indeed. Censorship in pure form. The website is a whistleblower distribution site, and it contains many documents which go against the current government.

Re:bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

To slashdotters unfamiliar with Argentina's politics:
OP is what we call a Kirchnerista, you can see his native language is not english. And by what he says you can see that he's clearly a supporter of the current government. They like to lie, all the time, blatantly. And even when caught red handed, deny everything.

One example is when they recently claimed that "people can buy more things now than in 2007 with the same amount of money". With a 25% annual inflation!

They are Peronists, and they apply the same ideas Peron did back in the 40s and 50s. Lots of corruption, spending, giving (too much) power to unions, and crushing the opposition.

We have to put up with this shit every single day. Their de-information apparatus is so big, they're installing TV towers all over the country and giving away HDTV receivers so people will watch the government's own anti-everything program, 6-7-8 (originally stood for "6 en el 7 a las 8", which meant "6 [people] on [channel] 7 at 8[PM]". It's a show with more than 6 people, on "tv publica" channel, at 10PM. LOL, even the name of the program is a LIE!)

Re:bullshit

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

678 is to the Kirchner administration what Faux News was to Bush's.

I still can't believe the money they are spending on giving people free tv. It's the worst misuse of government money for political gain I've ever seen.

Worst part is, she just won the primaries with over 50% of the votes. wtf .. just wtf.

Re:Bullshit

[cheekyjohnson]

Well, it would still be censorship even if you think that it's "right."

Re:Bullshit

[mruizcamauer]

precisely, it's a release of thousands of emails showing the goverment has been spying on citizens, illegally, and harassing oponents sometimes with made up charges. The blocking is stupid, it took me 2 minutes to download it all via a proxy...

Re:Bullshit

[elsurexiste]

I'm living in Argentina. The blogs were blocked by the CNC (like the FCC) because of a court order (no specifics, just that). The site itself contains links to RapidShare with a huge tar.gz of emails to/from the former president Néstor Kirchner, among other Argentinian politicians.

Even though there's a clear element of censorship, I still can't decide about the ISPs. Maybe it was stupidity from the people involved in the blocking. One of the three domain names that were banned was up again. Hooray for IP banning :P . An alternative explanation is that, like the people in Iran, they did a sloppy work on purpose as a "private" way to protest.

Re:Bullshit

[del_diablo]

So nobody has started to share a torrent file yet? Disappointing.

Re:Bullshit

[elsurexiste]

There are a few. You can browse the website using Google's cache. But I'm not touching the stuff unless I use something to remain truly anonymous.

As an argentinian...

[bmuon]

I can't believe I found out first on Slashdot.

I'd like to thank my very smart representatives, courts, lawyers and public prosecutors who made this happen. Apparently Google will be investing in solving the situation, otherwise those of us technologically not challenged will be doing what we can.

Re:As an argentinian...

[hjf]

This was on Infobae, which failed to mention that the site existed at all...

Only Clarin reported it. Front page, print edition. But, you know, you aren't supposed to believe Clarin.

Probably not intentional

[lavagolemking]

This is probably a screw-up more than censorship. Given the popularity of Blogspot, I suspect the people who did this just simply entered in a website, got an IP address, and added an iptables rule or equivalent, without looking or realizing what they were blocking. Hell, that could even be scripted, and I could easily see an intern or low-level staff having just entered "leakymails.blogspot.com" into a script without knowing what happened behind the scenes. I know ISPs hate net neutrality, but it's really not in their best interests to completely cut off access to blogspot.com; even if they have a monopoly they're just going to get flooded with complaints, with real competitive advantage in return to justify the added cost.

Barring a simple but stupid mistake like this from someone routing traffic, IANAL but it should not be the ISP's responsibility to not only screw with people's internet access at the request of the government, but go the extra mile and cut off access to the entire service provider. If we allow that kind of action, then we'll see a whole array of other sites getting blocked at a national level. Then, in an effort to keep themselves accessible around the world, we'll see hosting providers around the world bend over backwards to censor themselves and their users just because somebody, somewhere in the world, might object to some kind of political content one of their users posted.

Re:Probably not intentional

[petermgreen]

If you want to block an individual website without blocking everything else on the IP you have three main options

1: Make your DNS server act as authoritative for that websites hostname.
2: Redirect all web requests for that IP to a proxy which can then decide whether to forward them or not.
3: Perform deep packet inspection and drop packets that look like a request for the banned website.

The first of these is relatively easy to implement but is also very leaky (the clients can just use another DNS server). The other two have nontrivial costs both in time and money to implement.

Blocking everything on an IP OTOH is trivial, you just add a rule to your firewall or a static route to your router that sends the packets to nowhere.

So if you are an ISP and a court orders you to block a site what do you do? deploy soloution 1 and hope the court doesn't blame you for the leakiness? build out infrastructure for options 2 and 3 and hope you can do it in time to comply with the courts demans? or just block the IP on which the domain is hosted?

Re:Probably not intentional

[znerk]

...in an effort to keep themselves accessible around the world, we'll see hosting providers around the world bend over backwards to censor themselves and their users just because somebody, somewhere in the world, might object to some kind of political content one of their users posted.

Google got blocked in China, and they just moved their services outside the country. China then capitulated, due to the international backlash. Yay for Google? Sure, right up until you realize they own *everything*. Speaking of which, did you notice they just bought Motorola? I have a sneaky suspicion that my next android device will be made by Motorola...

Blocking with DNS does not work

[Simon (S2)]

A fake DNS record, or a NX domain for leakymails.blogspot.com would be easily circumvented simply by using opendns, the google dns, or any other DNS server out there.
Firewalling the IP is much more secure.
Sure, one could use a proxy, tor or an SSH tunnel to some box outside of the firewall, but that's much more work.
Not that I think that censoring sites is a good idea, just discussing the technical details.

Re:Blocking with DNS does not work

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. The whole reason the "Stasi 2.0" filter was blown off in Germany, was because the politicians and lawyers always talked about blocking "domains", and the ISPs knowing that this is technically absurd. There are so many things wrong... tons of false positives, false negatives, extreme bottlenecks since the government is always being cheap, etc, etc, etc.

But IP blocking is still retarded. I know a guy from the UAE, where they have massive China-level blocking and censorship. And everyone there simply has at least one VPN. There are companies specifically providing this.
He has three. US, UK, Germany. And since he pays money for it (about $5/month), the speed is better than what his ISP can provide. So the only difference he ever notices, is a bit of lag. Which means FPS online games with people from e.g. Europe is out of the question (2 seconds ping!). But that's the case when off the VPN too, since it's the filtering servers that cause nearly all of the lag.

Seriously, the ONLY way to effectively censor things, is a WHITElist. NOT a blacklist. And even that only works when there is no corruption, no people living close to each other with WLAN, nobody putting a large dish under his roof that goes to another dish outside the country (something that was normal for getting TV in the GDR), and no server in your whitelist being compromised or also not actually liking you.

Which, in practice, are more than delusional expectations.

So I don't see anything from
A) brainwashing people with social engineering to want to act like you want them to act, or
B) a 1984-like totalitarian control on the level of "chip in your head"
ever working.

And A is way more likely than B, since it's already successfully proven to work with hundreds of years of experience all over the world. (Hell, it's the whole damn purpose of lobbying, churches, politics, marketing and intelligence agencies' "public relations" sections, etc, etc, etc.)

Re:Blocking with DNS does not work

[Warwick Allison]

Indeed, it's one of the strengths of Blogger/blogspot that it's all-for-one-and-one-for-all.

On censorship, I'd rather rely on Google than my government. So far.

Re:Blocking with DNS does not work

[MichaelSmith]

I know a guy from the UAE, where they have massive China-level blocking and censorship. And everyone there simply has at least one VPN

But will they cut his head off if the VPN or downloaded content is found on his system?

Re:Blocking with DNS does not work

[mikael]

I believe you can actually register certain domain names (like .homelinux.org) and have the IP address defined to any address you like...
So blocking the DNS lookup isn't going to help. It would have been simpler just to lock the blog accounts and change the file permissions, but it's probably just easier pulling the power cable out of the wall.

Re:Blocking with DNS does not work

[hjf]

Groupon was blocked the other day for offering travel discounts. You can't sell anything travel-related if you're not a registered travel agency in Argentina (you get a .tur.ar domain for your website). I'm not sure how they blocked it but groupon simply vanished off the net. NXDOMAIN even in other DNS servers... I was too busy to investigate further, but it was a bit surprising.

(it wasn't censor, they were sued by travel agencies and in the meantime the judge ordered them to be blocked - if they were a physical shop they would have been closed down temporarily)

What are they censoring?

[Requiem18th]

No Streisand effect? Come on I want to know what was it they wanted to block!

Re:What are they censoring?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're outside Argentina, go see for yourself: http://leakymails.com

If you're in Argentina, here are the official mirrors:
http://leakymails.tk
http://leakymails1.tk
http://leakymails2.tk
http://justiciainutil.tk

Here's an article about LeakyMails: Argentina: Judge orders all ISPs to block the sites LeakyMails.com and Leakymails.blogspot.com

Using the motto “Let’s stop lies and hypocrisy”, Leakymails.com was a project designed to obtain and publish relevant documents exposing corruption of the political class and the powerful in Argentina. The site was open to publish emails either from official or personal accounts, pictures, videos or any other document exposing misbehaviors or unethical actions of public figures in the Southern country, where corruption is rampant. [...]

The use of the past tense is strange. Leakymails seems very much alive.

Re:What are they censoring?

[RoFLKOPTr]

I guess it's up for debate whether censorship is always reprehensible or not

Censorship is always reprehensible. Taking legal action against an entity for publishing stolen personal correspondence is not censorship.

(I haven't read the article, I don't know what Leakymails has published, etc. I'm simply making a point based strictly upon parent.)

IPV6

[the_rajah]

This makes a good case for IPV6 so every site/device will have their own IP instead of sharing one IP for a million blogs.

Re:IPV6

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

This makes a good case for IPV6 so every site/device will have their own IP instead of sharing one IP for a million blogs.

I'm afraid you came away from this story having learned the wrong lesson.
The fix isn't IPV6, the fix is to abolish censorship.

The only cure for bad speech is good speech, not no speech.

Re:IPV6

[mmustapic]

Dude, this was not censorship. The blocked websites had private emails from private email accounts of government officials, journalists, celebrities, detailing such things as income (public for a government official, not for a journalist or celebrity), when they pickup the kids at school, etc. This is a clear violation of a citizens privacy, the equivalent of intercepting paper correspondance and publish it in a newspaper. Luckily in Argentina, and many other countries in the world, this is forbidden.

Re:IPV6

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also a case of trying to put the genie back in the bottle. Besides, it is still censorship, just because it is legal and you happen to agree with it, doesn't make it not censorship.

Re:IPV6

[adolf]

The only cure for bad speech is good speech, not no speech.

So we all should counter crimethink with goodthink? Wouldn't it be gooder to get rid of crimethink altogether, so we would only have goodthink?

You are not thinkful enough. Crimethink is always doubleplusungood.

Re:IPV6

[znerk]

just because it is legal and you happen to agree with it, doesn't make it not censorship.

QFT, and /signed.

Waiting patiently to be modded into oblivion, even though "I hate censorship" is actually on-topic, and "you should hate censorship, too" is actually relevant.
Slashdot censors its own...

Re:IPV6

[Gaygirlie]

Dude, this was not censorship.

Of course it was. Cencorship is any time anything published by an entity is removed from the view of the general populace against the wish of the original publisher, regardless of whether the content itself is legal or not.

Re:IPV6

[Alsee]

Dude, this was not censorship. The blocked websites had private emails

It's amazing how so many people always imagine "I agree with X therefore X is not censorship".

Imagine someone said "Bob's arm wasn't amputated, it was removed because it was cancerous". Ok.... cancer could be a very good motivation for removing an arm. However I assume you'd agree that the "Bob's arm wasn't amputated" part was wrong and ridiculous.

The motivation for removing the arm does not change whether or not it's an act of amputation. The motivation for blocking the website doesn't change whether or not it is an act of censorship.

If you want to make the case that it was justified and right under these circumstances, that's a very credible and reasonable position. However saying "it's not censorship" is not only wrong, it's dangerous. Basically everyone in history who has engaged in any sort censorship believed they had a good reason for it, considered it right and good, and virtually all of them have uttered the line "it's not censorship". The attitude "It's not censorship because it should be done, because it's a bad thing being blocked, because I'm the good guy with a good reason". Essentially "It's not censorship when I want to do it".

If you think it's right and justified in this case, then go ahead and defend it as right and justified. Don't do the "I agree with it therefore it's not censorship" garbage.

-

Re:IPV6

[Alsee]

This makes a good case for IPV6 so every site/device will have their own IP instead of sharing one IP for a million blogs.

I disagree. I'd say it makes a weak case against IPV6. Making censorship easier and more efficient and less noticeable and less objectionable is not good.

But as I said, it's a weak case. There are many other strong reasons why we do need to replace IPv4.

-

Re:IPV6

[houghi]

The only cure for bad speech is good speech, not no speech.

I have not idea why the two sites where asked to be shut down. For all I know because they hosted malware directed at specific Argentinian banks.

So in this case IPv6 would have been better as there is no proof of censorship.

Re:IPV6

[xenobyte]

Privacy? - There may be some private material but I doubt it would have been leaked unless there was sonething juicy and newsworthy in there - and that in itself justifies the leak.

Now, anyone here know what's in those leaked materials? - Something newsworthy like we saw it with the stuff leaked on Wikileaks?

Re:IPV6

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Well OK, as soon as you have only good speech on the blogs and internet, we will see to it that there is no more censorship. Agreed?

You have fundamentally misinterpreted my point. You have basically embraced censorship by restating my goal as to somehow "remove all the bad speech."

You couldn't be more wrong.

Bad speech will always, always exist. If you censor it, it just goes underground where people who encounter it have even less of a chance of hearing any counter-arguments.

We need bad speech to be out in the open so that it can be refuted and so that we know who the people are who believe it. That's why I support and even encourage the most bigoted people to speak their minds in public, better for us all that we know who the assholes are and can choose to associate with them or not.

Re:IPV6

[unixisc]

The cluster won't have just one IP address, it will have one for each node in the cluster. So that gets around the problem of all the virtual hosts in that domain being blocked. However, the server that does host the offending website also hosts several other non-offending websites, since Google doesn't have one server for every publisher it has has on blogger - obviously, each server is shared b/w several bloggers. So unless they assigned each virtual host a separate IPv6 address, and had all of them in their /etc/hosts file, chances are that blocking the IP of leakyemails.blogger.com would end up blocking a whole bunch of other blogger accounts.

However, such a thing is doable, if that's how Google wants to set it up, so that whenever a particular publisher is blocked, only that one is affected. Assuming that there is no likelihood of the IP look-ups ever being fouled up.

Re:IPV6

[unixisc]

I agree w/ this. Although the usage of censorship has changed to imply only cases where political freedoms are being suppressed, as opposed to any restrictions on what is or isn't allowed in public.

But like I said below, I support it when it's needed for law enforcement purposes, such as terrorists freely communicating their plans via their websites, or schoolkids trying to use myspace.com in plotting their next school shooting. Regardless of whether people call it censorship or not. Freedom is not the excuse that can be allowed to let people run amuck plotting all sorts of crimes just because people are 'free' to do it.

Re:IPV6

[unixisc]

It's not a case against IPv6 at all. If one had to block, say an IP from Pakistan that had one of those al-Qaeda sites that terrorists use to communicate their plots, and could block just one of them, rather than block everything coming out of, say, Islamabad, all power to it. If the site in question has an entire /48, that too could be blocked. In case of IPv4, the same thing is only possible if the website IPv4 address is a globally routeable one.

As you pointed out above in a different post, there may be good reasons to censor something. If there is, it's good that only the target of the censorship gets affected, and not a whole bunch of other sites.

Title inaccurate

[AthanasiusKircher]

A judge in Argentina ordered ISPs to block two websites -- leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com. According to Google, many ISPs have simply blocked the IP 216.239.32.2 instead of using a targeted DNS filter.

"Argentina" didn't do anything. The government didn't pass a law. A judge ordered two URLs to be blocked.

Idiot ISPs blocked an IP address that led to a million blogs.

The title should read: Inept Argentinian ISPs Block a Million Blogs Rather Than Blocking Two URLs to Satisfy Court Ruling

Re:Title inaccurate

[hjf]

"Argentina" hasn't done anything to fix it either.

Re:Title inaccurate

[AthanasiusKircher]

"Argentina" hasn't done anything to fix it either.

Umm, one can argue about the legality or effectiveness of the judge's order in this case, but I don't see evidence that Argentina has a general record of endorsing blanket internet censorship, as the ISPs have done here. In fact, quite the opposite. See the Wikipedia article on "Internet Censorship by Country" where Argentina is included in the list under "No Evidence of Censorship":

Not individually classified by ONI, but is included in the regional overview for Latin America.

Technical filtering of the Internet is uncommon in Argentina. The regulation of Internet content addresses largely the same concerns and strategies seen in North America and Europe, focusing on combating the spread of child pornography and restricting child access to age-inappropriate material. As Internet usage in Argentina increases, so do defamation, hate speech, copyright, and privacy issues.

And...

Since the 1997 presidential declaration regarding "Free Speech on the Internet" that guarantees Internet content the same constitutional protections for freedom of expression, Argentina has become a haven for neo-Nazi and race-hate groups around the region.

Sounds like, if anything, they have a more open policy toward internet freedom than many European countries, for example.

I'm happy to be contradicted, but I don't see evidence that this is anymore than some ISPs implementing a stupid method of blocking that snagged a million blogs rather than the two requested. TFA even says "some ISPs," not all, suggesting that the problem is about a technical choice for a solution for a few private corporations.

It's as if an American court ordered ISPs not to provide internet service to a child molester in Cleveland with multiple clear cases of abuse that were initiated over the internet, and Comcast responded by shutting down the internet to the entire state of Ohio.

Then Slashdot runs a headline: "United States Censors Internet from Ohio."

In such a case, we could argue about the court ruling, but I think we would agree that the headline would be false.

Re:Title inaccurate

[AthanasiusKircher]

The government didn't pass a law? So you're saying the judge's order to block those two URLs was illegal -- you do realize that's what you're claiming, right?

No, I guess I don't realize what I'm claiming. Perhaps you should tell me.

Or perhaps what you're going to tell me is what you think I'm claiming.

In no sense was I supporting or arguing against the judge's claim. In fact, my remark about how the government didn't pass a law was superfluous. Let me be more clear about what I actually did claim:

THERE DOESN'T SEEM TO BE ANY EVIDENCE THAT ARGENTINA AS A WHOLE OR ANY PORTION OF ARGENTINA'S GOVERNMENT -- OR POPULATION SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH TO REPRESENT "ARGENTINA" AS A WHOLE -- HAS ORDERED, ENCOURAGED, OR ENDORSED THE CENSORSHIP OF "OVER A MILLION BLOGS."

The decision for this degree of censorship originates in decisions made by some ISPs located in a country.

Any other conclusion about what I was saying on your part about the judge's ruling, its meaning, or whether I agree with it, is your own opinion, not what I was "claiming."

Re:Title inaccurate

[hjf]

Technical filtering of the Internet is uncommon in Argentina

I'm not sure what this actually means, is this supposed to include P2P? Because if it is, it's a lie.

Telecom Argentina actively filters the Megaupload site. You get to the download page, wait 45 seconds, get the download link, and your file starts downloading.... at 0.1kbps until it times out.

I happen to have two internet connections at home. The other one, from Fibertel, downloads the same file, at the same time, just fine.

But in the other hand, Fibertel explicitly blocks torrent trackers. You can get to TPB, download a torrent, and then the file will never start downloading. You do the same over Telecom, and you soon get your torrent at line-speed (3Mbps in my case). As a curiosity, I added the Fibertel machine manually to uTorrent, so my machine directly contacted the Fibertel one. A couple of seconds later, my Telecom machine sent a few peers through peer exchange to the Fibertel one, and it suddenly started downloading.

Re:Title inaccurate

[hjf]

I forgot to mention, there's no free speech protection in Argentina. You can't make jew jokes (Family Guy style) or pro-Nazi declarations. there's the INADI (National Institute against Discrimination) which sues anyone who does that. Except if it's against the catholic church: against them, everything goes.

A few years ago (I even submitted a story about this to Slashdot) they tried to pass a law requiring ISPs to log every website visit by every person for 10 years. It was so wrong, the president had to sign a decree giving internet communications the same protections as the Postal and Telephone service. Basically, you can't read your wife's e-mail and use it against her in your divorce case, and the government can't wiretap you unless a judge orders it.

Re:Title inaccurate

[AthanasiusKircher]

I'm not sure what this actually means, is this supposed to include P2P? Because if it is, it's a lie.

I didn't write the Wikipedia article. I don't claim to have any special knowledge of the status of general censorship in Argentina, but even if your claim is true, it sounds like an argument about ISP policy, not about "Argentina." Perhaps the Wikipedia article is inaccurate regarding individual ISP policy. Perhaps you believe the government should work harder to restrict the freedoms of private ISPs in order to guarantee stronger internet freedoms. There are certainly arguments to be made in that line, which I haven't taken a side on here.

Nevertheless, even if that were so, I still don't understand how the government's neglect to require that ISPs allow transmission of free speech would be the same as "Argentina censoring" free speech. You might think that people should be able to express their positive opinions about Nazis, but a newspaper might decide not to publish letters to the editor that endorse such views: the existence of such a policy at a private corporation does not mean that the country has censored those views.

My point was simple: when I see "Argentina" in a headline, I equate it with the government or perhaps the will of a large segment of the population. My argument was solely about the Slashdot headline, which I still think is inaccurate.

Your story about denial of P2P is interesting, but unless you believe that is related to the policy of "Argentina" as a whole, I'm not sure what it has to do with the headline here.

Your initial reply implied the "Argentina" should be doing something about the censorship. Does that mean you think the government tacitly endorses internet censorship in general? (I really am asking -- I'm curious, since you seem to have first-hand knowledge.)

Re:Title inaccurate

[AthanasiusKircher]

Thanks for this. I didn't read this before I wrote my reply to your previous post.

Anyhow, this is interesting. But I still wonder whether you think the government is happy with over a million blogs being censored here? Surely some of those blogs held positive views about the government as well as negative ones....

Re:Title inaccurate

[hjf]

Let me put it this way. My grandfather had a store in the 50s. One of those small-town stores where they sold everything from food to paint. It was doing just fine until he refused to hang the president's picture in the wall (Peron). After that, things went shitty. First they stopped supplying him with beer. Then sugar, flour... until he had to close the store and leave town with his family. That's how it was in the 40s-50s.

The current government tries to pull similar tactics. If your company isn't "with" the government, they won't kill you or anything... you're just "more likely" to get thugs at your warehouses doors and keep trucks with your products from leaving your factory.

They are in a war against Grupo Clarin right now. Clarin owns a newspaper (Clarin), ISP (Fibertel), TV stations (Canal 13, TN, Volver, and a few others), Cable (Cablevision), AM and FM national coverage radios, and they also own a lot of shares of the (oops) only newspaper paper factory in the country (so they get paper at a discount price). Cristina Kirchner, the previous president's (Nestor Kirchner) widow is just a continuation of what Nestor initiated in 2003, until he died, Cristina was the president but Nestor ruled the country, so when I say "the current government" includes the previous presidency too. SO, the current government allowed Clarin to grow out of control. They even allowed them to merge with Multicanal, which was the only other competing cable company.
After a few years, things got rough, and now the government tries everything they can do to destroy Clarin:
* A couple of years ago, they tried to jam Clarin's satellite feeds and TN was forced out of the air for a while.
* The truck driver's union blocks Clarin's trucks and the newspaper can't be delivered that way (The government claims they don't have anything to do with that but they don't do anything to stop it. Oh, btw, the leader of the truck driver's union, Hugo Moyano, sits next to Cristina when there's a cabinet meeting. He's not a government official)
* Last year they tried to remove Fibertel's ISP license on a technicality (the license was granted to Fibertel, which was a part of grupo clarin, but they billed you in the same invoice as Cablevision, which the government claimed they couldn't do)
* They are trying to go after Ernestina Herrera de Noble (grupo clarin's head), claiming that her children were illegally adopted in the 70s under the military government. DNA testing found no match with any of the registered families.

So you can see pretty much how things work here, and get your own conclusions about wether the government tacitly endorses... "stuff".

Re:Title inaccurate

[The_Paya]

The current government tries to pull similar tactics. If your company isn't "with" the government, they won't kill you or anything... you're just "more likely" to get thugs at your warehouses doors and keep trucks with your products from leaving your factory.

That's what Clarin says. What the Moyano Mafia does it's twisted well enough to turn the blame to the government, instead of putting it on the true responsible (which is the union alone). It's the union who provides "support" for the government, not the other way around, like Clarin its been desperate to demonstrate with yellow propaganda.

They are in a war against Grupo Clarin right now. Clarin owns a newspaper (Clarin), ISP (Fibertel), TV stations (Canal 13, TN, Volver, and a few others), Cable (Cablevision), AM and FM national coverage radios, and they also own a lot of shares of the (oops) only newspaper paper factory in the country (so they get paper at a discount price).

You're missing the other 300+ companies that "belong" in one way or another to Clarin. Which dominates media distrbution (cable/fm/am/papers) everywhere in the country, with different affiliates or sub-companies.

Cristina Kirchner, the previous president's (Nestor Kirchner) widow is just a continuation of what Nestor initiated in 2003, until he died, Cristina was the president but Nestor ruled the country, so when I say "the current government" includes the previous presidency too. SO, the current government allowed Clarin to grow out of control. They even allowed them to merge with Multicanal, which was the only other competing cable company.

Indeed, the people that voted Cristina was voting for the same trend the last president had, Clarin twisted the media enough to show it up as "big evil behind everything" instead of the proper continuation of what the majority of the people in Argentina considered worth of their votes. Also, the government didn't "allow" anything. All was done by ways of the laws at the time. if the government was to forbid such a thing, it would have been against the law (and imagine what Clarin would've printed if so).

After a few years, things got rough, and now the government tries everything they can do to destroy Clarin: * A couple of years ago, they tried to jam Clarin's satellite feeds and TN was forced out of the air for a while.

That was a tech problem blamed, very opportunistically on the government. You don't seem to mention anything about Cablevision (owned by Clarin) hand-picking the location on the channels list of state's TV channel or blocking/noising it out on different parts of the country when the pro-government-lol-truth-teller program was being aired.

* The truck driver's union blocks Clarin's trucks and the newspaper can't be delivered that way (The government claims they don't have anything to do with that but they don't do anything to stop it. Oh, btw, the leader of the truck driver's union, Hugo Moyano, sits next to Cristina when there's a cabinet meeting. He's not a government official)

This is a lie. Clarin's workers union was blocking one exit of the printing facility, by law they have right to do so, nor the government, nor Clarin can do anything against that.

* Last year they tried to remove Fibertel's ISP license on a technicality (the license was granted to Fibertel, which was a part of grupo clarin, but they billed you in the same invoice as Cablevision, which the government claimed they couldn't do)

You seem misinformed. Fibertel's license had expired. Fibertel was charging you an extra for a license that they didn't had, I believe they solved it later after merging with Datamarkets (now FIbercorp) and they've been using that license.

* They are trying to go after Ernestina Herrera de Noble (grupo clarin's head), claiming that her children were illegally ado

Re:Title inaccurate

[Lisandro]

As a fellow Argentinian i can confirm this is a pretty accurate description of the political climate on my country nowadays. This administration (and the previous one) have managed to turn every issue in the country into a small crusade. You're either with us or with the enemy.

I'm pretty worried about how our political institutions have degraded over the past 10 years.

Re:Title inaccurate

[hjf]

This is a clear example of a person who watches 6-7-8 and likes to believe everything the government says.

The problem with people like this is that they have polarized opinions. Either you agree 100% with the government or you agree 100% with Clarin. There's no middle point. This government puts itself in a "trendy" position. It's "cool" to think like the government does. So if you don't think like the government tells you, you aren't cool. You are a loser. These people just can't seem to find a middle ground, and like to adorn their speech with adjectives, like "dictatiorial".

It's a fine example of how the government-controlled media apparatus works. They even see the media's "fourth power" status as something bad! Who watches the watchmen?

They applaud the new "media law" which wants to split up nation-wide channels, under the premise of "democratization". The government's main selling point about the old media law was that it was, first, old, but second and most important: "WAS WRITTEN BY THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP!!!!!oMGOMGOMGMGO THE MILITARY ARE CONTROLLING OUR MEDIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA". They don't realize (or do, but like to deny it) it's just a divide-and-conquer strategy. When every newspaper, radio, and TV station is local, then economy of scale makes it impossible to stay in business, without resorting to government sponsorship. Once they start playing advertisements paid by the government, they lose their "free speech"... they can still say what they want, under the risk of losing government support. Anyone with 1/8th of a brain can listen to that clown Mariotto for 30 seconds and realize why this law is a TERRIBLE idea. That, and the fact that supporters of this law (http://www.leydemedios.com.ar/), are just stupid government sockpuppets. If you are minimally serious about this, you can't make a list (see right there at the bottom) of "EVIL" people who are "against" the law, and "COOL" people who are WITH it.

The fact that the congress had to make a separate calculation for inflation rates because the government institute that calculates it is oh-god-so-infected by government supporters (the government even fines private companies that make their own inflation measurements). The government claims that there is NO inflation and you can buy more with the same amount of money now, than in 2007. I have a business, I can go back to 2007 invoices and prove to you that things costed almost half back then.

Re:Title inaccurate

[The_Paya]

This is a clear example of a person who watches 6-7-8 and likes to believe everything the government says.

I do, I like variety too, I watch TVR, hear Victor Hugo and plenty of others a bit more objective than the 6-7-8 hellbent fans.

The problem with people like this is that they have polarized opinions. Either you agree 100% with the government or you agree 100% with Clarin. There's no middle point. This government puts itself in a "trendy" position. It's "cool" to think like the government does. So if you don't think like the government tells you, you aren't cool. You are a loser. These people just can't seem to find a middle ground, and like to adorn their speech with adjectives, like "dictatiorial".

On the 70's we were under a dictatorship, it's the proper word to use, with all the human rights violations that are associated with it, and you call that adorning. And what's a polarized opinion? And where's the "middle point" in the opposition to this government? Looks like you're projecting yourself there. Now tell me where in all of the Clarin controlled media has the government ever said how the people should think. Let's be factual and honest, this government (unlike others) has had fewer decrees (laws passed directly by the president without senate vote) than any previous ones, every single thing this government has done was done abiding by the democratic process of presenting projects to the senate and getting them voted. Even with a majority of opposition on the senate all these projects got reviewed, worked on, voted, and made law (except for the first time in history that the state's budget was not approved). So, when Clarin shows interviews with people like Elisa Carrio that shout out loud that this government is a dictatorship, and when the interviewer agrees with it, trying to make the audience buy that crap, you do buy it too? I wonder how many do this.

It's a fine example of how the government-controlled media apparatus works. They even see the media's "fourth power" status as something bad! Who watches the watchmen?

I'll be called Marxist but the power should not be on enterprises that care nothing but just about money. It should be on the people's hand, for that the media (look up journalism on a dictionary) has to be objective and impartial and be of varied, different opinions, not 100% opposing all the time, neither 100% pro-government. The world right now is showing how that fine neo-liberal model has worked so far.

They applaud the new "media law" which wants to split up nation-wide channels, under the premise of "democratization". The government's main selling point about the old media law was that it was, first, old, but second and most important: "WAS WRITTEN BY THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP!!!!!oMGOMGOMGMGO THE MILITARY ARE CONTROLLING OUR MEDIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA".

Did you read the law in it's entirety? Here's what Fox News said about it. And here's another view. The law does nothing to nation-wide channels. It does so to the "content providers" so to speak. If you distribute content you should not own that content too (but the law grants a few channels for each provider anyway). Anyone with 1/8th of a brain would know that a provider that cannot own all the channels it distributes would be hellbent on having as many channels as possible, which would include a huge lot of local content, plus the already established nation-wide channels and others outside, just to be competitive of other media providers. Competition between providers also ends up being a plus, you get the freedom of choice for your provider based on their benefits, you are no longer locked into "the only provider in my area" anymore (which is the rule in the

Re:Title inaccurate

[hjf]

Iba a contestarte pero se ve que es al pedo discutir con vos, capo. Se ve que tenes una respuesta para todo.

La diferencia es que yo le doy al gobierno la razon cuando la tiene (sabes cual es mi canal de television favorito? Encuentro), y lo critico cuando no me gusta lo que hace (cerrar las importaciones en vez de fomentar la investigacion y desarrollo en el pais, y no solo "ensambladoras de notebooks" en tierra del fuego). Siempre compitiendo por precio contra China en vez de competir con calidad. La clasica politica argentina de "el dolar alto" que no sirve para una mierda. Alemania y USA no tienen ningun problema, y tienen dolar y euro respectivamente. No tienen que negarle nada a su poblacion para progresar, como hacemos nosotros. Yo quiero una notebook y me tengo que conformar con una mierda o pagar 4-5 veces el precio USA, total los fabricantes estan vendiendo como locos a Kris las netbooks que se regalan.

Cambia TVR, Victor Hugo, y todos los pelotudos cipayos de K y mira otros canales de vez en cuando, sobre todo esos canales de cable de lunes a viernes a las 11 de la noche. Tienen opiniones interesantes y no son cancheros cool como los K.

Re:Stop watching Fox News

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't fool yourself. CNN, FAUX, MSNBC, ABC, CBS are all f@cking complicit.

Old saying

[Luckyo]

Never attribute to malice, what you can attribute to stupidity.

Someone must've honestly thought that one IP = one site. One can only wonder how someone that stupid can work on ISP networking.

Re:As an American...

[Zontar The Mindless]

... that modified it's grammar and writing style just like it did to me.

Um, no. bmuon's grammar is correct.

i used to try to tell this to IRC ops

[decora]

banning entire blocks of addresses is ridiculously overzealous, injust, and indicates laziness and ignorance on the part of the administrator.

that didnt make me any friends in the irc ops.

Re:i used to try to tell this to IRC ops

[whoever57]

banning entire blocks of addresses is ridiculously overzealous, injust, and indicates laziness and ignorance on the part of the administrator.

Or a crafty way to let make the whole country aware of the censorship.

Re:i used to try to tell this to IRC ops

[unixisc]

How do you know they banned an entire block of addresses? They may have just banned one - 216.239.32.2 - and if all/some of the web servers hosting Blogger were behind a NAT leading to this, that could have resulted in all these addresses being blocked. In the previous post, Luckyo thought that anyone who honestly thought that 1 IP = 1 site is stupid. Such people may not have factored in NAT, or may have, but assumed that leakyemails might just rename and rehost itself on Blogger - maybe another server - and so decided to block the whole thing.

Guess a DNS based filtering might have worked, but that too is not fool-proof, and at any rate, it still requires the IP to be filtered, so can't guarantee that other addresses that share the same IP - even local IP - would not be affected.

Additional Problem: No more FTP with Blogger

[Vegan Cyclist]

I'm sure there are a few others on here who have Blogger-hosted blogs that had their own host and FTP, and had to go through the 'switch', where Blogger hosts the blog (and you have to re-point your DNS/folder/etc), and no longer allowing blogs to be posted via FTP.

This makes it that much more of a pain, if something as simple as this can block so many Blogger-hosted blogs, including many that might have been self-hosted previously.

Original TFA

[aneroid]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/argentina-isps-ip-overblocking

Re:As an American...

[znerk]

... that modified it's grammar and writing style just like it did to me.

Um, no. bmuon's grammar is correct.

"modified" != "incorrect".

In other words, the grammar is technically correct, but the syntax and grammatical structure is not congruent with typical American usage.

More's the pity... most Americans have such a poor grasp of the only language they speak that they couldn't debate their way out of a paper bag if their opponent were a wet sock. I wish it weren't so, and I am quite concerned about my country's future. Don't think I'm just bashing Americans. We're already well on our way to overthrowing ourselves, thank you very much.

Bread and circuses, indeed.

Admittedly...

[Arancaytar]

If they did use DNS filtering, we'd be laughing at them because it is ridiculously ineffective.

(So is this, of course. Using a proxy is no more difficult than switching your DNS server, if not less.)

Not an IPv4/v6 issue

[unixisc]

This makes a good case for IPV6 so every site/device will have their own IP instead of sharing one IP for a million blogs.

If a website is being hosted by a web hosting service, how does that solve this problem? Was the original problem that the Blogger sites that ended up being banned were behind a NAT - in other words, were each of the hosts on a separate web server on a LAN, or were each blogspot server hosting a bunch of their publishers? I'll bet it was a combination of both - the leakyemail account may have been sharing it w/ several other blogs, but there may have been a bunch of servers alongside it sharing 216.239.32.2. So an IPv6 arrangement would have seen to it that all the other servers that didn't host this blogger account wouldn't have been blocked, but at the same time, all the other accounts that did share the same server would have the same problem.

The IPv6 is a solution when any organization - say a web hosting company - has several servers, and needs a unique IP for each. But if a single IPv6 is shared, that solution goes away. Also, while in this case the target was Blogger, if a country decides to target an organization, say the BBC, for blocking, then they'd simply block the BBC's network interface part of the address i.e. the first 64 bits of the address, and so any of the potential 18 quintillion addresses that the BBC could use would automatically be blocked as well. That would be the closest thing to blocking a NATed IPv4 address.

On the other issue, however, I do not oppose such a ban until I know the reasons: I'm not going to, like the average /. anarchist, scream 'censorship' whenever any such move happens in any country. If the reason for a ban is something like trying to conceal a corrupt deal, or curb political freedoms, like say, Tibet, of course I'm against it, and IPv4 or IPv6 is irrelevant. But if the reason is that law enforcement has seen that certain websites are being used to plan riots or other criminal activity, I'm fully for it! I certainly don't want al-Qaeda, or Hamas, or Lashkar-e-Toiba, or Hizbullah to be able to plot attacks online and their contents to be left open for their agents in the US, or Israel, or India, or any other country, to see and execute to. If stopping a terrorist act from being plotted successfully online is censorship, give me more of it: I don't care what the online Che fans think!!!

Not so

[Snaller]

headline says nothing about a judge blocking anything - but that a million blogs gets censored, which appears to be the truth.

Wait, wait

[dmmiller2k]

There are a MILLION blogs on this one pair of websites? How many readers could they possibly have?

Re:Wait, wait

[coolmadsi]

There are a MILLION blogs on this one pair of websites? How many readers could they possibly have?

The ISP blocked the IP address for the website (as opposed to the specific website). However, the IP address is the same IP address as many other blogs that were blocked. The IP address would be for Google's Blogger server, which would host many blogs on one server (so one IP address)

This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

The past 8 years on Argentina have been strange, to put it mildly. I've never seen people so polarized about the current administration (and the previous one, which was the current Presidents' husband) in my life. Roughly 50% will approve anything the government does, while the rest will not hesitate to note that we have a very poorly managed economy, the second highest inflation rate in the world, weakened institutions and a new case of official corruption coming to light every other week.

This blockade was due to a court ruling regarding a site called LeakyMails, which supposedly posted hacked mails between government officials. These weren't exactly flattering, to put it mildly. I honestly don't know about the legality of such mails going public (i beleive that all communications between public employees regarding their work should be available to the citizenship), but this is another misstep on an long list of poor decisions. Very poor ones.

For example, the official crusade against "opposing" media is way worse than this - one of Argentinas' main media conglomerates had, over the course of two years:

- One of its main distribution plants for newspaper blocked by trucks affiliated with the transport union (CGT),
- One of its main directives harassed for several years under accusations of having its sons being illegally adopted during the last military dictatorship in the 70s. Not a single shred of evidence was ever presented for this, other than suspicious timings- Recent DNA analysis has proven this to be false.
- An official ruling which impossibilited the sale of one of their newspapers in the Central Market of Buenos Aires,
- Revoked its contract to televise soccer matches, which is now handled directly by the government which pays an astronomic cost each year with taxpayers money.
- A new media law passed with shady articles, tailored specifically to hurt this conglomerate. Several of them are currently in hold after being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

We're living some crazy times down here. The Leakymails fiasco is yet another item in a very long list of poor decisions taken by a government which i feel it will remembered as one of the worse we ever had in a couple of years.

Re:This has to be put in context

[Nicopa]

Just writing to point out the parent comment has loads of false information.

Some examples:

The new media law (which he chooses to describe as "shady") only puts anti-trust measures we didn't have here in Argentina. It has been praised by UN free speech "UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression" Frank La Rue and by the NGO "Reporters Without Borders".

The bit about Ernestina Herrera's sons are also false. That's an old issue form before the government, and it has already been proved that the adoption was irregular. The media conglomerate owned by her has been blocking and stopping justics for more than 10 years. What the parent comment refers to is that the real parents have not been found yet (the "desaparecidos" (missing) bank is very incomplete, this is an ingoing thing). In any case, this is handled by courts, not by the government,

It's not honest to start a comment pretending to be "over the dispute", and then dump such biased bits of information...

Re:This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

Just writing to point out the parent comment has loads of false information (...)

My information is spot-on accurate, sorry. I agree about the merits of the new media law (it has some), but disregarding it was tailor made to hurt the Clarin group is naive, at best. The congress is supposed to be made up mostly by lawyers, and they managed to pull a law in a couple of months through both chambers with clearly unconstitutional articles.

Other countries have passed similar legislation regarding media after years of debate, the US included. In Argentina it became a done deal in little over than 3 months.

The bit about Ernestina (the Clarin directive i mentioned) is true as well. I won't deny that the adoption was irregular and should be investigated further, but your government pushed the agenda that her adoptive sons were from disappeared parents during the process. Where's the proof? There was none back then and there's none right now, and this went on for over three years, with constant attacks from "officialist" media. For Gods sake, even the president toyed with this on her countless public speeches.

This is not biased. It's true. It's verifiable. And the sad part is, is not even half of it. Again, the degradation of our political institutions over the past 10 years make me very worried about the future of my country.

Re:This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

yeah, that's why the government lost the primary elections... sorry, WON with 50% of the votes. but it's true, this gov'ment makes some very good decitions, followed by unbelievable fuck-ups that leaves you completely baffled. and believe me, nobody is shedding a tear for the poor Grupo Clarín, which makes Fox News look like the fucking BBC...

Neither do i. I have no sympathies for the Clarin group nor its main newspaper, which i've regarded as crap for a long while now. But two wrongs don't make a right, and it just boggles my mind that people embrace clear cases of censorship only because "Clarin is bad". Two wrongs don't add up to a right.

Re:This has to be put in context

[Nicopa]

Don't lie, please. It gets tired.

You had said "shady law", now you talk about its merits. Now you recognize an "irregular adoption", but you had previously said "no evidence"... Let's stop this conversation... It's useless... ok? =/

The only reason you got modded up it's because you sounded interesting. Don't take advantage of people now knowing about Argentina to get karma.. =)

Re:This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

The only reason you got modded up it's because you sounded interesting. Don't take advantage of people now knowing about Argentina to get karma.. =)

Ok, now you're being a moron. It's a law with over 150 new articles which was written and passed in a never-seen-before hurry. Some of it is good. Some is not. And some is (as i explained) tailored to hurt a so-called enemy of the government. Feel free to raise your points to the Supreme Court which found such articles unconstitutional in the first place.

I do recognize the adoption is, at the least, irregular, in the sense there're a lot of black holes in the procedure and legal documentation from the day. Jumping from *that* to an accusation of expropriation during the a military dictatorship its a stretch, to say the least. A stretch your government (and you, from what i gather) had no hesitations to make. But hey, i guess it gives you a lovely reason to make an enemy out of someone you don't like. Even when DNA proof proves you wrong two times in a row.

I don't see the world through black-and-white glasses as you do. But then again, i don't troll on forums either.

Re:This has to be put in context

[cpotoso]

YOU claim to say the truth... why should we believe you? On some of the pieces in which hard evidence is to be found (economy) you state Argentina's inflation is 2nd highest in the world, but if you see some independent observers such as http://www.tradingeconomics.com/inflation-rates-list-by-country, the latest data puts Argentina in a not nice place, but certainly not 2nd. On economic growth, Argentina has done pretty well considering the world's status. The latest IMF report (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_GDP_growth_rate_(latest_year)) places Argentina at a very nice 9.2% growth, ranked 8th in the world!). In other words, you are just BS-ing around, and I honestly do not believe anything else you have to say.

Re:This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

I suggest you dig a bit deeper. The official inflation in Argentina is around 12% anually, which is a number computed by the INDEC (Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Censos, or National Institue of Statistics and Census). This organism is under official intervention since 2007, and it hasn't been providing accurate indicators since then. Actual inflation rates in Argentina are around 25%, which indeed is a tad under Venezuela.

I know this sounds ludicrous, but it is the truth. It's gotten so bad that any consultants publishing inflation indexes that differs from the official ones provided by the INDEC are being forced to pay fees for "confusing the population". This people then resorted to publish their numbers through congress members, who act as a proxy: http://en.mercopress.com/2011/08/09/argentina-s-congress-inflation-index-for-july-1.62-doubles-the-official-rate . You could also browse some other INDEC indexes (http://www.indec.mecon.ar/, sadly only in Spanish) which are way even worse. This organism claims that a typical family of four is above poverty with 1600 Argentinian pesos per month, or roughly 380 dollars. To put that in perspective, a moderate trip to the supermarket here can set you back between 50 and 70 dollars.

Argentina isn't doing well. The economic growth indexes are indeed impressive, but are tied solely to the international increase of soy prices. In more ways than one we (and most of South America for that matter) were extremely lucky. There's no real growth - industrial occupation is roughly the same as 10 years ago, for example. The economy works due to a mix of public subsidies and strong push of middle-class consumption - for example, the government funds (literally) plans to buy LCDs and other appliances on 50 installments. No, that's not a typo. The best way to buy a new TV in Argentina is to be in debt with a bank for 4 years: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=es&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1261524-los-secretos-de-las-50-cuotas-sin-interes

Don't be fooled by the GDP growth indexes in Argentina. They're more or less on par with the rest of South America. Meanwhile Argentina is perhaps the only country in the world where people buy appliances in installments and houses with cash.

Re:This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

Check also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_of_Statistics_and_Census_of_Argentina#Controversy , which is a fairly accurate description of how the INDEC falsifies indexes, basically scamming bearers of Argentinan bonds tied to GDP growth and inflation.

It's sad, but for almost 5 years now my country has no reliable official indicators for anything related to the economy.

Re:This has to be put in context

[cpotoso]

I have deep knowledge of Argentina, do not get fooled. You now even contradict yourself too "Argentina isn't doing well. The economic growth indexes are indeed impressive, but are tied solely to the international increase of soy prices." Please do tell me who in the world is growing at above 9% now? Who is growing at all when in the last 4 years we've had deep recession everywhere? (and this with significant "stimulus spending" by governments everywhere). So please stop the non-sense.

Re:This has to be put in context

[cpotoso]

Note, my statistics are not from INDEC. I know they are not trustworthy... (this is, indeed, one of the most stupid things this government did: to mess up with the indices).

Re:This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

Check out Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Chile and even Brazil, right on the same link you provided, for South American examples of countries with a comparable (or greater!) GDP growth than Argentina.

Re:This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

The pages you quoted cite information sourced by the IMF. Argentina, being currently an IMF member, provides it with statistics and indicators directly through the INDEC itself. It's its function, after all.

Re:This has to be put in context

[The_Paya]

Ok, now you're being a moron. It's a law with over 150 new articles which was written and passed in a never-seen-before hurry.

Sorry, you're heavily misinformed, the birth of the idea for the media law reform happened in 1983, right after Argentina regained its democracy. It was never brought to the Senate because the government of the season was in tight relationship with the local media giant, Clarin.

Haven't you ever wondered why the government would want to hurt Clarin?

Let's say, oh this government wants to censor everything that's against them. Yeah, that worked good, really good. Anyone locked on the 24/7 news signal emitted by Clarin would think this government is worst than the 70's. And there's people that do think that way.

Let's say this government wants to cash out on splitting up Clarin holdings. Right, because nobody else in the world has more money than the Kirchner's. If Clarin has to sell, it will get a sh1tload of offers, the bidding will be insane, of course, if Clarin doesn't sell, it will have to let go most of it for free, how would that look then, crybaby "omg they made me give away all my possessions, bad king!" I bet.

Let's say that Nestor bringing down the picture of Videla is a clear sign of somebody that's hellbent on making all the state terrorists of old pay for what they had done, including Clarin for supporting, and benefiting off them....

And what's wrong with that?

Re:This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

Sorry, you're heavily misinformed, the birth of the idea for the media law reform happened in 1983, right after Argentina regained its democracy. It was never brought to the Senate because the government of the season was in tight relationship with the local media giant, Clarin.

Could you please point me to the senate discussions for this new law in the 80s? Because AFAIK this law project was pushed by office and passed in 2009. And in an unusually brief timespan. I still remember congress members asked for the law to be passed "without changing a coma". Isn't that making a mockery of what the congress is supposed to?

You're missing the point here. If you think the government is on a crusade to hurt Clarin because of its "terrorist state" affiliations i suggest you ask yourself why Nestor Kirchner itself allowed the merger between Clarin and Cablevision in the first place, for example. He signed the approval himself. This government was in bed with this conglomerate way before this law was passed.

But even the i question the way, not the why. I don't like Clarin, but i don't approve the way the government seems to hellbent in hurting a so called enemy. Did you notice we keep hearing about this "media monopoly", but not a single official accusation was done? Where's the beef?

And if the issue is attacking "terrorist state pay for what they did", i suggest you write to you senators and ask them why do we still have IVA (VAT, for an US equivalent) on basic goods. That is also a law from the 70's, just in case you weren't aware of that.

Re:This has to be put in context

[The_Paya]

Sorry, you're heavily misinformed, the birth of the idea for the media law reform happened in 1983, right after Argentina regained its democracy. It was never brought to the Senate because the government of the season was in tight relationship with the local media giant, Clarin.

Could you please point me to the senate discussions for this new law in the 80s?

There weren't any. As I said on what you quote, no senator would bring something like that up against Clarin, not without executive support.

Because AFAIK this law project was pushed by office and passed in 2009. And in an unusually brief timespan. I still remember congress members asked for the law to be passed "without changing a coma". Isn't that making a mockery of what the congress is supposed to?

And an exaggeration too, the law/project had been coming and going for way too many hands to get it done right, any clever opponent of the law would just change a comma in the right place to make it moot.

You're missing the point here. If you think the government is on a crusade to hurt Clarin because of its "terrorist state" affiliations i suggest you ask yourself why Nestor Kirchner itself allowed the merger between Clarin and Cablevision in the first place, for example. He signed the approval himself. This government was in bed with this conglomerate way before this law was passed.

They didn't had the power to do it, and again, how would "the media" (at that time)react to such an act of ilegality like that, there was no such law to forbid such a merger. And the crusade was an irony. It's to state that unless what's written on that law it's properly interpreted, we could be guessing all day and making shit up all year and never get to the bottom of it.

But even the i question the way, not the why. I don't like Clarin, but i don't approve the way the government seems to hellbent in hurting a so called enemy. Did you notice we keep hearing about this "media monopoly", but not a single official accusation was done? Where's the beef?

Well, the media monopoly just had a judge put an injunction on the article that forces the monopoly to un-invest and de-monopolize itself, so that's the big beef right there.

And if the issue is attacking "terrorist state pay for what they did", i suggest you write to you senators and ask them why do we still have IVA (VAT, for an US equivalent) on basic goods. That is also a law from the 70's, just in case you weren't aware of that.

For the same reason we have a tax on earnings, or we're supposed to be perfectly fine with a state without cash?

Re:This has to be put in context

[Lisandro]

They didn't had the power to do it, and again, how would "the media" (at that time)react to such an act of ilegality like that, there was no such law to forbid such a merger. And the crusade was an irony. It's to state that unless what's written on that law it's properly interpreted, we could be guessing all day and making shit up all year and never get to the bottom of it.

You realize you're not making any sense, do you? The same goverment that was powerless to do anything about the mighty Clarin allowed a massive media merger just to decide it was "powerful enough" to attack them just two years later?

Please. Give me a break. Look up the definition of "monopoly" while you're at it, and you'll soon find out this is nothing more than a powerplay between two former allies. It has nothing to do with "monopolies", or the terrorist state of the 1970s.

Think who you vote in October!

[elPetak]

Just what the subject says...
We in Argentina have presidential elections in October.
If you are an Argentinean, think about this censorship, think about the fines they issued at anyone doing private (and real) inflation indexes, think about the current government war agains one of the mayor TV, radio, newspapers and magazines producer.
Think about all that and then decide who you are going to vote.

they blocked entire countries

[decora]

used to, you could see the ban lists for irc channels (sometimes servers). they regularly did stuff like ban *.il or whatever.