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Turkey Bans Pastebin and Tinyurl

New submitter anonimim writes "Pastebin and Tinyurl have been blocked in Turkey. Pastebin was blocked last week by a court after the hacking of Turkish Information and Communications Technologies Authority (BTK). Four databases including email addresses and plain-text passwords stolen from BTK were posted to Pastebin last month, in retaliation for the blocking of Blogspot, Incisozluk (a popular Turkish community dictionary) and thousands of other websites. The more shocking ban was that of Tinyurl, a URL shortening service. Turkey currently blocks thousands of websites and is classified as one of the countries under surveillance by the 2012 Internet Enemies report (PDF) published last week by the Reporters Without Borders."

20 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. What else? by rrohbeck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So has Slashdot been banned yet? File lockers? Blogs? I have a feeling those datasets need some replication so the Turks can get them.

  2. Gotta block pastebin! by Tyrannosaur · · Score: 2

    Because there aren't hundreds of other sites that you can dump passwords on for people to see? How does Turkey see this slippery slope as sustainable? Just do us the favour of having to watch it in slow-motion and cut off the entire internet. It would get to the resolution of all this a whole lot faster.

    1. Re:Gotta block pastebin! by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

      Yeah, they should use MegaUpload instead

  3. Turkey, meet me at camera 3 by UltimaBuddy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, while I gotta respect your unique position at the nexus between cultures, you really don't know what you're doing, do you?

    It's shit like this, Turkey. Just... shit like this.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union

    Yeah, even 2021 is a bit optimistic.

    1. Re:Turkey, meet me at camera 3 by Formalin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Turkey is never going to enter the EU. It just isn't going to happen. They've been getting trolled for decades.

      Besides, the EU might not even exist by then, at least not in current form.

  4. Re:Can they stop them all? by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This its really playing whack-a-mole from the moles perspective. It might get your head above ground for a while, but ultimately that hammer will hit you smack on the head.

    The problem really is Turkey is not acting like the modern liberal democracy it claims to be, and I think it really needs to be called out on that fact.

    That said, I think we all should treat this sort of thing as the canary in the coal mine of democracy. If turkey can pull this garbage off and get away with it, then so can America, Europe, UK and Australia, because after all, turkey is just another liberal democracy right? The enemys of of our democracy, conservatives and pseudo-progressive alike at home are taking notes as we speak.

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
  5. Re:Can they stop them all? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Turkey has a governmental department that regulates what the imams will preach in the mosques.
    The military forced out the government four times in the last sixty years, the last time was fifteen years ago.
    There's literally hundreds of judgements by the European Court of Human Rights against Turkey.
    There's still ongoing concerns about torture in the judicial system.
    For fuck's sake, this is a country that once executed a guy for opposing a ban on a certain type of HAT.

    So no, Turkey isn't "just another liberal democracy right".

  6. They banned tinyurl by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 2

    because bit.ly paid 'em off. I mean if you follow "who has the most to gain" theory of detective work type of thing...

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  7. Re:actually how are they blocking ? by Archon-X · · Score: 4, Informative

    If it's the same implementation as Turkey's (now defuct) ban YouTube, it was done on a DNS level.

    Simply changing your DNS servers to anything else (Google / OpenDNS, etc) - not only do you bypass the block, but you also have reliable DNS.

  8. Re:Can they stop them all? by cold+fjord · · Score: 2
    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  9. Re:Who needs tiny? by Xtifr · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's for wimps. Badasses use Shady URLs. I mean, how can you not feel good going to http://5z8.info/38--start.spamBot--this-ip--_s1h7hw_racist

  10. Re:Can they stop them all? by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Informative

    turkey won't be the next full member. other countries are joining in the meantime, but turkeys process has been stalled for as long as I can remember reading the news, it's one step forward two steps back. they're a nato member though since forever, which had made them a probable eu joiner.

    and if they became a full member of EU, their government would be fucked, their military top personnel would get insta-sued, their imaams and christian clerics would be free to preach whatever the fuck they want, booze would be available at every street corner with hookers&blow from italy, they would have to fix their prison system and release a large bunch of guys who would proceed to sue the government straight away, they would lose tariff controlling their economy and they'd have to stop bickering with kurds, boooyahhhhhh!(they would still be able to block sites distributing copyrighted material though..).

    I don't think EU member states would go as far as to provide retroactive amnesty for anyone who had been involved in the government in Turkey.. but still, preparing for turkeys eventual joining sometime in the far future creates some byro-jobs.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  11. Re:Turkey, meet me at camera 3 (PU) by gl4ss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Norway may be granted entry before Turkey but not both. Already too many 3rd-world 'countries' in Eu as it is so a Norway AND a Turkey won't fly (ask one Arthur Carlson). Any more and it would be PU.

    lol. norway could join tomorrow if they wanted. no one in EU would say no to that, their human rights situation etc are more in compliance with eu rules than most eu countries. Norway isn't in EU because they're swimming in cash and they don't hate their government. Norway just happens to be getting what it wants from eu anyways. and fyi you can just walk over from eu to norway - if you're prepared to pay 8 bucks for a beer at a discount store and more for tobacco than in nyc.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  12. Re:Turkey, meet me at camera 3 (PU) by Elbart · · Score: 3

    Norway may be granted entry before Turkey but not both.

    The people of Norway made it clear already (twice!) that they have no interest of being in the EU.

  13. Re:Can they stop them all? by xenobyte · · Score: 3

    Several EU countries blocks Turkey completely due to their failure to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.

    Turkey not only denies that it happened but actively and militantly pursue anyone who even mentions it. They block Wikipedia due to their page on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

    The EU countries demand that Turkey both acknowledges the event and apologize to the Armenian people and especially to the families of the victims. Turkey flatly refuses and these EU countries continuously veto any attempts at giving Turkey any kind of special or applicant status pending their compliance in this matter.

    --
    "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
  14. Turkey WAS a liberal DICTATORSHIP by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2

    The modern Turkey was because it was a dictatorship ruled by the military who was okay with somewhat democratic leaders until they misbehaved and were stepped on. HARD!

    The army enforced that the vision of Ataturk was followed and all was well, Turkey prospored and the west had a Muslim nation that leaned heavily to western ideas and values.

    But the west didn't like this, democracy is the way and so Erdogan got into power and has been using the religious whankers to build his power base, relying on their fear of the westernized Turkey to build his powerbase. Roughly similar to how Republicans use fundementalist Christians. So it is moderate and liberal Muslims who favor dictatorship and fear democracy. The world is a strange and complex place and one solution definitly does not fit all. Not that the military is nice... they just are nicer then Erdogan. See Egypts military for a similar deal. A lot of Muslim nations are kept in check by military leaders who are far more modern then their supposedly democratic leaders.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  15. Citation Needed by FhnuZoag · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm posting this up high so it'll be read.

    *Can anyone actually confirm that tinyurl has been blocked in Turkey?*

    I'm saying this, because the linked article and the submission doesn't mention Tinyurl (or indeed Pastebin) at all, and Slashdot seems to be the only people stating this news. Is this something that's actually happened or are we spreading false rumours here?

    1. Re:Citation Needed by anonimim · · Score: 4, Informative

      According to this article from a major Turkish newspaper, related authority in charge (BTK) revised and lifted the Tinyurl.com ban today! Ban was in effect since the 1st of March, so it's probably lifted due to recent press coverage. Engelliweb includes a catalog of blocked websites in Turkey. You can check related pages for Tinyurl and Pastebin to confirm the bans. Linked article was from the February, when BTK databases were leaked to Pastebin. So it doesn't cover the recent events.

  16. Re:Can they stop them all? by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    Indeed.

    How many states do they intend to make out of Mexico when it joins the union?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  17. Re:Turkey, meet me at camera 3 (PU) by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    I think he meant Greece.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."