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An HTTP Status Code For Censorship?

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-can't-get-there-from-here dept.

New submitter Tryfen writes "UK ISPs are being forced to block The Pirate Bay. One is using 'HTTP 403 Forbidden' to tell users that they cannot access the site. From the article: 'However, chief among my concerns is the technical way this censorship is implemented. At the moment, my ISP serves up an HTTP 403 error.' ... As far as I am concerned, this response is factually incorrect. According to the W3C Specifications: "The 4xx class of status code is intended for cases in which the client seems to have erred."' So, should there be a specific HTTP status code to tell a user they are being censored?"

2 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. China Does It by tobiah · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Many of the services/messages blocked in China come with explicit warnings that they have attempted something illegal. And some don't.

    --
    "The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
  2. Re:It's all in the point of view! by nabsltd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's not accurate because the server didn't even recieve the request. The request was intercepted in transit and blocked by third party.

    The "502 Bad Gateway" seems to be the correct code for the behavior. The definition may not be 100% accurate in that it implies the proxy (which is what this censorship is) actually received a reply from the target server.

    It would be quite funny if an ISP set the following response:
    305 Use Proxy
    Location: https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/