An HTTP Status Code For Censorship?

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?"

Comments

No problem

[Wonko the Sane]

Just convince the censors to set the Evil bit on all packets returning the HTTP error code for a blocked site.

Re:No problem

[bky1701]

Democracy is by definition tyranny of the majority. That's why most countries have constitutions that cannot be violated and why there is no pure democracy.

666

[leromarinvit]

The proper status code would be "666 - Go To Hell". Served to the court, not the customer.

Re:666

[__aaltlg1547]

Only for religiously proscribes IPs. If it's proscribed for political reason the code is "1984 - Thoughtcrime found on site".

Re:666

[FriendlyStatistician]

In keeping with the 3-digit status codes we already have and the use of the 4xx series to indicate that the client has apparently made an error, I think status code 451 might be more appropriate.

RIP, Ray Bradbury.

Re:666

[Attila Dimedici]

The problem with that is that the oldest manuscript reference we have to the number is a reference in writings by Iranaeus in the 2nd century AD where he says that the number is 666. The oldest manuscript copies of Revelation 13 which have the number as 616 are from the 3rd century AD. Iranaeus was a student of a student of the author of revelation. While it is possible Iranaeus was wrong about what the author of Revelation originally wrote, it is reasonable to assume that he was correct, especially since he refers to scribal errors in the number in some manuscripts.

Re:666

[Anonymous Coward]

I have heard this is because, in Arabic, 6 is "ellah", which has obvious similarities to "Allah".

Wrong.

In Arabic the number 6 is pronounced "sitteh". If fact, there is no number pronounced anywhere close to "ellah" or "allah". The only two numbers from 1 to 10 that even start with a vowel are 4 (arba'a) and 10 ('ashrah). And because Arabic numbers follow a pattern, just like most languages, this rule holds (ie: 40 starts with a vowel, 400 starts with a vowel, etc).

Perhaps you're recalling this ( http://www.beholdthebeast.com/islam__quran_and_666.htm ) Christian propaganda?

Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Error 1984 - This site has been blocked due to government censorship

Re:Easy

[Narnie]

Agree, but the status should be " 1984 - SITE DBL PLUS BAD -GOVMNT OVRSITE"

HTTP 451

[IonOtter]

I nominate HTTP 451 - Site is not permitted in your country.

Re:HTTP 451

[xeno]

Mod parent up. This is brilliant, probably the best thing I've seen on /. in years. Following Bradbury's theme, how about.....

HTTP 451: An error in your society has prevented your client from receiving the specified content.

(And I love the fact that HTTP 450 paves the way for this.)

Stop.

[mikkelm]

None. If a site absolutely must be blocked, then blackhole its IP addresses and fail resolution on the ISP's DNS servers. Middleboxes that inspect layer 4 and above are never OK, and never part of a trustworthy ISP network unless explicitly requested by the end-user.

China Does It

[tobiah]

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

Re:Exactly

[Samantha Wright]

Here's the rest of the list for those looking to be similarly innovative. Personally, I vote for 418.9: Government is a tinpot.

Fahrenheit 451

[warewolfsmith]

HTTP 451, This site has been burnt.

Re:It's all in the point of view!

[Luke727]

So what it comes down to is, should HTTP represent the user's POV or the Government's?

Neither. HTTP deals with clients and servers, not users and governments. Political issues are rightfully outside of its scope.

As for the error code, 403 (Forbidden) is described as "The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it". Is this not technically accurate?

Re:It's all in the point of view!

[next_ghost]

As for the error code, 403 (Forbidden) is described as "The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it". Is this not technically accurate?

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

Re:So what if there SHOULD be, nobody will use it

[Sir_Sri]

Censorship need not be to hide the existence of information from the public, only restrict their access to it. The Chinese government is actively trying to hide the existence of the Tienanmen square massacre, and that's certain the form of censorship we think of most, but it's not all of it. The British government isn't hiding that the pirate bay exists, they are simply saying you aren't allowed to access it from within the UK. Pixelating porn or graphic violence isn't telling you that people don't have penises or their heads blown off it is done because seeing it could (according to the censor) be damaging to you.

For the british government a 'censorship' code makes a lot of sense. "You are attempting to access material forbidden to persons within the UK, for information on why this information is blocked click here'. The same could be said for much of the 'morality' police in the middle east. "This site contains blasphemous material and to protect you from its content we are preventing your access, this helpful message brought to you by the police of vice and virtue'. In fact in those cases a censorship status code would be an indication that the bureaucracy is doing the job it is tasked with doing, and something they can point to as places they have blocked.

In the same way your anti phishing filter might be censoring you from some malicious website, they're quite happy to tell you that you've been blocked from that site, because you've actually asked them to censor it for you. The government in the UK especially, was asked by the public who voted them into office to make decisions, including censoring material (as that is a government power) in their best interests.

The UK government through the film classification board censors films and games, or it used to until some of that power was transfered to the EU. What criteria they used for censorship wasn't a secret, and they even had processes for appeals and re-evaluations if you felt like the censorship was unfair. Everyone knew what they were doing, because that was their mandate, rate films, restrict access to them, and prevent harmful material from getting into the UK. Website censorship isn't fundamentally any different, by 'importing' a banned film from the US or france or whatever you were doing the mail order equivalent of changing your DNS provider. The fact that the legal situation in the UK hasn't caught up to DNS providers yet doesn't mean it won't.

Re:Does HTTP allow 3 character numbers?

[Anonymous Coward]

THERE ARE FIVE CHARACTERS!

Re:It's all in the point of view!

[nabsltd]

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/