Microsoft Blocks FSF Donation Website As a 'Gambling Site'

An anonymous reader writes "The FSF slammed Microsoft for categorizing donate.fsf.org website as a 'Gambling Site.' Corporate systems that use a Microsoft 'network security' program cannot access FSF donation website because of this and as a result, many people were unable to make donations. FSF has submitted a correction to Microsoft and they are now waiting for a response. However, John Sullivan warned corporate about Microsoft's proprietary network security programs."

Comments

donate.fsf.org is just a redirect

[xiando]

You can go directly to http://my.fsf.org/donate/ if donate.fsf.org is blocked by your local friendly firewall. You can also use Tor to bypass blocks like these.

Re:donate.fsf.org is just a redirect

[betterunixthanunix]

You can also use Tor to bypass blocks like these.

Eh....

It is not impossible to block Tor. A standard approach is to have the firewall block all Tor entry nodes, which forces people to use bridge nodes instead. Increasingly, though, there is an approach that is much harder to evade: blocking of connections that match Tor's "fingerprint" i.e. because Tor uses OpenSSL in a way that can be distinguished from Firefox+NSS etc.

Of course, there is a bright side if you are dealing with a school or corporate firewall: you can always set up a system at your house that you SSH to, and use as a proxy server. That was something friends of mine used to do in high school.

Re:MS

[xiando]

> Calm your tits, it was likely a mistake, seeing how its obviously not a gambling website.

How do you explain that a "mistake" was made when the site is so "obviously not a gambling website", eh?

Someone put that "gambling" tag on that site, eh? Is it likely that the person who put that tag on donate.fsf.org did it purely by mistake when it is so obviously not a gambling site?

Re:Microsoft is the bad guy, how exactly?

[betterunixthanunix]

Why is everyone so paranoid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents

Even if they don't allow it, maybe they would rather their employees donated in their own free time and not on their network?

You could at least read and understand the summary (RAUTFS?). It is not just Microsoft's own network; this is something a Microsoft product that is used on numerous corporate networks is doing.

Re:malice or incompetence?

[houstonbofh]

You realise that this is not Microsoft Security Essentials, but the network security product, right? So anyone behind it on the network... Like at a company, or corporate guest network, or school, or very badly designed hotel wifi?

Re:Stay grounded

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, the idea that it wasn't accidental is ludicrous, I would doubt very highly that MS has humans categorising sites, instead it's probably all automated based on roughly the same tech as email spam filters.

Here's an idea: Then don't filter our shit! Let me decide where I want to visit.

-Mac user, so I don't really care

That is funny, the single largest malware infection in modern times, as percentage of user base infected, was the Mac Flashback malware infecting 1% of OSX user base. The biggest Windows epidemic, Conficker, infected 0.7% of Windows machines. (http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/253403/mac_malware_outbreak_is_bigger_than_conficker.html)

Re:Legal Response

[LurkerXXX]

Or...

The FSF should realize that twdx.net, their provider, also hosts gambling sites such as http://www.poker-tester.com/ etc, and that their IP may have either been previously used by a gambling site, or was blacklisted in a block along with other gambling sites hosted at that provider.

It's nice out today and doesn't look like rain. You can take off the tin-foil hat.

BS Legal Response

[xigxag]

FSF has no grounds to sue Microsoft, even if this is deliberate. Microsoft has no monopoly or close to it in the webfilter arena. Microsoft isn't secretly mucking with dns or some other blatantly illegal action. Client corporations voluntarily elect to use Microsoft's security software to control their own traffic. MS makes no claims that it is 100% accurate. Additionally, MS has procedures in place to correct a misclassification. And even if they didn't, there's no standard by which third-party private web filters are actionable, other than say, breach of warranty of fitness for a particular purpose. But in that case, the proper plaintiff would be Microsoft's customer, not FSF.

Oh, FSF might lose some donations? How is that MS's problem? FSF's suing Microsoft is like advertisers suing the makers of NoScript and Adblock for depriving them of eyeballs.