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"451" Error Will Tell Users When Governments Are Blocking Websites

Posted by timothy on from the captain-beatty-approves dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "To fend off the chilling effects of heavy-handed internet restriction, the UK consumer rights organization Open Rights Group wants to create a new version of the '404 Page Not Found' error message, called '451 unavailable,' to specify that a webpage wasn't simply not there, it was ordered to be blocked for legal reasons."

5 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Reference to... by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those who missed the reference and didn't click the links, this is a reference to Fahrenheit 451.

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    Technoli
  2. Old(ish) but brilliant by ACS+Solver · · Score: 4, Informative

    The idea has been floating around for a while. It's still brilliant in the simplicity and anti-censorship attitude of it. What the article doesn't mention is that its an IETF draft now. Wish the error could be something like "451 Bad Government".

  3. Re:Already exists? by RenderSeven · · Score: 5, Informative

    Showed up in Wikipedia around June 2012, references a draft specification from June 11 2012. So yeah its been around for over a year.

  4. Re:It would be an error code by vipw · · Score: 5, Informative

    40X errors can still return an entity. The HTTP spec even says that the server SHOULD return an entity explaining the error. I'm afraid you're the one being a moron.

  5. Re:This may work........ by TapeCutter · · Score: 4, Informative

    Close but no cigar, it's 451 as in Fahrenheit 451

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    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.