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Open Rights Group International Says Virgin, Sky Blocking Innocent Sites
New submitter stewartrob70 writes with an explanation of the inadvertent (or at least unwarranted) blocking of innocuous sites that UK ISPs Virgin and Sky are engaged in, as reported by PC Pro. The ISPs' filtering systems "appear to be blocking innocent third-party sites with apparently little or no human oversight." stewartrob70 excerpts from a blog posting with an explanation of why:
"In order to understand why this specific issue happened, you need to be familiar with a quirk in how DNS is commonly used in third-party load-balanced site deployments. Many third-party load balanced systems, for example those using Amazon's AWS infrastructure, are enabled by pointing CNAME records at names controlled by those third-party systems. For example www.example.com may be pointed at loadbalancer.example.net. However, 'example.com' usually cannot be directly given a CNAME record (CNAME records cannot be mixed with the other record types needed such as those pointing to nameservers and mailservers). A common approach is to point "example.com" to a server that merely redirects all requests to 'www.example.com.' From forum posts we can see that it's this redirection system, in this specific case an A record used for 'http-redirection-a.dnsmadeeasy.com,' that has been blocked by the ISPs — probably a court-order-blocked site is also using the service — making numerous sites unavailable for any request made without the ''www' prefix."
I know Slashdot is usually behind the curve on news, but the linked articles date back to August.... :-) )
(I know - shocking someone read both linked articles
"This is why ISPs..."
Oh, what bullshit. ISPs have bent over backwards so they don't lose out on delicious government contracts, which in the UK require satisfactory filtering methods in place.
There are maybe one or two ISPs which have had a backbone in all this - such as Andrews&Arnold. You can tell the difference because their Internet service is 100% unfiltered. They even ask you if you want filtering and refuse to provide you with service if you say "yes".
"This is why ISPs..."
Oh, what bullshit. ISPs have bent over backwards so they don't lose out on delicious government contracts, which in the UK require satisfactory filtering methods in place.
There are maybe one or two ISPs which have had a backbone in all this - such as Andrews&Arnold. You can tell the difference because their Internet service is 100% unfiltered. They even ask you if you want filtering and refuse to provide you with service if you say "yes".
Not all ISPs
Not only is Andrews & Arnold XKCD 806 compliant, but they meet all of mumsnet^W David Cameron's censorship requirements.
The government wants us to offer filtering as an option, so we offer an active choice when you sign up, you choose one of two options:-
Unfiltered Internet access - no filtering of any content within the A&A network - you are responsible for any filtering in your own network, or
Censored Internet access - restricted access to unpublished government mandated filter list (plus Daily Mail web site) - but still cannot guarantee kids don't access porn.
If you choose censored you are advised: Sorry, for a censored internet you will have to pick a different ISP or move to North Korea. Our services are all unfiltered.
Is that a good enough active choice for you Mr Cameron?
Actually, they *do*. That's how the 'cleanfeed' system works. As was discovered when they blocked wikipedia a few years ago - ISPs redirected all traffic for that IP on port 80 to a transparent proxy that then blocked the offending files specifically, playing hell with wikipedia's anti-vandalism measures.
VPN via Sweden, are you freakin kidding me - you might as well cc all your data to GCHQ directly!? Sweden's NSA Spy Links “Deeply Troubling”, or check out the professors blog for ongoing abuses on all fronts by the Swedish authorities. Whatever cred Sweden may have established during the cold war years, they have more than used up and are still digging down. The country (well its political leaders) can't be trusted - not a good place to do business anymore.
If any country near the UK has some semblance of credibility, perhaps try Iceland as the first hop for your VPN. They are even trying to promote themselves as a naturally cooled server hub, which is nice...
See e.g. the long thread on the Be Internet user forum. It was noted that the government refuses to purchase services from ISPs which aren't already enforcing IWF-strength filtering. This was done to encourage ISPs to follow government pro-censorship policy, instead of directly legislating to require censorship. Then the ISP's filters would look like a business decision and the civil libertarians who are "pro-freedom-of-business" wouldn't be able to get their panties in a twist. Fairly clever, if you ask me, and it's just another reminder of the danger of public-private partnerships.
As a successful invasion? No. Not unless 9/11 counts as a successful invasion of the US.
Although WW2 was over 5 years after the Battle of Britain, while the US has indentured itself for decades, so maybe 9/11 was a more effective attack. Thanks for making me think about this.