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Turkey Blocks Tor's Anonymity Network (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Turkey's President Erdogan and the ruling AKP party are increasingly bent on silencing online dissent, and that now affects you even if you're smart enough to evade typical censorship methods. Watchdog group Turkey Blocks has confirmed that Turkey is blocking the Tor anonymity network's direct access mode for most users. You can still use a bridge mode for now, but there are hints that internet providers might be hurting performance even then. The restrictions come alongside a recent government ban on virtual private network services.
Good thing he's a member of the "religion of peace."
If you have nothing to hide you should have nothing to fear.
Wait. Oh, I'm sorry.
If you have nothing to hide you should hope the leader of your country doesn't suffer from delusional paranoia and sees enemies everywhere.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Keep going, and Islam will take away women's rights all over the planet, and make sure all gays are dead!
Typical Turkey's in a flap over Christmas
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
You're giving the governments of the rest of us too many stupid ideas.. You're like the boyfriend who does a too good job making the rest of them having to step up their game.
- "My leader is logging my sessions."
- "Oh, that's cute my leader is always logging my traffic."
- "Hah, my leader loves me the most he does all that and makes sure I can't circumvent it!"
If I have nothing to hide, then they have no reason to spy on me. If they're making me prove that I have nothing to hide, then I must not be innocent.
The moral of this story is "prove your innocence". That's what mass surveillance really is -- an attack on the basic principle of innocent before proven guilty. If that sounds like something a third-world dictatorship would do, it's because that's exactly what third-world dictatorships do.
It's extremely easy to circumvent using tor bridge relays. Or you can simply use any ssh host outside turkey by doing 'ssh -D 9090 @' and add `Socks4Proxy localhost:9090` to your torrc file.
> They just went as far as demanding a German school in Turkey to ban any mention or celebration of Christmas.
Oh look. The truth isn't anything like what you are claiming.
What a surprise!
But the school disputed the media's version of events, in particular an assertion that the school's choir had to cancel its appearance at the German Consulate's traditional Christmas concert in Istanbul.
In a statement, the school said it was allowed to take place under the supervision of the Turkish education ministry and with individual pupils' parental permission - but that the teachers pulled out of the appearance without giving a reason.
The statement concluded: "it must be asked who these provocations are useful for. It is clear they do not serve Turkish-German relations."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38364817
Turkey's President Erdogan and the ruling AKP party
Haha, read that as "Turkey's President Erdogan and the ruling APK party."
Nope!
Turkish school's Christmas 'ban' a misunderstanding, says Germany
Reports that a German-backed international school in Istanbul had scrapped Christmas festivities briefly caused outrage on Sunday and Monday, before the German foreign office said there had been a misunderstanding and that the school was allowed to teach Christmas traditions after all.
Set up in 1884, Istanbul Lisesi is a Turkish-German bilingual state school attended solely by Turkish students but partly backed by the German government. Thirty-five German teachers at the school are paid for by German taxpayers, but the headteacher is nominated directly by the education ministry in Ankara.
According to Spiegel Online, several teachers at the school said they had been told to no longer teach about German Christmas traditions in their classes, as well as being told to remove advent calendars from the classrooms.
“We don’t understand the surprising decision by the management of the Istanbul Lisesi,” said the German foreign ministry in an initial statement. “It is too bad that the good tradition of pre-Christmas intercultural exchanges at the school with a long German-Turkish tradition has been suspended. We are of course taking this up with our Turkish partners.”
The school denied the ban, which was first reported by the respected German news agency dpa and followed up the media in Germany and abroad.
“The reports in German media about restrictions on Christmas festivities of German teachers do not reflect reality,” it said. “A concert was cancelled by the German teachers in question without explanation. There is no question of the school or its management placing an obstacle in its way or prohibiting it.”
Mustafa Yenerolu, an MP with the ruling AKP, also denied the claims, saying “such false reports do nothing for Turkey-Germany relations”.
A spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said on Monday afternoon that there was no “ban” on teaching Christmas at the school after all and that “hopefully all misunderstandings have been resolved”. By then, many German politicians had reacted with fury to the initial reports.
Julia Klöckner, a deputy chair of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic party, said the incident was a sign of Turkey closing itself off from the outside world: “Those who want to restrain free thinking in this way are so ignorant, they must be capable of worse.”
Sevim Dadelen, a politician with Germany’s Left party, told Tagesspiegel the government must “immediately summon the Turkish ambassador and send a note of protest to Ankara”.
The Greens’ education policy spokesman, Özcan Mutlu, said the reports were “simply shocking”.
Andreas Scheuer, the general secretary of the CSU – Merkel’s Bavarian allies – said the reports were “new proof that [President Recep Tayyip] Erdoan’s Turkey is burning all bridges with Europe”.
Christmas is part of Germany, and that applies too for a German school abroad, Scheuer told the Funke regional media group.
Relations between Ankara and Berlin have been strained in the wake of the failed military coup in July, with Germany repeatedly expressing concern over the scope of a massive crackdown on Erdoan’s opponents.
Developments in Turkey have a strong resonance in Germany, home to a 3-million-strong ethnic Turkish population, the legacy of a massive “guest worker” programme in the 1960s and 70s.
TFS neglects to mention that anyone with a halfway decent internet connection can help people in countries like Turkey evade censors by running a Tor bridge. It appears to be extremely simple to set up. Note that this is a hidden entry node and not an exit node, so your ISP isn't going to be sending you nasty letters.
Yes, there ss an open moral question there given the significant number of nefarious uses of Tor. However, I suspect most of those users aren't going to bother with a bridge... and I happen to think that free speech is something that's worth fighting for. You know, the real thing. Criticism of politicians. Coverage of news events that are being actively suppressed by government censors. This is about actual free speech by any sane definition.
You still want that wannabe dictator to join? Seriously, if that asshat is getting in, I'll find a way to get out!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I see the "Religion of Peace" apologist moderators are here!
The Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) have nothing to do with peace, and everything to do with conquest and forced conversion. They are among the most obnoxious creations of humanity, Christianity and Islam, especially - Judaism, at least, tries to keep its mumbo-jumbo to itself.
See subject: It's not ez being "world-class" https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10010777&cid=53510613/ & it's not my fault unidentifiable trolls are turkey "ne'er-do-wells", lol!
* :)
APK
P.S.=> As far as "famous"? I've done my share in the art & science of computing to decent acclaim in publications, trade show results + commercially sold ware I wrote - you do get back what you put into things in life... apk
If your citizens are criticizing the way you're running the country, then maybe you suck at being leaders and should step aside for someone else. 'Silencing' your citizens is a dick move at best; you're not that far away from being a complete murderous asshole like al-Assad. Stop shitting on your own people, Turkey.
There are still a number of VPN providers that still offer service in Turkey, and using a VPN as your first hop should obfuscate your Tor activity and allow you to connect. It's not necessarily a bad idea to do this anyway, even if Tor is not blocked in your country.
While Judaism is not missionary, it can be very cruel towards its own people. I.e. gays deserve death, circumsision, lack of women's rights, forced rest in sabbath, etc. Also, part of the reason Judaism is not missionary is because it is very racist. Jews are considered to be "the chosen people", you don't want to mix in too many "goys" with that. Even today, there are many religious jews who will tell you that there are different level of souls for different creatures. The soul of a human is higher than the soul of an animal, and the soul of the jew is higher than the soul of a goy.
p.s. To all people that are going to accuse me of not knowing Judaism and/or being antisemitic, I'm both an Israeli and a Jew.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
Well, they just assassinated the Russian envoy to Turkey. US needs to pull out of NATO before it's forced to either side w/ the wrong side here - Turkey, or show NATO as the feckless organization that it's been since the Cold War ended
I'm a gentile, but FWIW, there's one major difference b/w Jews and Muslims here
As you stated, Jews think of themselves as the chosen people. Doesn't really affect me one way or the other, since they're not trying to destroy me for not believing in Judaism. While they may think of Israel as the holy land where all Jews need to converge, they're not on a worldwide lebensraum campaign trying to either convert or uproot all gentiles.
That's very different from Islam, which got to where it is w/ a series of wars, starting in the 7th century, which gave them North Africa and West Asia, and running that right until the 19th century. And in this case, Arabs are the chosen people: allah only knows Arabic, the Quran is only legitimate when recited in Arabic, and prayers can only be done in Arabic. In the pecking order of Islam, the Quraysh Arabs - the tribe that Mohammed was from - is at the top, followed by all Arabs of the Arabian peninsula, then Arabs elsewhere and finally other Muslims, such as Turks, Barbers, Iranians, et al. Which is why Sudan had its war in Darfur, which was a genocide of Black Muslims by Arab Muslims. It also describes why Iraq and Syria had their campaigns against the Kurds.
While it would be nice if a religion thought of all people as equal, I don't hold it against them if they don't, provided they don't have malevolent designs against the 'other'.
You are correct that it doesn't affect you. It does affect people who live in Israel. Specifically, secular jews who don't want to have tradition controlling their lives (Israel does not have separation of church and state, which causes rabbis to control divorce, corrupted kosher license taxing, forced rest in Saturdays, and probably others). However, it's not only secular jews, Arabs that live in Israel are also suffering from various forms of presecution. There are jews that burn mosques. A few years ago an Arab youth was beaten by several Israeli youths. He was a vegetable for more than 12 months. Out of the guys that beat him, the one that got the worse punishment got 8 months in jail. If it was a jewish youth who was beaten, things would be very different. The state also manipulates budgets so that jewish insititutes get more money than arab ones. Calls of "Kill all arabs" are not uncommon in Israel, that's not the kind of thing for which we arrest people here. Ofcourse that when someone calls "kill all jews", it's different.
I do agree with you that Islam is probably more dangerous to the world than judaism, since, as you said, Islam is more colonialistic. I'm just saying that for people living under jewish rule, Judaism may become just as shitty as Islam, especially if things keep going the way they are (Israel is becoming more and more like its neighbors). Then again, that's not your problem, but ours :(
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
I guess it doesn't blend so well with the rest of the noise...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I thought technology would be liberating. The Internet would give anyone access to the whole of human knowledge.
It isn't working out like that.
Instead, technology is enabling repressive governments all over the world to maintain near-constant surveillance on their good people. It isn't about religion or political ideology. It is a struggle for power.
The people are losing.
in the 6.0.8 TBB comments the other day.
It has been going on for at least a week, maybe two and started with the published proxies, then encrypted traffic in general.
Worse yet: it seems like the West is on-track to try something similiar in the near future. Democracy, Freedom of (insert right), etc my ass.
captcha was 'monopoly'. Used in a sentence: 'The government has a monopoly on my ability to exercise my freedoms.'
http://www.dw.com/en/german-sc...
Christmas is a part of many cultures, so it must be taught at least as such (which is all that I want my kids to know about it). They deserve to be taught about the Winter Solstice and Buddhist festivals for the same amount of time, if any mention of religion happens, IMHO.
Turkey is an extremely moderate Muslim country. Erdogan is afraid and he does have huge problems all around, but there aren't any easy solutions when there are external wars with neighbors and internal wars with fundamental Muslims wanting more Islam in daily life and European moderates who can take or leave all religions.
I have faith in the Turkish people to figure this out for themselves. If they need help, NATO needs to be there. I am very, very, concerned that I haven't been able to reach any of my Turkish friends for about 4 months. They are probably keeping their heads down, since their family runs a liquor store. Yes, Turkey isn't like most other Islamic countries.
Though last time I was in Istanbul, we did get tear gassed. The army wasn't aiming at us, but we were down hill from some protesters and the gas stays close to the ground.
As far as Crimea goes, it's ethnically Russian, and historically always a part of Russia - including that brief period following the treaty of Brest-Litovsk that gave Ukraine its independence for the first time. Crimea wasn't a part of Ukraine then: it was gifted to Ukraine in the 60s by Nikita Krushchyev, despite its population being Russian, not Ukrainian. Russia wanted it back after 1991 but did not press the issue until Ukraine passed a law making Ukrainian the sole official language. Which is well within their rights and even makes sense, given that they are Ukraine, not Russia, but then they lose the right to Crimea. That said, I do not support Russian incursions into the Donbass.
On the larger issue of Russian threats to Eastern Europe, it's been badly handled by the Obama administration when they agreed to scrap the missile defense shield. The US should re-engage and build up the defense for all these countries, including Ukraine, but like Trump says, they should foot that bill. The US does have both common interests w/ Russia - not just in fighting ISIS, but joint projects like the international space station, and they have their differences (but the Mid East shouldn't be one of them). Russia should do what the Soviets did until 1956 and be pro Israel like then, while the US should stop categorizing Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, et al as its allies, while Russia should do the same viz Iran and Syria.