I was surprised to read about China blocking Google...and was looking around the Net for other Chinese censorship. Anyone hear about this one? I came across a Press Release about China beating up on a little Island in the South Pacific called Tokelau. I ended up emailing back and forth with a Rep. at the Registry (called DOT TK) and am told that the situation is still unresolved. They have no news from the Chinese on why they did it or if it will ever reverse the block.
Could it be, as the DOT TK Rep speculated...that because they offer free ccTLD domains and within just a few months from the time they introduced the service, they had registered 250,000 domains, 60,000 of them by Chinese citizens (more than double the number of domains for Chinese citizens than the country has registered for its own.CN domains)...that.tk represented some sort of Internet territorial threat?
If anyone thinks they know why the Chinese blocked all.tk domains, or can find out, I would be really interested to hear.
Their site is http://www.dot.tk.
Anyway, here is an excerpt from the Press Release.
The whole release can be found at:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020625/phtu016_1.html
Largest Country in the World Blocks Internet Access to Websites Of One of the Smallest Countries in the World, Announces Dot TK
The islands of Tokelau, with just 1500 inhabitants, consisting of three little atolls in the South Pacific Ocean face a ban from the largest country in the world: the Peoples Republic of China.
China's Data Communication Bureau, residing at the Ministry of Information Industry, has blocked access to all websites bearing a.TK domain name. Many years ago, the International Standard Organization assigned Tokelau their.TK extension, just as.DE is assigned to Germany and.JP to Japan. Tokelau accepts registrations from all over the world. That's why the registry is larger than countries like Sweden or Russia.
Currently there are more then 220,000 websites containing a.TK domain name, which are not reachable by any Chinese individual or company.
The reason why the Data Communication Bureau blocked access to the.TK websites is unknown. Taloha tried to contact the Ministry of Information Industry several times in the last couple of weeks, but without success. The content displayed on the 60,000 Chinese websites, registered with a.TK domain name, varies from search engines to vacation-photo collections.
More information about Dot TK and the Islands of Tokelau can be found on www.dot.tk.
Can we expect the same people who:
-Can vote themselves a raise any time they want
-Have "special" health care the general public envies, but can never obtain
-Take buckets full of money from the same interests they are legislating for/against
-Are holier than thou when it comes to anyone ELSE'S indiscretions, while working feverishly to cover up their own...to actually legislate themselves out of ANY possible political advantage, one-ups-manship, double-standard policy that comes across their desk???
I think not.
My problem with Spammers is that they pay huge amounts of money to specialists who come up with the perfect "everone will have to take a peek" Subject Line, like the one above.
Now this Spam would not be so bad if what they were selling was "Temp. Services"...instead of Porn.
It may be profoundly disturbing to some that they keep mining the old "plot well" over and over with Trekie series'...but when you have created a classic that has lasted through the years like Star Trek has, is there a better well to tap?
Bay Watch, anyone?
Slashdot Mirror
Could it be, as the DOT TK Rep speculated...that because they offer free ccTLD domains and within just a few months from the time they introduced the service, they had registered 250,000 domains, 60,000 of them by Chinese citizens (more than double the number of domains for Chinese citizens than the country has registered for its own .CN domains)...that .tk represented some sort of Internet territorial threat?
If anyone thinks they know why the Chinese blocked all .tk domains, or can find out, I would be really interested to hear.
Their site is http://www.dot.tk.
Anyway, here is an excerpt from the Press Release. The whole release can be found at:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020625/phtu016_1.html
Largest Country in the World Blocks Internet Access to Websites Of One of the Smallest Countries in the World,
Announces Dot TK
The islands of Tokelau, with just 1500 inhabitants, consisting of three little atolls in the South Pacific Ocean face a ban from the largest country in the world: the Peoples Republic of China.
China's Data Communication Bureau, residing at the Ministry of Information Industry, has blocked access to all websites bearing a .TK domain name. Many years ago, the International Standard Organization assigned Tokelau their .TK extension, just as .DE is assigned to Germany and .JP to Japan. Tokelau accepts registrations from all over the world. That's why the registry is larger than countries like Sweden or Russia.
Currently there are more then 220,000 websites containing a .TK domain name, which are not reachable by any Chinese individual or company.
The reason why the Data Communication Bureau blocked access to the .TK websites is unknown. Taloha tried to contact the Ministry of Information Industry several times in the last couple of weeks, but without success. The content displayed on the 60,000 Chinese websites, registered with a .TK domain name, varies from search engines to vacation-photo collections.
More information about Dot TK and the Islands of Tokelau can be found on www.dot.tk.
Can we expect the same people who: -Can vote themselves a raise any time they want -Have "special" health care the general public envies, but can never obtain -Take buckets full of money from the same interests they are legislating for/against -Are holier than thou when it comes to anyone ELSE'S indiscretions, while working feverishly to cover up their own ...to actually legislate themselves out of ANY possible political advantage, one-ups-manship, double-standard policy that comes across their desk???
I think not.
My problem with Spammers is that they pay huge amounts of money to specialists who come up with the perfect "everone will have to take a peek" Subject Line, like the one above. Now this Spam would not be so bad if what they were selling was "Temp. Services"...instead of Porn.
It may be profoundly disturbing to some that they keep mining the old "plot well" over and over with Trekie series'...but when you have created a classic that has lasted through the years like Star Trek has, is there a better well to tap? Bay Watch, anyone?