I agree, but this was about free/complimentary wifi services, so in these cases you are not really buying anything. I think most of them are also blocking porn sites, etc.
I'm unfortunately familiar with similar systems. What has probably happened is that a crowdsourced process has (incorrectly) categorized the website as 2 things: "Criminal skills/Hacking", and "News". The hotel has subscribed to this categorization service and configured their settings to block any pages in the "Criminal skills/Hacking" section because it sounds scary.
Same goes for the "Piracy and Copyright infringement".
There's no conspiracy here, just the normal incompetence. Calling the number listed on the page will probably allow you to petition to reclassify the site properly, making less likely to be blocked.
Of course, filtering in general sucks, but it's not like this is an ISP, it's a hotel.
What are these categorization services called? I want to read more about them. Do they do things like block sites known to contain or support hate speech too?
Even better, post the link on Twitter or LinkedIn directed at Richard Branson. He strikes me as a reasonable guy and he's always on social media so I'd say he will see it and respond.
Otherwise you'll be stuck at "your call is important to us..." forever.
If you'd like to know how this comes about, point your fav search tool at "web content filter" (WCF).
A WCF can be implemented anywhere along the chain from web site (content) to browser. Most commonly, it is a part of a DNS service or a firewall/router.
Think of a WCF as a gun pointed at unwanted web content (porn, hate, gambling, etc.). Like a gun, the WCF needs bullets and a shooter.
The most commonly used "bullets" for the WCF are publicly-available blacklists of sites, categorized by content type. Most commonly, these lists are community-driven and then triaged by admins. So it's easy for a site like TorrentFreak to make it onto one or more of these lists. It takes work to then get off the list, but it's doable.
Lastly, the "shooter" in this analogy is any entity -- ISP, wifi vendor, hotel, etc. -- that thinks it's a good policy to filter the web. You can see where a hotel may filter to reduce bandwidth consumption and/or reduce complaints from parents.
Historically, WCFs have been deployed on corporate LANs, in schools, and in homes. But we are seeing increasing deployment in public-facing networks -- even at the national level. And this smacks of censorship.
I hope that I didn't stretch my weapon analogy too far and good luck to TF in getting off the lists. (The Wikipedia entry for "breast" has the same challenge.)
It's currently working fine on my Virgin residential line and my Virgin mobile phone.
I guess the hotel opted-in (or never opted-out, which I had to) the government-mandated "pornwall" that all UK ISPs are supposed to "voluntarily" implement.
TorrentFreak is not a "pirate site". I don't recall seeing any links to pirated content. And it's hardly a "hacking resource". So maybe they're not idiots, just dishonest.
We are going in the direction of idiocrazy (great movie) as a society and people are caring less and less about anyone else. So that makes it easy to spy on people or block sites, specially since Google is still seen as a positive force in tech. :/
[+] [-] chii|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] svantana|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oopsman88|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pR0Ps|7 years ago|reply
Same goes for the "Piracy and Copyright infringement".
There's no conspiracy here, just the normal incompetence. Calling the number listed on the page will probably allow you to petition to reclassify the site properly, making less likely to be blocked.
Of course, filtering in general sucks, but it's not like this is an ISP, it's a hotel.
[+] [-] kyledrake|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanBC|7 years ago|reply
Has anyone called the Virgin WiFi telephone number listed on the notice to tell them that this block is a mistake?
+44 (0)330 6601028
[+] [-] dghughes|7 years ago|reply
Otherwise you'll be stuck at "your call is important to us..." forever.
[+] [-] dewey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oelmekki|7 years ago|reply
This sounds targeted : I guess a torrent domain name wildcard would have read something like "pirate downloading".
EDIT : btw, if "hacking news" is a reason enough for blocking a website, I fear for the security skills of future generations of developers.
[+] [-] untangle|7 years ago|reply
A WCF can be implemented anywhere along the chain from web site (content) to browser. Most commonly, it is a part of a DNS service or a firewall/router.
Think of a WCF as a gun pointed at unwanted web content (porn, hate, gambling, etc.). Like a gun, the WCF needs bullets and a shooter.
The most commonly used "bullets" for the WCF are publicly-available blacklists of sites, categorized by content type. Most commonly, these lists are community-driven and then triaged by admins. So it's easy for a site like TorrentFreak to make it onto one or more of these lists. It takes work to then get off the list, but it's doable.
Lastly, the "shooter" in this analogy is any entity -- ISP, wifi vendor, hotel, etc. -- that thinks it's a good policy to filter the web. You can see where a hotel may filter to reduce bandwidth consumption and/or reduce complaints from parents.
Historically, WCFs have been deployed on corporate LANs, in schools, and in homes. But we are seeing increasing deployment in public-facing networks -- even at the national level. And this smacks of censorship.
I hope that I didn't stretch my weapon analogy too far and good luck to TF in getting off the lists. (The Wikipedia entry for "breast" has the same challenge.)
[+] [-] andrepd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toyg|7 years ago|reply
I guess the hotel opted-in (or never opted-out, which I had to) the government-mandated "pornwall" that all UK ISPs are supposed to "voluntarily" implement.
[+] [-] Grollicus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gok|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dylan16807|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taf2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcaa7f3a8bbc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dewey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirimir|7 years ago|reply
And well, that's why we have VPN services.
[+] [-] mirimir|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klez|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] some_account|7 years ago|reply
We are going in the direction of idiocrazy (great movie) as a society and people are caring less and less about anyone else. So that makes it easy to spy on people or block sites, specially since Google is still seen as a positive force in tech. :/