Arvind Gupta, the head of IT Cell, BJP Tweeted: "The websites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by Anti Terrorism Squad, and were carrying Anti India content from ISIS. The sites that have removed objectionable content and/or cooperated with the on going investigations, are being unblocked."
This is bad. archive.org by default should have all sorts of offensive things on it. Pastebin and github should not be responsible for people hosting code they don't like. May as well block google too, I'm pretty sure you can find pro-ISIS sites on there as well.
I run https://snipt.net, one of the sites listed as being blocked, and I've never received any communication from anyone with the Indian government or ISPs. So they're not proactively doing anything to unblock these sites, as far as I can tell.
Strange that they're blocking software rather than websites. E.g. the github block says "gist-it" next to it, which implies they maybe wanted to block https://github.com/robertkrimen/gist-it ? There's also http://atnsoft.com/atnsoft.com/textpaster/ blocked and http://sourceforge.net/projects/phorkie/ which is described as "Self-hosted pastebin software written in PHP. Pastes are editable, may have multiple files and are stored in git repositories." Which is really strange because it says there were only 4 downloads of this software in the last week -- doesn't that make it easier to track?
Well they only need to remove the offensive stuff from the Indian version of those websites. This is something I know google can not sure about pastebin and github.
I run Cryptbin.com, one of the sites on the banned list. As a result of the ban we have seen our traffic surge, with roughly a 1000% increase in traffic from India today alone.
Interesting to note is that we also own the domain cryptb.in (a TLD from India) and that has not been banned. However, it is merely a redirect so it does not provide an alternative entrance to the site. We use it only for short URL's on public pastes.
I love Indian government statements, they are always so transparently incompetent, inane and corrupt, as are the accompanying actions, like blocking a random PHP project on sourceforge.
I guess we'll just never know why they do these stupid things. By the time some bureaucrat has to give a statement all they can get out is terror, ISIS and anti India.
You can see it's the source code for the same sort of paste text online site they are banning all over the place in the other bans. It seems kind of nuts to ban all source code hosting and clipboard type hosting sites, but clearly they are trying. Wonder what's next, blogs that allow posting comments or signing guestbooks?
Ah that explains it! Haven't been able to push to Github ever since stepping off the plane in Mumbai. Strange thing is that the website works off-and-on. Pushing results in connection refused though. There's also been ZERO information/news provided by the ISP (MTNL) in this regard.
Absolute shame that a blanket ban like this is applied. It has a profound effect on everyday activities unrelated to the original reason for banning. Even if there is content of a questionable nature, it's absolutely crazy to not expose this. Let people make up their own minds about what is right or wrong. A simple ban on these websites isn't going to stop those who mean harm from getting to their goal.
All I can see that this results in is collateral damage, e.g., me not being able to push the latest commits for a research tool I'm building. I might be small fish, but that's the exact point; a ban like this necessary works like a cluster bomb.
It's crazy. They're substantially impacting their competitiveness in an important industry, just so they can make a futile attempt to silence something that hardly matters. You're small fish, but add up the impact on millions of similar small fish in India and it's a big problem.
> A Government source said the decision to block the 32 websites were taken after thorough “filtration process based on a strict regimen”, and there is a proper committee in the Department of Information Technology in place to whet complaints. [1]
This is unbelievably ridiculous, if not downright stupid. Even as our Prime Minister speaks of bringing about a new digital revolution, decisions such as these show how badly equipped the lawmakers are in dealing with issues relating to technology.
Blanket bans like these are not only a form of internet censorship which flies in the face of the establishing principles of the largest democracy in the world, the lack of any details or explanation before issuing an outright ban on several important software hosting websites and content providers just evokes an image of a myopic government with incredibly poor understanding of technology.
>>Blanket bans like these are not only a form of internet censorship which flies in the face of the establishing principles of the largest democracy in the world, the lack of any details or explanation before issuing an outright ban on several important software hosting websites and content providers just evokes an image of a myopic government with incredibly poor understanding of technology.
Wow, I'm the autor of 0bin.net (it's an encrypted pastebin written in python). Kinda feel weird to see your (really) small pastebin get caught in that. It's insane.
Well, it's open source and easy to install, anybody can duplicate it if needed so I guess it's ok.
Maybe we should add some way to replicate one instance content to other trusted instances to avoid this problem.
I am an Indian citizen so I can offer some perspective. Atleast 50% of those in software engineering don't vote. Going to voting station, standing in queue and voting is a painful process and most of us don't take the trouble. Hence, their concerns are not really heard in the govt. These people will not go to concerned authorities and explain them how it will affect the economy. They will just whine for a few days and then find a workaround. Most of those affected by these blockades are mom and pop shops aka startups. Govt doesn't listen to people in startups. It only listens to big guys like Infosys and TCS. These big guys don't use github to host their code.
In India, the moment you say security, all logic and reason stop. And police is always looking for quick fixes. That is why google street view is still not available in India.
Yes, it is a terrible idea. But you are assuming that the people running the country and the ones electing them are competent individuals who have the best interests of the country in mind.
Ofcourse it's a terrible idea. There will be an uproar. And then someone from the govt. would actually take the time to carefully look into the decision and then the govt will have to take an embarrassing U-turn.
That's my initial reaction. At the very least this is destabilizing, until they can refine how courts may/may not order such blockages in such surprising ways.
They'll find a way to bypass that quite easily, however with the amount of outsourcing based in India it will be an inconvenience for some time. Probably not as much as it would've been if it wasn't NY.
I live in Southern part of India, I can access archive.org or github or pastebin from here. I don't think its a complete ban. May be some ISP providers blocking these sites. (Checked in some code to github few minutes back :D ) I hope they will revoke this move in upcoming days.
My assumption would have been that a government crawler stumbled upon some messages it didn't like and the sites they were on ended up on the list, but the two sites above would unlikely be affected by this.
Archive.org was probably affected because they mirrored some content of any of them.
It is actually related, this software allows you to fill out webforms automatically. Now these bans are mostly around websites that allow you to host text online and this tool helps easily getting your text on tons of websites. So I see why this is related.
Only one of them (182.59.1.235, operated by MTNL ISP) returned the fake IP being used for blocked sites (59.185.3.14). The other 1843 servers returned the correct IP.
I am trying to figure out if that means archive.org has been removed from the block list, or if the DNS servers listed on that page haven't yet been updated with the blocked sites.
If anyone can help us figure out if archive.org is still blocked, it would be greatly appreciated!
Oh-ho! Security is evidently high on the Indian government's priority list... the Joint Secretary for the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, a Mr Shri P. Kalyanasundaram, has an email address at Yahoo for official correspondence! [1]
I'm wondering how long it will be though before the Wikipedia article gets updated:
A lot of these sites, almost all of them, are pastebin-esque, including sourceforge.net/projects/phorkie/ which is a "PHP and Git based pastebin."
I noticed Pastebin getting a fair number of mentions in the news in connection with the Sony attack as a place for hackers to dump sensitive information publicly and easily.
My guess is this blacklist was assembled to mitigate such hacking damage on Indian targets, but it was assembled with some haste; and github and vimeo, I doubt, will remain blocked for too long.
The goal of blocking the ability for someone to post text documents online is so far removed from reality. It makes no sense at all. The only thing it accomplishes is to make India appear even more incompetent.
Come on, stop acting that shitty. I'm a proud Indian, and this is the second time I'm condemning the state of the Internet in India in the same month[Earlier, due to Airtel's proposal to violate net neutrality].
If you believe you're doing so as these websites contain "anti-India" stuff, well, then screw yourself. Code that is used to run apps worldwide, API's, and what not have been cut off access to due to your little problem. On one hand, the guys promote the IT industry but on the other hand, they purposefully demote the industry. Get your goals right, people.
Moreover, I don't think the telecommunications department even knows how to cut off access to a website. I'm from Delhi, and here, both Github and Pastebin are accessible.
Yes, this move is an over reaction. Especially, banning archive.org... India was just hit with a terrorist attack in Bangalore very recently. The techdirt article should mention this part.
[+] [-] bbarn|11 years ago|reply
This is bad. archive.org by default should have all sorts of offensive things on it. Pastebin and github should not be responsible for people hosting code they don't like. May as well block google too, I'm pretty sure you can find pro-ISIS sites on there as well.
[+] [-] nicksergeant|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lstamour|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Havvy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|11 years ago|reply
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/22/54679... : India had its own idea of what is unacceptable. ISTR there may be no map which is legal in both India and Pakistan.
[+] [-] anandrm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minusSeven|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] happyscrappy|11 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8808630
[+] [-] cryptbin|11 years ago|reply
Interesting to note is that we also own the domain cryptb.in (a TLD from India) and that has not been banned. However, it is merely a redirect so it does not provide an alternative entrance to the site. We use it only for short URL's on public pastes.
[+] [-] revelation|11 years ago|reply
I guess we'll just never know why they do these stupid things. By the time some bureaucrat has to give a statement all they can get out is terror, ISIS and anti India.
[+] [-] lnanek2|11 years ago|reply
You can see it's the source code for the same sort of paste text online site they are banning all over the place in the other bans. It seems kind of nuts to ban all source code hosting and clipboard type hosting sites, but clearly they are trying. Wonder what's next, blogs that allow posting comments or signing guestbooks?
[+] [-] jrockway|11 years ago|reply
I assume we'll grow out of it soon enough.
[+] [-] drdaeman|11 years ago|reply
-- From Russia with love, huh. We have exactly the same kind of stuff here.
[+] [-] kartikkumar|11 years ago|reply
Absolute shame that a blanket ban like this is applied. It has a profound effect on everyday activities unrelated to the original reason for banning. Even if there is content of a questionable nature, it's absolutely crazy to not expose this. Let people make up their own minds about what is right or wrong. A simple ban on these websites isn't going to stop those who mean harm from getting to their goal.
All I can see that this results in is collateral damage, e.g., me not being able to push the latest commits for a research tool I'm building. I might be small fish, but that's the exact point; a ban like this necessary works like a cluster bomb.
[+] [-] mikeash|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aksx|11 years ago|reply
Didn't even know till a few hours ago that thses sites were being blocked since they display a blank page.
[+] [-] ChristianBundy|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gshrikant|11 years ago|reply
This is unbelievably ridiculous, if not downright stupid. Even as our Prime Minister speaks of bringing about a new digital revolution, decisions such as these show how badly equipped the lawmakers are in dealing with issues relating to technology.
Blanket bans like these are not only a form of internet censorship which flies in the face of the establishing principles of the largest democracy in the world, the lack of any details or explanation before issuing an outright ban on several important software hosting websites and content providers just evokes an image of a myopic government with incredibly poor understanding of technology.
[1] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/now-modi-govt-blocks-3...
[+] [-] rgovind|11 years ago|reply
Spot on!
[+] [-] sametmax|11 years ago|reply
Well, it's open source and easy to install, anybody can duplicate it if needed so I guess it's ok.
Maybe we should add some way to replicate one instance content to other trusted instances to avoid this problem.
[+] [-] twothamendment|11 years ago|reply
Replication would be cool feature.
[+] [-] FrankenPC|11 years ago|reply
Isn't it a terrible economic idea for India to block access to Github? I thought India was really big into software engineering?
[+] [-] rgovind|11 years ago|reply
In India, the moment you say security, all logic and reason stop. And police is always looking for quick fixes. That is why google street view is still not available in India.
[+] [-] Arun2009|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nnain|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bdcravens|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] readme|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] themonk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thesagan|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhurron|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nobodyshere|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] catchmrbharath|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giis|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doe88|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aselzer|11 years ago|reply
According to the list it has been specifically blocked. It appears to be a pastebin clone written in PHP.
Almost all of them are pastebin-like sites.
http://atnsoft.com/atnsoft.com/textpaster/ seems very unrelated.
My assumption would have been that a government crawler stumbled upon some messages it didn't like and the sites they were on ended up on the list, but the two sites above would unlikely be affected by this.
Archive.org was probably affected because they mirrored some content of any of them.
[+] [-] phit_|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rajbot|11 years ago|reply
I queried the Indian DNS servers on this list that are marked 'valid' or 'new': http://public-dns.tk/nameserver/in.html
Only one of them (182.59.1.235, operated by MTNL ISP) returned the fake IP being used for blocked sites (59.185.3.14). The other 1843 servers returned the correct IP.
I am trying to figure out if that means archive.org has been removed from the block list, or if the DNS servers listed on that page haven't yet been updated with the blocked sites.
If anyone can help us figure out if archive.org is still blocked, it would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks! -raj at archive.org
[+] [-] meta-coder|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Achshar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chris_wot|11 years ago|reply
I'm wondering how long it will be though before the Wikipedia article gets updated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India
1. http://pgportal.gov.in/pgo.aspx
[+] [-] confluence|11 years ago|reply
Utterly ludicrous.
[+] [-] d0ugie|11 years ago|reply
I noticed Pastebin getting a fair number of mentions in the news in connection with the Sony attack as a place for hackers to dump sensitive information publicly and easily.
My guess is this blacklist was assembled to mitigate such hacking damage on Indian targets, but it was assembled with some haste; and github and vimeo, I doubt, will remain blocked for too long.
[+] [-] MichaelGG|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javajosh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nib|11 years ago|reply
If you believe you're doing so as these websites contain "anti-India" stuff, well, then screw yourself. Code that is used to run apps worldwide, API's, and what not have been cut off access to due to your little problem. On one hand, the guys promote the IT industry but on the other hand, they purposefully demote the industry. Get your goals right, people.
Moreover, I don't think the telecommunications department even knows how to cut off access to a website. I'm from Delhi, and here, both Github and Pastebin are accessible.
[+] [-] sgarg26|11 years ago|reply
http://www.ndtv.com/article/cheat-sheet/bangalore-bomb-blast...
[+] [-] readme|11 years ago|reply
--The Indian Gov.