Chris Comley ([info]ccomley) wrote,
@ 2008-12-06 22:55:00
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Current mood: enraged

No-one expects the spanish inquisition.
If you're trying to look something up on Wikipedia today, then you may find you just get blank pages. Since sometmie on Friday 5th, in fact.

Turns out, this is not an "error", this is deliberate censorship. One or more of the "tier 1" internet feed companies through which we obtain our "backbone" connection to the rest of the internet are running all web requests through a filter and return a blank page instead of the requested date if you visit certain websites.

No, yuo can't go around it (at least, only by findign out which ISPs, if any, are unaffected).
No, you can't obatin a list of these blocked sites.

If you visit their website, Internet Watch Foundation will tell you all about how wonderful a job they're doing. But they don't tell you how they decide any given site should be barred.

The most useful comment I could find was "As the URLs are precise websites or web pages the risk of over blocking or collateral damage is minimised." (http://www.iwf.org.uk/public/page.148.htm) but this would appear to be, how shall I put this, a LIE. As I've been a heavy Wikipedia user these past years and never yet seen an image which "might be regarded as child pornography", I have to assume that if tehre ARE such images (a) they're on very rarely viewed pages (b) they're only likely to be considered as child porn in extremis and (c) if anyone had reported them to the Wikipedia operators, they would have been removed. But what the heck, let's just bar access to their entire network instead, it's so much easier...

What's next? Burning books? After all, they *might* contain information.


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[info]nerdware
2008-12-06 11:50 pm UTC (link)
My ISP, at least, isn't blocking Wikipedia. As a test, I looked up the word "porn" and was greeted with a page displaying a picture of a "top shelf".

Perhaps the IWF don't consider Demon big enough. ;)

(Reply to this)


[info]ccomley
2008-12-07 01:14 am UTC (link)
Further info from WikiFolk themselves

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/British_ISPs_restrict_access_to_Wikipedia_amid_child_pornography_allegations

(Reply to this)


(Anonymous)
2008-12-07 11:41 am UTC (link)
Looking into this someone mentioned the Scorpions album Virgin Killer, which has an image on the controversial side of 'art' in my book. www.amazon.com are still showing the image and there are thousands of the links to it in Google images, of course.

I wonder whether the IWF have censored Google and Amazon as well...

Roo

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]ccomley
2008-12-07 12:20 pm UTC (link)
Roo, I've lokoed at the Wiki page in question, and, me, I wouldn't publish the original picture. I can see their point.

BUT

IWF *claim* their system is granular enough to stop individual pages. But instead of doing that, they have blocked access to one of the web's most useful resources. Not just the picture, or just the page, but the entire site, and it;s related sites so far as I can see.

This will not do.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]nerdware
2008-12-07 12:45 pm UTC (link)
The Wikinews page claims that Demon are blocking the Wikimedia sites, yet I'm using Demon and can still access those sites.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]ccomley
2008-12-07 01:24 pm UTC (link)
There is much confuision.

I can't see any WikiMedia pages via our own network but via my backup ADSL account, no problems at all. I've heard otehr Demon users say they have full access too. Of course, WikiPeople can't see it from our end so presumably have to go by hearsay.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]nerdware
2008-12-07 02:12 pm UTC (link)
I get different results from various DNS servers. My local server is no doubt caching results, which could explain why I still see the Wikimedia servers. Likewise, my ADSL modem/router. However, Demon's official DNS server(s) point to iwfwebfilter.thus.net instead.

No, I'm not happy. This is a Denial of Service attack by a third party, assisted by my ISP!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]ccomley
2008-12-07 08:23 pm UTC (link)
I agree - I hope the UKS ISPs (i'm happy to join in but we're not rich enough to headline such a move) will club together and sue the IWF under the Computer Misuse Act.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Clarifications..
[info]bryangb
2008-12-07 05:52 pm UTC (link)
It's only a specific page that's blocked to Wikipedia visitors, AIUI. I'm on Virgin cable, and when I click on this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Killer
all I get is a blank page.

However, one of the stories I read on this said that the IWC blacklist is also blocking *edit* access for unregistered Wikipedia users. I'm not a Wikipedia editor, so I wouldn't have been aware of this, I guess.

(I have to admit I'm surprised it's still possible to edit on Wikipedia without being a registered user, but there you go.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Clarifications..
[info]nerdware
2008-12-07 06:40 pm UTC (link) 
$ host en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org has address 193.195.3.33
en.wikipedia.org is an alias for rr.wikimedia.org.
rr.wikimedia.org is an alias for rr.knams.wikimedia.org.
en.wikipedia.org is an alias for rr.wikimedia.org.
rr.wikimedia.org is an alias for rr.knams.wikimedia.org.
$ host 193.195.3.33
33.3.195.193.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer iwfwebfilter.thus.net.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Clarifications..
[info]ccomley
2008-12-07 08:15 pm UTC (link)
Hmm. It may have changed. Of course I have to re-configure my firewall to send my web traffic back via the main connection... but the reason I put that route in in the first place is that from Friday when the block went in up to the time I put in the re-route (which was shortly before the first post in this thread) they *were* blocking access to the ENTIRE wikimedia farm.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Clarifications..
[info]nerdware
2008-12-07 08:42 pm UTC (link)
I object to a third party seeing and/or filtering my Internet traffic. That's a violation of privacy, amoung other things.

Edited at 2008-12-07 08:43 pm UTC

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Clarifications..
[info]ccomley
2008-12-08 10:11 am UTC (link)
It depends if it's legally backed or not.

It's also not clear a this time if it was IWF's intent to block the entire WikiSite or a mistake by those downstream of them (NTL/Virgin in particular) who implement the blacklist.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Clarifications..
[info]nerdware
2008-12-08 10:26 am UTC (link)
A legally backed violation of privacy is still a violation of privacy.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Clarifications..
[info]nerdware
2008-12-08 10:30 am UTC (link)
Who are the IWF accountable to?

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: Clarifications..
[info]vret
2008-12-07 11:09 pm UTC (link)
I can confirm that.

Thanks for sorting it out - for us at least.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]nerdware
2008-12-07 07:47 pm UTC (link)
FWIW, I've reported this to Demon's technical support people. They escalated it to their network engineers, who sadly can't doing anything at the weekend. So, we have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest for any action.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Clarifications..
[info]sw44444
2008-12-07 11:43 am UTC (link)
As a clarification to this article; no "Tier 1's" or "Backbone" in the true sense of the term are filtering access.

The elaborate, a number of the very large consumer focused ISP's implement the IWF list (right or wrong, I do not have an opinion) in an attempt to prevent the viewing of CAI content. They should not be referred to as "Tier 1" or "Backbone" providers. They are simple access providers.

The particular image in question (that of an album cover from the late 1970's) is visible on the Wikipedia page (the thumbnail still shows) however the direct link to the image is not. This image is also available via other sources, and is even listed on Amazon for example.

Have the IWF not taken due care and process in listing this address, by not listing all the other surrounding it, I leave that for the readers opinions.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: Clarifications..
[info]ccomley
2008-12-07 12:25 pm UTC (link)
I don't have the time or immeidate resources to work out *exactly* who is in our upstream path that's blocking the sites. I apologies if I've mis-direted anyone by using the term "tier 1".

I know that *someone* we PAY for connectivity is not providing it.

As I mentioned above, having seen the "offending" page I think it would a good idae if WikiTeam followed the lead of the band themselves and not show the shot. But IWF claim they can block individual pages. They should either do so, or should consider alternative methodoloyy before blocking access to sites like this.

I've checked Amazon (UK) - they show the album cover as released - which shows a picture of the band. I assume that if I bought it that's what I'd get too.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

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