gHacks technology news » ban http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:55:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Youtube banned once again in Turkey http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/20/youtube-banned-once-again-in-turkey/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/20/youtube-banned-once-again-in-turkey/#comments Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:04:12 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/20/youtube-banned-once-again-in-turkey/ Turkey has once again banned access to the video portal Youtube. Access to the website Youtube was blocked in Turkey after a court oder on Thursday. Turkish users seem to receive a message explaining the ban of Youtube. The reason for the third ban are once again videos that make fun of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey.

The first two bans have been lifted pretty fast after the videos had been removed by Youtube, it is unclear as of now which videos have been the reason for the ban. It would be nice if you could make a screenshot of the notice that you receive when visiting Youtube if you are accessing the Internet from Turkey.

My suggestion would be to try accessing Youtube by IP (http://208.65.153.253/) instead. If that is not working try a working proxy, this should work as always.

source: Futurezone.orf.at (Austrian)

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/01/20/youtube-banned-once-again-in-turkey/feed/ 10 Turkey bans Wordpress.com http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/20/turkey-bans-wordpresscom/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/20/turkey-bans-wordpresscom/#comments Mon, 20 Aug 2007 20:02:51 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/20/turkey-bans-wordpresscom/ Turkey is once again in the news with yet another ban of a famous website. While they banned all of Youtube for videos that made fun of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk they now decided to ban Wordpress.com because of a handful of blogs that supposedly insulted the Turkish creationist Adnan Oktar.

Heise, a respected German computer magazin were the first to report about the ban. The news, which is unfortunately only available in German, does not reveal a source other than that it was reported by the dpa, the German Press Agency.

M&C have more information about the case:


Turkish Internet users attempting to access more than a million Wordpress.com sites are now redirected to a site which says in Turkish and English, ‘Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance.’

Kerim Kalkan, a lawyer for Oktar said that the court first ordered Turk Telecom to block a couple of specific sites but the authors of the sites soon moved the allegedly libelous content to other Wordpress sites.

‘It was when this happened that we applied to the court to order that all websites of Wordpress be blocked,’ Kalkan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

My personal opinion is that this is a typical overreaction showing once again that Turkey is not ready to become a member of the European Union.

Update: Official Wordpress.com information released in blog post. Why we are banned in Turkey

source: Heise (German only)
additional information: Monsters and Critics (English)

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/08/20/turkey-bans-wordpresscom/feed/ 2 Youtube removed videos and Turkey lifts ban http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/10/youtube-removed-videos-and-turkey-lifts-ban/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/10/youtube-removed-videos-and-turkey-lifts-ban/#comments Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:36:11 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/10/youtube-removed-videos-and-turkey-lifts-ban/ Youtube decided to remove the videos that had been posted on the site earlier on which led to the complete ban of the website ordered by a Turkish court. The main question that arises from the series of events is of course if Youtube made the right decision by removing the video in question. Or to bring this into a broader perspective: Should a website give in to the demands of a third party to remove content because it might be considered offensive to that party ?

Can it be that Youtube will now receive many threats of that kind from offended parties ? Could Greeks demand that Turkish nationalistic movies are removed ? Germans that World War II movies, US-Americans that Vietnam, Iraqis that Gulf War, Al-Quaida that 911 movies are removed ? Where is the limit ? May every country and group demand the removal of movies no matter the content, no matter if it is perfectly legal in the United States ?

I think this was a bad decision not only by Youtube who will probably face a lot of demands from now on but also for Turkey who once more have shown that they tend to overreact in such matters. Would not it be possible to either ignore the movie or discuss it openly like it should have been done ? Banning is in my opinion always a sign of fear..

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/03/10/youtube-removed-videos-and-turkey-lifts-ban/feed/ 4 And so the Pirates win the day http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/21/and-so-the-pirates-win-the-day/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/21/and-so-the-pirates-win-the-day/#comments Thu, 21 Dec 2006 13:14:12 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/21/and-so-the-pirates-win-the-day/ It began with the ban of the Russian website allofmp3 by the internet provider Perspektiv. The Piratebay decided to ban users of the provider from accessing their website as a response of the ban against allofmp3. Guess what, Perspektiv announced today that they lifted the ban of the Russian website and the Piratebay in turn decided to lift their ban as well.

According to the Pro Piracy Lobby website the provider experienced some heavy fire from disgruntled customers and privacy & free speech groups. It seems that the pressure on the provider was this intense that they decided to retract their decision and apologize to their customers.

Together with our new chairman of the board, the management agrees that limiting Internet access is not within the framework of our business, says Fredrik Winbladh, President of Perspektiv Bredband.

It is of great importance the we as a telecom and Internet operator, a so called common carrier, focus on delivering information. We can’t risk our position being questioned given the previous statement. The management and the company learned a lot from the debate that took place and we will use this experience to keep developing according to our vision of becoming the prime broadband choice of the Öresund region (Southern Sweden), says new Chairman Mikael Paulsson.

Two interesting statements. It seems that this episode clearly shows that companies will listen to their customers if only enough raise their voice.

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]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/21/and-so-the-pirates-win-the-day/feed/ 1 How to bypass Internet Censorship http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/19/how-to-bypass-internet-censorship/ http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/19/how-to-bypass-internet-censorship/#comments Tue, 19 Dec 2006 20:08:07 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2006/12/19/how-to-bypass-internet-censorship/ If you are looking for a comprehensive, and I mean really really comprehensive, guide on bypassing internet censorship you might want to take a look at the excellent guide written by Freerk. The guide is divided into two parts; The first analyzes different methods to censor information on the internet and the second part describes different ways to bypass censorship.

It describes methods to censor websites like blocking url’s via the DNS server that for instance the German government likes to use which can be easily countered by using the IP or an DNS server that does not block the website. So, for every action (censorship) you find the corresponding reaction (bypass). Excellent read for everyone whose country, company or institution has decided to block certain information.

Kinds of censorship described:

  • Blocked URL’s via the DNS-server
  • Forced proxy server / transparent proxy
  • Keyword filter
  • Blocked ports
  • Software on the client (child protection e.t.c)
  • Censorware on the server (inside of networks)
  • Whitelist
  • IP blocking on the routers

Ways to bypass Censorship:

  • Using a different ISP
  • Using a not censoring DNS-server
  • Using a non censoring proxy server
  • Using a Web-2-phone service
  • Using a webproxy
  • Get Webpages via eMail
  • Using steganography
  • Using a special proxy like peer-2-peer program
  • Special Services

Everything is explained in detail and links are provided where necessary. I have decided to pick out some of the more common methods to censor and bypass information in the coming days – stay tuned.

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