Teachers In Missouri Sue For The Right To 'Friend' Their Students On Facebook

Argentine ISPs Block Over A Million Blogs In Response To Court Order To Block Two

from the internet-censorship-at-work dept

Mon, Aug 22nd 2011 8:12am — Mike Masnick

And people wonder why we worry about plans to censor websites. Every time it happens, the censorship ends up being much broader than planned. The latest example comes from Argentina, where a court order to block two specific sites -- leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com -- actually resulted in over a million blogs being blocked. That's because some ISPs, in order to cut off the blogspot site, simply blocked the IP address 216.239.32.2, which is used across Blogger's blogspot offering. As the EFF notes:

IP blocking is a blunt method of filtering content that can erase from view large swaths of innocuous sites by virtue of the fact that they are hosted on the same IP address as the site that was intended to be censored. One such example of overblocking by IP address can be found in India, where the IP blocking of a Hindu Unity website (blocked by an order from Mumbai police) resulted in the blocking of several other, unrelated sites.

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Filed Under: argentina, blocks, censorship, filters, ip addresses

25 Comments

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Chris Rhodes (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 8:00am

Taking Lessons from ICE
Can't wait for the trolls to tell us it was really only one website.
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RD, 22 Aug 2011 @ 8:29am

Troll Response #1
Let me see if I can make this come out right.

"Well, then they shouldn't be hosting obviously illegal material."

"They didn't take down a million sites, they only took down 2. Mike, you should be ashamed of yourself for lying and spreading FUD and fearmongering."

"A court ruled they should be taken down so it's OK. Anyone else using the site for their blog is obviously a criminal then too."

"They only blocked the main IP address. They can simply move to another domain/IP so there is no prior restraint (or insert other justification for the violation of the first amendment here.)" (I know, its not in America, but this same basic argument will be used)

"Section 230-type protections don't apply because they should have known the copyright status of any/all material that their service hosts that is user generated because its always obvious what is a copyright violation and they should just KNOW! It's their service after all, so they are responsible regardless."
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 8:42am

And they always forget that doing these things draws more attention to what they want to hide.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2011 @ 8:50am

Re: Troll Response #1
RD, you got it wrong.

They didn't take down any sites. The sites are still up. No take down happened. Rather, 2 sites were blocked, as well as their IPs, and other sites that may have shared the same IP also ended up blocked.

All blogspot needs to do is show that they have removed the offending blog, and I am sure the court will allow the IP to be unblocked.

Think of this as another reason to move to IPv6, because each of those blogs could have it's own unique IP, which would solve the issue.

Perhaps the EFF needs to understand the technical restrictions, and encourage blogspot to join the 21st century, rather than ragging on a foreign judge that issues a good and valid court order.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2011 @ 8:52am

"But that's not the intent of the law"
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:00am

Re: Re: Troll Response #1
Except the order was never issued to blogspot, maybe perhaps because they are well outside of the courts jurisdiction?
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:10am

Re: Re: Troll Response #1
"Think of this as another reason to move to IPv6, because each of those blogs could have it's own unique IP, which would solve the issue."

That would require that every node along the way to Blogspot supported IPv6, which I highly doubt they do. I know for sure that my ISP doesn't support it and neither does my (slightly ancient) router.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:12am

Re: Re: Troll Response #1
"All blogspot needs to do is show that they have removed the offending blog, and I am sure the court will allow the IP to be unblocked."

If the blog is not hosted in Argentine, and it is legal where it is being hosted, why the hell would they want to take it down?

"Think of this as another reason to move to IPv6, because each of those blogs could have it's own unique IP, which would solve the issue."

So it should be Blogspot's responsibility to make it easier for Blogspot to be censored? Really?

I find it hard to believe that anyone would support censorship, unless of course they can somehow profit from it.
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Old Fool (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:12am

Re: Re: Troll Response #1
Doesn't 'TROLL RESPONSE' give you a clue he/she may be trolling?

I suspect he/she was pre-empting the usual troll gubins.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:15am

Re: Re: Re: Troll Response #1
You said: "If the blog is not hosted in Argentine, and it is legal where it is being hosted, why the hell would they want to take it down?"

Me: There you go, see? You answered Mike's original question. If the court orders that the site not be available in their country, they have no other alternative than to block the IP. It's too bad for the people who have honest sites on blogspot and want to be viewed in Argentina. Perhaps paying for a host would be a good start, right?

Basically, since the court cannot order blogspot to do anything, they have to handle it in their own way.

Since blogpost doesn't divide out the different sub-domains they host, it's really nobody's fault but their own that the find themselves blocked.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:16am

Re: Re: Troll Response #1
"They didn't take down any sites."

Or, rather, for each site that was taken down, 100 replacement sites sprung right back up. So, in effect, you're correct.
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mike allen (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:27am

I am thinking by the end of today someone has worked away round this ridiculous order and most of Argentina can see it again.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:31am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Troll Response #1
"Since blogpost doesn't divide out the different sub-domains they host, it's really nobody's fault but their own that the find themselves blocked."

So because they won't make it easier to be censored, it's their own fault? I'm willing to bet this has the opposite effect than the desired one....
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:47am

I'll bet the Argentines can handle this all on their own.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:48am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Troll Response #1
They aren't being censored. Blogspot can continue to run anything they want, but to be in conformity with Argentian court orders, the ISPs locally must block that IP. Too bad for blogspot. Perhaps they should have made it easier for themselves not to be censored.
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Overcast (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 9:50am

Free Speech is evil!!!!

**If you are a tyrannical government.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 10:03am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Troll Response #1
Wouldn't the better court order have been to tell all the citizens to never goto these websites?
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AJ, 22 Aug 2011 @ 10:05am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Troll Response #1
"They aren't being censored. Blogspot can continue to run anything they want, but to be in conformity with Argentian court orders, the ISPs locally must block that IP. Too bad for blogspot. Perhaps they should have made it easier for themselves not to be censored."

Are you drunk? You are not even giving me a "Good trolling experience". .....I feel, shortchanged... I demand a new troll!
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Jimr (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 10:41am

Since every computer involved in illegal/infringement actives has found to have the 127.0.0.1 address the Judge will next order ISP to block all access to 127.0.0.1.
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Gwiz (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 10:42am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Troll Response #1
Too bad for blogspot. Perhaps they should have made it easier for themselves not to be censored.

Bah. Sounds like you want it to be easier to take out whatever you consider to be a "rogue site" without the public backlash of taking out thousands of other sites in the process. Too bad for you I guess.
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Bengie, 22 Aug 2011 @ 10:58am

Understatement of the year
"P blocking is a blunt method of filtering"

Like performing a brain surgery with a baseball bat.
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Atkray (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 11:10am

Argentina is all Patagonia and skiing in Bariloce.

Does the phrase Desaparacidos ring any bells?

I lived there it is a beautiful land with wonderful people but the government is FUBAR
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gorehound (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 11:11am

If the USA goes this route of taking down sites and restricting the Internet because behind our backs Hollywood managed to get millions of dollars in legal bribery then I casll for a general protest among us USA'ers.I stand and call for us to all DDOS Goverment sites and White House,etc.
Sure we may get into trouble but if millions do it and replace the front page with the protest sign we will in fact make a harmless and non-violent point and it will make National News.
What else are we going to do ? just take PROTECT-IP and their other shit lying down.Us Jews have a saying that comes from Abba Kovner a leading partisan from Lithuania "We will not go like sheep to the slaughter" is the basis of his speech.
Us Americans have to take a stand eventually before all of our rights are eroded to nothing but a 1984 Police State.And I am sure there are plenty who would love to hsave that and be the ones in power.I have absolutely no trust at all in our Government.ZERO TRUST
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ComputerAddict (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 11:35am

Re:
"What else are we going to do ?"

Might I suggest traditional protest? Any sort of DDOS attack, replacing a homepage (which is not a DDOS attack as you hint at), All we do is make the government look like a victim, they prosecute individual people where mainstream media will run the story "hacker found guilty of hacking" and everyone will hail the government for locking up haxors.

We need a pDOS (Physical Denial of Service), traditional protesting, a Million Geek March on Washington. Blocking a website doesn't stop a senator from going to work and making crappy laws. Having a million people swarm Washington for a week will be noticed, will have an effect.

Unfortunately, people are not willing to fight for their internet rights. People think this will be handled by forward thinking, 70 year old, representatives. yea right.
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BeeAitch (profile), 22 Aug 2011 @ 1:29pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Troll Response #1
Basically, since the court cannot legally order blogspot to do anything, they have to work outside of the law.

FTFY
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