UK Web Filtering Blocks Access To Website Of Europe's Largest And Oldest Hacking Community

from the always-broken...-always dept

Mon, Dec 8th 2014 2:46pm — Tim Cushing

The "Great Firewall of Britain" claims another victim. "Voluntary" (as in: under the threat of legislation) internet filtering by ISPs has blocked UK citizens from connecting to the website of one of the oldest computer hacking groups in existence.

Last Friday, Germany's Chaos Computer Club posted this statement.

A significant portion of British citizens are currently blocked from accessing the Chaos Computer Club's (CCC) website. On top of that, Vodafone customers are blocked from accessing the ticket sale to this year's Chaos Communication Congress (31C3).

The post goes on to note that while these filters are faulty and suffer from overbroad content flagging, they can be easily bypassed simply by using the site's IP address: 213.73.89.123. It also points out that this blockage could possibly be deliberate, rather than due to the inherent technical limitations of poorly-designed web filters.

However, it may very well be that the CCC is considered "extremist" judged by British standards of freedom of speech.

Could be. Governments tend to treat all hackers as criminals, no matter how much the standard definition deviates from government officials' misconceptions. The Chaos Computer Club, despite being Europe's largest hacker community, is not composed of criminals. But it has engaged in several acts that would make it less popular with various governments, including reverse engineering "lawful access" malware used by German law enforcement (which included installations on school computers), uncovering a government backdoor in Skype and filing a criminal complaint against the German government for its massive domestic surveillance programs.

As it stands now, it appears that only Three is currently blocking the main CCC website. The Open Rights Group's "Blocked" website indicates that Virgin Media and Vodafone had both blocked the site until recently, but appear to have removed CCC from their blacklists on Nov. 27th and Dec. 8th, respectively.

Blocking the CCC is just another demonstration of how internet filters don't work. The filter fails on multiple levels, going overboard with the blocking while simultaneously allowing users to bypass the system using nothing more than an IP address. The end result is the UK's passive-aggressive filter-by-proxy, one that hangs the threat of regulatory legislation over the heads of ISPs while signing off on "will this do?" filtering.

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Filed Under: filters, hacking, porn filters, uk
Companies: chaos computer club

26 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2014 @ 3:26pm

the UK government is only interested in allowing the public to access sites that Cameron (think of the children, so lets block porn sites!) thinks they should be allowed to access. in other words the Great Firewall of Britain. what is so shity is that almost no porn sites have been blocked in relation to the number of sites having been blocked, with the majority being, as in other countries, file sharing sites! that means that the UK is doing just what Obama wants it to do so as to ensure the 'special relationship' doesn't flag! well, not until shit hits fan over something, that is, then see the US government abandon the UK like rats jumping off a sinking ship!! and the UK deserves nothing else, when it continually slags off China, N.Korea, Teheran etc for their governments removal of freedom and privacy!! two faced ass wipes!!
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- tqk (profile), 9 Dec 2014 @ 9:31am
  
  Re:
  ... with the majority being, as in other countries, file sharing sites!
  
  It should be mentioned that the censors did this to openbittorrent.com the other day too, with exactly the same result. Add "67.212.71.74 openbittorrent.com" to your /etc/hosts (YMMV) file, and the problem disappears.
  
  "The Internet perceives censorship as damage, and routes around it." Don't anyone tell our guardians of truth and justice.
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ECA (profile), 8 Dec 2014 @ 3:31pm

Lawyers and money
Between Lawyers and money..you can make anything happen.

If you cant FORCE them with lawyers(interesting that if the lawyers win they get the money).
You just Pay the company MONEY..to do it insted.
it all comes out of the consumer pocket, so WHO CARES??
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2014 @ 3:34pm

Isn't website censorship a violation of net neutrality?
I mean, I know we're all fighting over it and I don't know whether or not the EU respects it or not (I'm guessing not), but favoring some websites over others seems like a violation.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2014 @ 3:50pm

Official Blackhall Press Release
We in the British government pondered long and hard about the best action to take. We wanted to show all the technically-illiterate population that we were serious about the dangers of the internet, while not actually impeding their access to websites exploiting their self-destructive vices. And, to avoid angering the technically-aware population, we chose to block the site most likely to be accessed only by people who would find it trivial to work around any possible blocks the second-rate hacks who work for the government could devise.

We believe that any reasonable observer will conclude that we found the optimum solution.
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Blackfiredragon13 (profile), 8 Dec 2014 @ 4:23pm

The term "great firewall of Britain" draws some sad similarities to a certain republic. It's depressing and sad to see this spread like a plague.
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Mason Wheeler (profile), 8 Dec 2014 @ 4:25pm

Not composed of criminals?
First off... seriously? The CCC is still around? I haven't heard anything about them or their activities since the 90s!

So I'll grand that my information is a bit dated, but even so, since when are they not composed of criminals? It's right there in the name: Chaos. They at least used to be a bunch of vandals who hacked into systems and caused trouble "for the lulz," to use the modern parlance.

What changed?
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- art guerrilla (profile), 8 Dec 2014 @ 6:11pm
  
  Re: Not composed of criminals?
  "What changed?"
  
  you misrepresenting their his story ? ? ?
  
  now, go back to clutching your pearls...
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- That One Guy (profile), 8 Dec 2014 @ 8:43pm
  
  What's in a name?
  It's right there in the name: Chaos.
  
  And I'm pretty sure both the Chinese, and North Korean governments have 'Democratic' and 'People's' in their names, but to anyone paying attention neither government is very interested in democracy, or serving the public.
  
  Just because a group has 'chaos' in the name, doesn't really mean much. Heck, the UK and Europe has the Pirate Party, yet I'm not sure how many members are Pastafarians.
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- techflaws (profile), 8 Dec 2014 @ 10:16pm
  
  Re: Not composed of criminals?
  I haven't heard anything about them or their activities since the 90s!
  So, you're clueless. So what?
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- Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2014 @ 8:56am
  
  Re: Not composed of criminals?
  Chaos: complete confusion and disorder : a state in which behavior and events are not controlled by anything.
  
  Complete confusion? I guess you too are a criminal.
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- tqk (profile), 9 Dec 2014 @ 9:57am
  
  Re: Not composed of criminals?
  What changed?
  
  Apparently, you crawled under a rock 1.5 decades or so ago. What brought you out?
  
  You really should read up on them. They did some fairly cool stuff bringing East Germany's Stasi crimes to light, for one thing. They've also sponsored huge yearly conventions all this time.
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Stosh, 8 Dec 2014 @ 6:30pm

So they're using a porous firewall to block a "hacker's" website....so that hackers won't be able to access it?!?!?!

Are they serious????
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Pixelation, 8 Dec 2014 @ 6:54pm

It's time for a revolution in Great Britain. Have a big tea party and reject the right of the government to tax you. Good luck.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Dec 2014 @ 7:47pm

Choas Computer Club and Hackaday
From Dec 6

Chaos Computer Club and Hackaday blocked by British Porn Filters

Indiscriminate blocking.
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tracyanne (profile), 8 Dec 2014 @ 8:52pm

I watched the movie V for Vendetta the other night
I couldn't help thinking how much like David Cameron the PM in the movie was, and how easily Britain could become That Britain.
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- PaulT (profile), 8 Dec 2014 @ 11:59pm
  
  Re: I watched the movie V for Vendetta the other night
  The original graphic novel was very much inspired by the Thatcher government of the 1980s, and Cameron is a Thatcher fanboy. None of this is new, nor surprising when the Tories managed to usurp power (perhaps not the correct word, but their party wasn't really elected, and the Lib Dem part of the coalition hasn't exactly been stopping them from doing what they would have done had they gained power alone).
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Steve, 9 Dec 2014 @ 12:29am

"As it stands now, it appears that only Three is currently blocking the main CCC website"

So a mobile operator is blocking it. That would be the same mobile operator that had blocklists in place years before the government did anything at all?

Hyperbole much. In other news CCC has a conference on, who would have guessed!
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- PaulT (profile), 9 Dec 2014 @ 1:16am
  
  Re:
  "So a mobile operator is blocking it."
  
  Did you deliberately skip over the following sentence, or was it inconvenient to whatever point you were trying to make?
  
  "The Open Rights Group's "Blocked" website indicates that Virgin Media and Vodafone had both blocked the site until recently"
  
  So, at least 2 mobile operators and the 3rd biggest domestic ISP in the country.
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Sheogorath (profile), 9 Dec 2014 @ 3:43am

Hey, Techdirt!
How's about instead of bitching about these problems, you become part of the solution? All you have to do is maintain on this website a list of the URLs that are blocked and the IP addresses required to get to each website. Hackers and other interested parties would provide the the URLs and their accompanying IP addresses, and all you would have to do is test that they work correctly before publishing them, as well as altering or pruning addresses that no longer work.
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- PaulT (profile), 9 Dec 2014 @ 6:07am
  
  Re: Hey, Techdirt!
  I'm not sure what's dumber about that comment - the instance that a US-based company should be testing and maintaining a list of URLs that are blocked by UK ISPs, or the insistence that informing people of the problem is being part of the problem...
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- Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 9 Dec 2014 @ 6:49am
  
  Re: Hey, Techdirt!
  maintain on this website a list of the URLs that are blocked and the IP addresses required to get to each website.
  
  So you want TD to start up their own DNS, when there are thousands of them already? Why reinvent the wheel?
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Case, 9 Dec 2014 @ 7:13am

Lost in translation...
Interestingly, the CCC's official translation of the article is much more tame than the original. The translation says
However, it may very well be that the CCC is considered "extremist" judged by British standards of freedom of speech.

Whereas the German original would translate as
But possibly in Great Britain, a country which has been acting outside Central European standards of freedom of speech for years, the CCC passes as "extremist"
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- tqk (profile), 9 Dec 2014 @ 10:44am
  
  Re: Lost in translation...
  I'll just leave this (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater) here:
  I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
  
  So, is CCC sanitizing its reporting so as not to offend delicate British sensibilities?
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Dave, 9 Dec 2014 @ 12:02pm

Madness
Another bloody stupid Cameron crack-pot idea that appears to be back-firing. When will that man learn how things actually work?
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- Anonymous Coward, 9 Dec 2014 @ 11:30pm
  
  Re: Madness
  He's a politician. Politicians never learn, they just get kicked out of Parliament.
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