[Politech] Explanation about why Ogrish.com may or may not be banned [fs]

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Tue Nov 02 2004 - 06:42:06 PST


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[This is from someone who knows what they're talking about. --Declan]

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Hi Declan,

Please strip identifying information if you choose to use this reply.
Thanks.



 >> Hi, Declan. Ogrish.com is _not_ still banned. No problem to access 
the site
 >> and browse the 11-M pictures (really shocking) from Spain. Judge Del 
Olmo is
 >> _trying_ to ban the access but this is a long process. Anyway, I 
think he
 >> will not get it (I've seen many previous attempts, all of them
 >> unsuccessful).


While I am not certain as to how difficult such a process is or is not, as
someone who has first hand knowledge of what is actually in the global
routing tables (of several of the largest carriers), I'd like to point out
that there are a quite a few things that have been removed from all of us,
courtesy of court orders from Spain.

Since complying with a court order to suppress certain IPs in very narrow
jurisdictions (i.e., Spain proper) is technically very difficult, orders
which seek to do this are instead simply applied globally by multinational
carriers.  To put that in plain English, if a Spanish court orders that IP
address 1.2.3.4 is to be suppressed within the country of Spain, what will
happen is that 1.2.3.4 will instead be null routed across the entire
network (meaning that now there is *nobody* who can access it).

This is becoming more and more common of a problem, as more countries with
laws allowing speech suppression issue orders to prevent "objectionable
speech" (variying from web sites that "support" Osama to things as banal
as Ogrish).   The most common response to such an order by the web site
operator is to change IPs - leaving the court order ineffective, the
carrier with holes in their routing table which they cannot [legally]
remove (despite any performance issues or similar technical difficulties
which may result), and the target web site "on the air".  This may account
for the off-the-air/on-the-air reports (or it may not - either way, I
thought this explanation would be both timely and relevent).


 >> Regards,
 >> Pedro


Sign me:

	The Anonymous Router Jockey

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