Archive for the ‘Blocking’ Category

It seems like newspapers are only reporting on:

- non-Dutch individuals
- names of Dutch individuals and businesses which probably have not played a significant part in actual tax evasion schemes, so the damage to their reputation (and Dutch society) might be limited.

As such, it seems as if Dutch newspapers are controlling the damage of the ICIJ effort, rather than having it reach the core of the Dutch society.

This results in the exceptionally awkward situation that we have the Secretary of State at the Dutch Ministry of Finance, Mr. Frans Weekers, making an effort to get access to all the data regarding Dutch businesses and individuals, rather than newspapers simply reporting the facts. He seems willing to take Dutch newspapers to court to reach that goal.

Dutch language news articles:
http://www.trouw.nl/tr/nl/4504/Economie/article/detail/3421370/2013/04/06/ING-en-ABNAmro-duiken-op-in-database-over-belastingvlucht.dhtml
http://www.powned.tv/nieuws/politiek/2013/04/weekers_zien_wie_geheime_reken.html

Previously:

One Huge Pile Of Money. 25.000.000.000.000 Euros To Be Exact. Where? Tax Havens. Who? Here You Go!
http://vrritti.com/2013/04/04/one-huge-pile-of-money-25-000-000-000-000-euros-to-be-exact-where-tax-havens-who-here-you-go/

How the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists made sense of the 260 gigabytes of information
http://vrritti.com/2013/04/04/how-the-international-consortium-of-investigative-journalists-made-sense-of-the-260-gigabytes-of-information/

There Is No Freedom Of The Press In The Netherlands. Main Stream Media Do Not Report On “Demmink E-mails”
http://vrritti.com/2013/03/21/there-is-no-freedom-of-the-press-in-the-netherlands-main-stream-media-do-not-report-on-demmink-e-mails/

Perhaps the ISP wants to prevent rooted devices from relaying live feeds to the likes of Screencast

Dutch language news article:
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/88277/telenet-blokkeert-livestream-voor-geroote-android-toestellen.html

http://torrentfreak.com/youtube-deal-with-universal-blocks-dmca-counter-notices-130405/

Providers like to decide for themselves what type of behavior they will condone…or not.

Dutch language news articles:
http://www.nu.nl/internet/3388897/upc-gaat-vast-internetgebruik-mogelijk-beperken.html
http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/113946/upc–zware-downloaders-gaan-extra-betalen.html 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57577752-37/apple-stops-blocking-microsofts-skydrive-app-for-ios/

In the Netherlands, some groups and individuals choose to enable the internet population to access the Pirate Bay website regardless of recent court verdicts which indicated that the file sharing website is illegal and needs to be blocked by local internet access providers. These parties have launched so-called Pirate Bay proxy servers, allowing internet users to visit the Pirate Bay using network resources of internet providers outside the Netherlands, who are not obliged to block the pirate website.

Dutch anti-piracy organization BREIN recently shut down a significant quantity of those proxy servers, making use of relevant  Dutch jurisprudence which also labels these proxy servers as illegal. Nonetheless, some individuals chose to keep their proxy server active. Dutch blog Geenstijl.nl – which is also promoting one of these proxy servers called FuckTimKuik.org – supported one of these last remaining proxy servers by calling on its audience to financially support activities of a Dutch individual called Tristan, who is said to be facing the threat of litigation by BREIN as well as a significant fine for choosing to keep his Pirate Bay proxy server alive.

BREIN has now gone and confiscated Tristan’s bank account. As a result, Geenstijl.nl is furious and is fuming that:

  1. Tim Kuik is the dancing prostitute of the entertainment industry;
  2. the entertainment mafia should fire Tim Kuik and invest the money they would spend on his services in innovation instead;
  3. BREIN should instead do something about the Pirate Bay proxy Geenstijl itself has been promoting for a year now: Fuck TimKuik.org;
  4. the entertainment industry consists of a bunch of white collar criminals who are blocking technological progress and taking out the competition and rather intimidate individuals than (targets the size of) Geenstijl;
  5. Geenstijl is also forcibly ejecting saliva on the entertainment industry representatives, their homes as well as any judge or politician who have their hands in the bag of money of the entertainment industry;
  6. the entertainment industry should die.

Dutch language blog post:
http://www.geenstijl.nl/mt/archieven/2013/04/beslag_op_rekening_tristan.html

geenstijl

A lot of people use Google’s search engine to find direct links to iOS applications. It used to be that queries such as ‘Twitter iPhone’ would result in Google showing direct links to the most relevant iTunes page up on top, or at least very close to the top, making finding and downloading apps from the desktop or iOS devices a breeze.

We’re not sure when things changed, or to what degree exactly, but Appsfire co-founder Ouriel Ohayon noticed today that it’s seemingly gotten way harder to swiftly find direct app download links using Google.

He’s far from the only one seeing this.

(…)

Conspiracy theorists out there can start sharpening their knives, and here’s some more food for thought: some direct app download links aren’t being buried by Google’s search engine whatsoever – particularly those applications that were made by … Google.

More:
http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/04/02/dear-google-where-did-all-the-itunes-links-to-ios-apps-go/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/technology/russia-begins-selectively-blocking-internet-content.html

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57577200-93/saudi-arabia-threatens-to-ban-skype-whatsapp-and-viber/

http://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-circumvents-censors-with-new-ka-tt-domain-130329/

Fortune 500 corporation eBay has apparently pulled a listing too politically hot too handle – a photo of actor and outspoken critic of the Second Amendment, Jim Carrey.

More:
http://www.infowars.com/spineless-ebay-yanks-jim-carrey-photo-for-gun-listing/

BT, Virgin Media, O2 and Be There have started to block access to three of the world’s largest BitTorrent sites. The blockades were put in place following a High Court order earlier this year, which ruled that KickassTorrents, H33T and Fenopy were facilitating copyright infringement. With the sites no longer accessible, hundreds of thousands of UK BitTorrent users will be looking for a new hope, or options to bypass the filters.

More:
http://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-start-blocking-kickasstorrents-h33t-and-fenopy-130321/

http://torrentfreak.com/new-york-public-library-blocks-the-pirate-bay-and-torrentfreak-130320/

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/opt-in-internet-porn-filter-across-4-major-uk-isps-humming-along-nicely/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/google-censoring-android-apps

http://torrentfreak.com/paramount-censors-torrentzs-torrentless-homepage-from-google-130315/

http://gizmodo.com/5990750/a-visual-breakdown-of-how-iran-censors-the-internet

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/judge-lifts-gag-order-on-online-critic-of-mcdonalds-settlement/

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/03/google-evicts-ad-blocking-software-from-google-play-store/

Riots should preferably be taking place in the Middle East. Facebook and freedom of information? Meh….

The police of the province of Noord Holland commented: “We asked whether they would remove them and that’s what they did”.

The pages contained a call to organize a party on behalf of the Mayor of the Dutch town of Haren, a town which had experienced severe riots as a result of a ‘Project X’ type of event.

The Mayor recently decided to step down when a critical report about his performance and that of local enforcement authorities had been released.

Dutch language news article:
http://www.nu.nl/binnenland/3369302/facebook-verwijdert-afscheidsfeest-burgemeester-haren.html

Previously:
http://vrritti.com/?s=project+x+haren&submit=Search

Not every instance of ‘adult entertainment’ is quite the same…some of it can hardly be labeled as ‘entertainment’…or ‘adult’ for that matter…

European citizens can breathe a sigh of relief after a vote in the European Parliament has rejected proposals to ban “all forms of pornography” — including on the Web — in the region.

The European Parliament votes in favor of the report, but rejects the ‘porn ban’ section.

Today, 625 members of the European Parliament voted 368-159 in favor of passing a report aimed at stamping out gender stereotypes in the region, with 98 abstaining. However, the controversial “porn ban” section of the proposal was rejected.

This vote forms a majority opinion based on Europe’s voting politicians, from which the European Commission can form legislation. Such a law would again be voted upon, and become legally binding in the 27 member state bloc of the EU.

Because the opinion of the Parliament has now been made, it will be extraordinarily difficult for the Commission to draw up similar porn-blocking legislation only to pass it back to the Parliament for another vote.

These porn-blocking proposals, initially introduced by Dutch Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Socialist Party Kartika Tamara Liotard, were buried within a report titled “Eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU,” which was first submitted to the Parliament in early December. The report no doubt had positive intentions as a bid to close the gender inequality gap in the region by developing awareness and effective measures to reduce the prevalence of gender stereotypes in education, employment, and the media.

More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57573771-93/eu-votes-to-reject-porn-ban-proposals/

See also:

David Cameron Wants To Protect Children Against The Pornhubs, Xhamsters And Xvideos Of This World
http://vrritti.com/2012/11/18/david-cameron-wants-to-protect-children-against-the-pornhubs-xhamsters-and-xvideos-of-this-world/

Has the constant bombardment of society with sexual imagery and the ready availability of online porn trivialised and demeaned sex to the extent that we are no longer revolted when individuals are openly graded on everything from their attractiveness to their rape potential?
http://vrritti.com/2013/03/10/has-the-constant-bombardment-of-society-with-sexual-imagery-and-the-ready-availability-of-online-porn-trivialised-and-demeaned-sex-to-the-extent-that-we-are-no-longer-revolted-when-individuals-are-ope/

Money vs Child Safety: Automatic Block of Porn Sites Rejected in UK. Pornhub, Xhamster and Xvideos Rejoice!
http://vrritti.com/2012/12/15/money-vs-child-safety-automatic-block-of-porn-sites-rejected-in-uk-pornhub-xhamster-and-xvideos-rejoice/

Xvideos, the largest porn site on the web with 4.4 billion page views per month, is three times the size of CNN or ESPN, and twice the size of Reddit
http://vrritti.com/2012/11/27/xvideos-the-largest-porn-site-on-the-web-with-4-4-billion-page-views-per-month-is-three-times-the-size-of-cnn-or-espn-and-twice-the-size-of-reddit/

You Know What’s Funny About The Google Zeitgeist 2012 Report? Everybody Is Looking For Nice, Happy And Legal Things. Piracy And Porn Are Sooo 2011
http://vrritti.com/2012/12/12/you-know-whats-funny-about-the-google-zeitgeist-2012-report-everybody-is-looking-for-nice-happy-and-legal-things-piracy-and-porn-are-sooo-2011/

When Porn Is Even More Of A Cash Cow Than Piracy: Survey Finds UK Internet Users Oppose Mandatory ISP Adult Site Blocks
http://vrritti.com/2012/05/21/when-porn-is-even-more-of-a-cash-cow-than-piracy-survey-finds-uk-internet-users-oppose-mandatory-isp-adult-site-blocks/

How Much Porn Does the Internet Hold?
http://vrritti.com/2012/04/05/how-much-porn-does-the-internet-hold/

Google’s Chrome browser is currently blocking thepostonline.nl,  a Dutch blog modelled after The Huffington Post. The warning message refers to this website as a ‘known source of malware’.

Google’s diagnostics page however, indicates that the website has not been functioning as an intermediary for malware distribution in the past 90 days. Also, the site did not host any malware.

Google does indicate that a third party may have added malicious code to legitimate sites, causing Google to display the warning message and deploy the blockade.

Dutch language news article:
http://www.powned.tv/nieuws/media/2013/03/the_post_offline.html

Google message

Block

Iranian authorities have blocked the use of most “virtual private networks”, a tool that many Iranians use to get around an extensive government internet filter, Iranian media quoted an official as saying on Sunday.

A widespread government internet filter prevents Iranians from accessing many sites on the official grounds they are offensive or criminal. Many Iranians evade the filter through use of VPN software, which provides encrypted links directly to private networks based abroad, and can allow a computer to behave as if it is based in another country.

But authorities have now blocked “illegal” VPN access, an Iranian legislator told the Mehr news agency on Sunday. Iranian web users confirmed that VPNs were blocked.

“Within the last few days illegal VPN ports in the country have been blocked,” said Ramezanali Sobhani-Fard, the head of parliament’s information and communications technology committee, according to Mehr. “Only legal and registered VPNs can from now on be used.”

More:
http://www.indiatimes.com/technology/enterprise/iran-blocks-use-of-vpns-65690.html

Newsworthy video was by censored by YouTube under the bizarre justification that it was “designed to harass, bully or threaten,” when in fact the video was exposing the very people who harassed, bullied and threatened the elderly man.

And as always: no court order required!

More:
http://www.infowars.com/us-backed-rebels-beat-humiliate-old-man-youtube-censors-video/

The offense: I had republished the 2011 British documentary “Unlawful Killing” produced by Allied Star, a London-based film company owned by Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed, the father of Dodi Al-Fayed. The documentary implicates – amongst other things – the British royal family in the murder of the couple and its cover-up.

Youtube and Vimeo had already deleted the video a few weeks earlier, forcing me to host it directly on the Rebel Site. Two emails sent to me shortly after by the lawyers of my hosting firm unfortunately got intercepted by the spam filter. In those emails they advised me that they had received a complaint by a London based law firm, claiming the hosting of the video was in breach of their client’s copyrights. Since I didn’t receive the emails I obviously couldn’t comply with their request, forcing my hosting company of 7.5 years to disable the site.

Grudgingly, I deleted the video as demanded to get the site back online as soon as possible. However, I sent a letter back to the lawyers, with a 10 days deadline to provide written evidence that the plaintiff’s law firm was acting on behalf of the copyright owner, Allied Star. I also sent an email to Mohamed Al-Fayed, asking for permission to publish the film. The reply of his office was swift. It confirmed that they had requested the London law firm to make me take down the video. The only reason they gave was that the film had been taken off the market.

It becomes clear, when watching the documentary, that Dodi’s father deeply loved his son and was shattered by his death. Why would he spend millions to produce and promote a documentary on the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death and shortly later take it off the market without giving much reason? The only explanation that makes sense is that he has been put under enormous pressure to do so. Not only has he been bullied to take his film off the market, but the blackmailers made it his problem to prevent others from republishing it.

Personally, I don’t respond well to bullying. I hate bullies and fight them with all available means. Thankfully I’m not alone. In this case of cyber-bullying, resistance is not only civil duty, but easy. Be warned though! It would be illegal to locate a copy of the “Unlawful Killing” documentary via any BitTorrent site and distribute it to as many people as possible. It would be illegal to burn CDs and pass them to all your friends. It would be illegal to upload the video to video hosting sites under its own or slightly altered name. And it would be illegal to create a torrent of your own on BitTorrent sites and share it for other people to download. But it is not illegal, to publish this article, share, email and republish it on your blog, and that’s exactly what I’m asking all of my readers to do. Make it go viral.

Much more:
http://www.infowars.com/the-unlawful-killing-of-princess-diana-and-dodi-al-fayed/

Dutch whistleblower website Klokkenluideronline had previously been forced to move from a .nl domain to a .net domain and has now finally sought refuge in Iceland:

http://www.klokkenluideronline.is/

The website, operated by the Dutch version of Alex Jones, reporter Micha Kat, deals openly with highly controversial and sensitive issues such as dubious reporting by mainstream media, bank fraud, alleged child abuse by government officials, celebrities and royalty as well as serious and organized crime involving government representatives.

Multiple parties have been putting pressure on reporter Kat and his website recently, ranging from journalists to lawyers and public prosecutors…

He has also been incarcerated for a prolonged period of time (while awaiting his trial).

One of the most appalling events took place when a recent verdict against Micha Kat contained a phrase where it was argued that Kat’s attitude was criminogenic as his opinions differed from the the common norm in society, increasing the chances of him repeating what he had done

Ever since the introduction of the internet, freedom of speech is being threatened in each and every society (where people ‘higher up the food chain’ have something to hide), and certainly not only Russia or China.

His first website Klokkenluideronline.nl now redirects to the verdict in the court case initiated by Yehudi Moszkowicz and Marjolein Vissers, which forced him to remove various articles he had written from his blog as well as online search engines. Next to that he was no longer allowed to contact the lawyers by phone and he needed to refrain from visiting the law firm for a period of one year.

Previously:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to visit The Netherlands for conference on Internet Freedom
http://vrritti.com/2011/11/26/secretary-of-state-hillary-clinton-to-visit-the-netherlands-for-conference-on-internet-freedom/

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2013/03/eu-court-allows-uk-broadcasters-to-block-free-live-internet-tv-streaming.html

Freedom of information can be a real pain…

More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57573151-93/european-parliament-blocks-citizen-e-mails-protesting-eu-porn-ban/

Movie fans in China Thursday welcomed a popular film website being unblocked by censors, but it was unclear whether the move suggested any wider relaxation in the country’s tightly-controlled media.

Chinese viewers discovered that restrictions on the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) website, which carries movie news and extensive production details on a huge number of films, had been unexpectedly lifted on Wednesday.

Both IMDb’s Chinese- and English-language versions were blocked in 2010, with many believing Beijing had acted after the site featured a movie on its homepage which focused on issues considered “sensitive” by the ruling Communist Party.

“This is really good news,” said one blogger on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, reacting on Thursday to the unblocking.

Print, film and broadcast media are tightly controlled in the country, while the Internet is subject to a range of restrictions known collectively as the Great Firewall of China.

More:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZ6tBobzGqMwAORAzCUgnwwoRhYw

It just goes to show you can do anything you put your mind to, especially if you’re an authoritarian government hell-bent on the continued suppression of free speech.

More:
http://gizmodo.com/5989161/how-china-censors-its-twitter-at-light-speed

The controversial BitTorrent site is no longer listed among the top results when users search for “pirate bay,” independent of the user’s location. For other search terms The Pirate Bay is still listed on top. A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the record.

More:
http://torrentfreak.com/google-downranks-the-pirate-bay-in-uk-search-results-130306/

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/how-verizon-found-a-child-pornographer-in-its-cloud/

“The site’s closure had a ripple effect throughout the sector with services such Hulkshare and Mediafire quickly changing their operations to implement filtering, or dropping rewards programmes designed to encourage users to upload large amounts of material”

More:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130227locker

http://torrentfreak.com/cablevision-disconnects-persistent-pirates-for-24-hours-130228/

Freedom of speech my ____

Freedom of speech and ‘the need for court orders’ is soooo 2012

http://gizmodo.com/5987746/apple-is-deleting-icloud-emails-that-have-the-phrase-barely-legal-teen-in-them

See also:

Great Algorithm of Facebook: Now blocking negative comments about Newtown massacre
http://vrritti.com/2013/02/27/great-algorithm-of-facebook-now-blocking-negative-comments-about-newtown-massacre/

Facebook MEGA FAIL: Social Media Giant Blocks Accounts Of Dutch National News Broadcaster And Its Employees (Without Court Order) Because The Word ‘Porn’ Had Been Posted
http://vrritti.com/2013/02/26/facebook-mega-fail-social-media-giant-blocks-accounts-of-dutch-national-news-broadcaster-and-its-employees-without-court-order-because-the-word-porn-had-been-posted/

And:
http://vrritti.com/?s=algorithm+stupid&submit=Search