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Pakistan's Internet censorship

U got it wrong Dude. t like an Indian who thinks he has all the answers.
It is not about who we are. It is about opression, about killing and encirling of innocents and most of all about right and wrong. Dude.

You have no clue what I am talking about. I was not giving you any answers to any of your problems, perceived or otherwise. All your talk of standing against "opression, about killing and encirling of innocents and most of all about right and wrong" seems to be restricted to the Islamic world, regardless of who is right or wrong. And even in that, there are double standards. You never lose breath in talking about the "atrocities" of the Indian Army in Kashmir, but I have never read a single line about the Uighurs of China. And this is not about you personally, just the general opinion of the Pakistanis on this forum.

We are probably digressing here. I am not judging you for having double standards, nor do I want to run down China. It is very profitable and comforting to have an ally like them. But then don't talk as if you are against oppression and such. You do it only when it works for you. There are ample Indians who would do the same, and I would say this to them as well.

The point is that between national identity and the religious one, most people choose the former. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.
 
what kind of halal search engine is that where you need activation before you can even search something. I registered but i am still awaiting for an approval as a beta user participation.

I don't think it will be successful - will see when its operational - but IMO nothing can beat Google under current circumstances and i am happy with Google for now :smokin:

No , it is very good search engine before one day it was without any activation.
i used it by searching some stuff, it was powerful

BTW look at this Islamic search Engine:
ISLAMIC SEARCH powered by GOOGLE - Islamic Search Engine - TheIslamicSearch ©2010
 
now the world will see just how retarded we Pakstani's are by looking at those ridiculous pictures. What a real shame, these people have no ounce of respect for burning Danish and American Flags. The Danish people are like one of the most peaceful people in the world with and have one of the highest volunteers working for humanitarian purposes around the world. What have these numbnuts contributed towards society?
 
Pac-Man on Google! I hope Pakistan doesn't ban Google mistaking it as Pak-Man :woot:

or Pakistan might ban pen and paper in schools as they can be used to draw and depict objectionable content
 
well to be frank ,i am not a big fan of facebook either.
A time waste for me.

Lekin in pics mein yeh 90% wo log hein ginhon nahe shayad zindigi mein khubhi facebook khud istmal nahe ke ho ge.....:D


Boycott karnae sae pehle check to karloo hae kia ye Facebook:)

lol funny ...aapne yaahan bhi aisa hota hai:cheesy:
 

KARACHI: A list of over 370 websites that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has asked ISPs to block was obtained by The Express Tribune, while PTA spokesperson Khurram Mehran has confirmed that the total number of blocked sites has reached 1,000.

As of Friday, the list contains addresses of 242 proxy servers used to bypass banned websites, as well as at least two Twitter accounts, several news stories (including those published by Fox News and Washington Post) and multiple blogs (hosted by Blogger and Wordpress), nine Wikipedia pages and 15 Google Image results. Additionally, some Flickr accounts are also included in the list.

The vast majority of websites are all related to the “Draw Muhammad Day” controversy and news reports or opinion pieces on the issue. The blocked Twitter accounts are those containing the name of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

When asked whether Twitter, Google and Gmail had been blocked, given that a number of internet users had reported seeing Access Denied messages when trying to use these websites, Mehran clarified that:

“The two websites that have been blocked are Facebook and YouTube, and only specific objectionable content has been blocked from other websites. These websites are working and have not been blocked. These users should lodge complaints with their ISP.”

However, according to Aleem Bawany, GM, Online Strategy & Development, Express Media Group:

“All websites on the Internet are identified by a web-address such as Welcome to Facebook | Facebook. The URL merely serves to provide a user-friendly way or identifying a website. Machines then translate these friendly web-addresses into IP numbers. The Pakistan Internet Exchange (PIE) setup with the primary purpose of blocking websites uses an IP-based filtering approach to block websites.

This basically means that it can only block entire web domains such as facebook.com and it does not yet have the capability to block just individual links such as Page Not Found.

The ramifications of this are that users are denied access to the entire website because of just a single offending page on that website as is the case with Facebook.”

The devil is in the details:

All traffic in Pakistan goes through a single gatekeeper: Pakistan Internet Exchange or PIE for short. PIE has the ability to only block any given site within a matter of minutes but it also has the ability to eavesdrop on any Internet user in Pakistan.

Freedom of Speech evangelists will tell you that the Internet cannot be censored. Once news breaks on the Internet it can never be taken off. This is because of the decentralized nature of the Internet. Hundreds of websites will run the same news story, images or videos. Trying to plug each one is an exercise in futility.

But each time there is any form of centralized command-and-control, freedom of speech and the Internet’s model in general are compromised. PIE is a centralized authority setup with the primary purpose of Internet censorship.

The reason PIE can censor Facebook as easily as it did is owed to two facts:

1. large sites are centralized even though the Internet at large is decentralized. There is only one Facebook and blocking that single Facebook is a matter of adding one website to the blacklist.

2. PIE monitors each and every single website request originating out of Pakistan because the current infrastructure in Pakistan is setup to route all traffic through PIE’s computers.

The latter is much scarier than it sounds:

PIE has the ability to monitor any single person at any given time and see what they are searching, emailing, browsing and downloading. This can be done over a matter of days, months or even years. PIE can do this for an entire household, an entire corporation or even a town. And they can do this very easily because it’s all software driven.

But the full picture is scarier still:

In the past the Pakistani government has not made any secret of the fact that it tried to outsource the task of PIE to Malyasian IT companies. PIE itself is a single point of failure and if it goes down, all Internet traffic out of Pakistan would be stalled. And there have been incidences in the past where PIE has even been the victim of hacker attacks from India and still continues to be a target for spying adversaries.

It is only a matter of time before PIE is compromised and everyone in the country along with it. And for all it’s worth, it may still be silently compromised.

---------- Post added at 11:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:59 PM ----------

The idiots want you not to use proxy servers and anonymizers as well. While they most definitely cannot block all proxy servers, this is a cheap and pathetic attempt.
 
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@pasban: remove that pic from your post :angry:

done.

Note: I meant no offense. I copy-pasted the article inclusive of imagery in the form that it was present on the stated source. The words and imagery are not mine. The article is from France24.com
 
Facebook page that led to Pakistani ban removed
By CHRIS BRUMMITT (AP) – 33 minutes ago
ISLAMABAD — A Facebook page that was considered offensive to Islam and led to a Pakistani ban on the site has been removed, possibly by its creator.
Facebook said Friday it has not taken any action on the page. It had attracted more than 100,000 users and encouraged users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, purportedly in support of freedom of speech.
Most Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous.
Najibullah Malik, the secretary at Pakistan's information technology ministry, said earlier Friday that the government had no option but to shut down Facebook on Wednesday after a court order to do so.
There was no immediate word on whether the government was lifting the ban.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Associated Press: Facebook page that led to Pakistani ban removed
 
And the page is back

Everybody Draw Mohammed' Page Briefly Vanishes Due to Facebook Glitch

The original "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" Facebook page -- with more than 80,000 followers -- vanished briefly from the website Thursday, causing some users to accuse the social networking giant of censorship before the controversial page reappeared on the site.

Facebook officials said a "small technical issue" prevented users from accessing the page for a "very short period" of time.

"Once alerted to the problem, we resolved it as quickly as possible," the company said in a statement to FoxNews.com. "We want Facebook to be a place where people can openly discuss issues and express their views, while respecting the rights and feelings of others


FOXNews.com - 'Everybody Draw Mohammed' Page Briefly Vanishes Due to Facebook Glitch
 
Saudi scholar Ghasssam Al-Ghain said Muslims should ignore such issues and focus on showing the world Islam in its true spirit, something that he said is not happening nowadays. "To market Islam we should apply the ethics we have learned and keep everything clean and pure," he said, adding that young Muslims should fight back by presenting a positive image of their countries, religion and Prophet. "Let the youth at least invest in and invent products that can keep us away from relying on their societies. Rather than focusing on wearing low-cut pants and showing their underwear in public, be men and useful members of society," he said. Al-Ghain said boycotts are useless as they could lead Western countries to stop selling important products, such as medicine and hospital equipment, to Muslim countries. "People who call for boycotts think childishly," he said.

Al-Ghain said cartoons depicting the Prophet in an offending manner cannot harm him. He added that a person who defames the Prophet is "just like a man who throws a handful of sand toward the sun just to find the sand falling over his own head."

The Kingdom’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) failed to respond to an Arab News’ query whether they would block Facebook or the website marking the day.


Muslims outraged at Facebook profanity - Arab News
 
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