It seems it has happened again. CERT-IN is at it again and this time it is the Blogsphere that seems to be the target.

Some unconfirmed and some confirmed reports suggest that Indian ISP's are in the process of blocking all blogs hosted on Blogpsot and Typepad and apparently Geocities is inaccessible from many parts of India as well.

***************************

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kiran Jonnalagadda <****@**box.com>
Date: Jul 17, 2006 4:37 PM
Subject: [Reader-list] India censors the web again
To: reader Liste04

The Department of Telecommunications passed an order to ISPs Friday
to block several websites. The list is confidential. ISPs have been
slowly coming into compliance. SpectraNet, MTNL, Reliance, and as of
this afternoon, Airtel. BSNL and VSNL have not started yet but likely
will soon.

The known list of blocked domains is *.blogspot.com, *.typepad.com
and geocities.com/*

Yes folks, the government has decided to censor blogs and refused to
explain why. Shivam Vij managed to talk to Dr Gulshan Rai, director
of CERT-IN, the only body authorised to issue a blocking directive.
His response: "Somebody must have asked for some sites to be blocked.
What is your problem?"

I'm keeping a running log here:
http://jace.seacrow.com/archive/2006/07/17/blogspot-blocked-by-indian-isps

If you find several sites suddenly inaccessible today, please call
your ISP and demand to know why. Another person is preparing to file
an RTI application with DoT. If you can help, please join the
coordinating group:
http://groups.google.com/group/BloggersCollective

--
Kiran Jonnalagadda
http://www.pobox.com/~jace

****************************
Bloggers have created this group to co-ordinate protests and gather information

http://groups.google.com/group/BloggersCollective

Here is a one-stop stop to get links to protests on the blogsphere and ways to beat the ban.

http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/Bloggers_Against_Censorship

Here is a link to a blog which you may not be able to access from some parts of India if reports are true. The site lists various ways to access "censored" sites. I will post a relevant article regarding this topic soon.

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/07/blogspot-blogs-banned-in-india-read.html

Here is a running log of sites being blocked.

http://jace.seacrow.com/archive/2006/07/17/blogspot-blocked-by-indian-isps

***********************************************

In February of this year I wrote this article warning of the inevitability of Internet censorship in India. It seems the current event closely mirrors the Sep 23, 2003 ban of Yahoo groups in India. An event that did not generate as much noise as it should have.

You can find the details of that earlier incident here.

http://www.indosec.org/Sep23

It seems the same act is being played out again with "some authorities (CERT-IN) requesting the blockage of some blogs" and ISP blocking the entire domain as they do not have the technical know how to block specific blogs.

In that article I questioned the provision in the IT act

"More interestingly, the IT act states that the government can intercept electronic and mobile communications. It has no provision to block content."

I also questioned the legality of CERT itself

"The CERT-In had been constituted under the provisions of Sections 67 and 68 of the Information Technology Act of 2000 by executive orders. Interestingly this section deals with the definitions of cyber obscenity, the cyber regulatory advisory committee and punishment for cyber crime. It has no provision for the creation of a body like CERT-In."

Finally this is what I said with reference to the whole issue of internet censorship.

"The world is changing rapidly. While unfortunate, occasional censorship is now mostly seen as a legitimate need for law enforcement. The need to block pornographic and paedophilia sites to protect the vulnerable is a legitimate need but it is important that a due process is spelt out so that such powers are invoked for the intended purposes only. Abuse of these powers, either intentionally or due to incompetence is detrimental to the fundamental ideals of free speech and democracy."

It has become imperative that these issues be addressed and answered now. Are we happy to join the club of the middle east, Burma and Russia or do we wish to appear to the world as a viable and functional democracy.

The choice is with us now.

One of the reasons I set up this site on my own domain was because I was convinced of the inevitability of censorship. I am aware that it would be no big deal for the CERT-IN to ban this site as well but till and if that happens, you can find updates on this issue and other relevant information here. Please post your views and your feedback on this site.

Many thanks to Prasenjeet Dutta and Naveen Vasudevan for updates.

Sriramkrishnan Srinivasan