Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy

Posted by phugoid on Thursday July 08, 2010 @11:06PM
from the self-post dept.

I noticed yesterday that HN is now blocked by Etisalat, one of the United Arab Emirates' two telecom companies. Their proxy server displays a page like this instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Block_etisalat_3.jpg

Sites usually get blocked because a customer complained to Etisalat about their content, or because they were arbitrarily added to the SmartFilter database. I think it's the latter in this case.

I will follow up with Etisalat and let you know if I make any progress...

( 18 comments | 47 points | on HN )

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by TomOfTTB on Friday July 09, 2010 @12:29AM (#1499780)

After reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etisalat#Internet_Censorship

I'm forced to conclude we all must be doing something right.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by alextingle on Friday July 09, 2010 @04:05AM (#1500110)

"Websites criticizing the United Arab Emirates"

I think this is about to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by alnayyir on Friday July 09, 2010 @02:01AM (#1499894)

If you take a moment to pause the "ra ra shish koom ba" cheerleading, it's worth contemplating what manner of content this site would have that would've caused this.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by andrewtj on Friday July 09, 2010 @12:16AM (#1499760)

Does http://apps.ycombinator.com/ work?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by phugoid on Friday July 09, 2010 @02:29AM (#1499944)

Yes it does from inside the UAE. Thanks for the hint.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by uggedal on Friday July 09, 2010 @01:44AM (#1499877)

I think it's added to SmartFilter, I noticed that news.ycombinator.com was blocked at work yesterday. news.ycombinator.net works though.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by alextingle on Friday July 09, 2010 @04:06AM (#1500111)

Not very smart then, eh?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by paraschopra on Friday July 09, 2010 @06:27AM (#1500263)

you can also use news.ycombinator.org

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by nickcharlton on Friday July 09, 2010 @03:18AM (#1500035)

I noticed this yesterday at work (who use Etisalat). I emailed then, trying to explain the usual content of HN.

Back at home though (on Du), it's not blocked.

I suspect it is just an automatic block, but we'll see.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by keefe on Thursday July 08, 2010 @11:27PM (#1499652)

in the non-english nanny state you really wonder how HACKER news got b& when most americans conflate hacker/cracker?

I think you'll hit a wall pretty quick. Some bureaucrat saw hacker or maybe even realized there IS disruptive info here and ban it went.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by pg on Friday July 09, 2010 @01:59AM (#1499893)

Either that or it's a clever move to make the country more productive.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by snprbob86 on Friday July 09, 2010 @03:18AM (#1500036)

I get a little bit more scared each time I hear this type of story. Is there any hope for clever technology which makes it impossible to intelligently filter traffic? Some sort of mesh networking something? Surely someone on HN must know the state of the art here.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by c1sc0 on Friday July 09, 2010 @09:42AM (#1500544)

Just proxy/VPN out.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by nonane on Friday July 09, 2010 @12:39AM (#1499790)

https is a good way to get around the block. Unfortunately https on HN redirects to http.

edit:

@andrewtj : yes, http://apps.ycombinator.com works.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by pavel_lishin on Friday July 09, 2010 @03:40PM (#1501930)

I liked their old image better: http://widgetsex.com/uae.png

(disregard what looks like an NSFW domain, it's just a URL I bought on a whim. If you take off the image, you'll see my friend's dog, widget, winking at you in a suggestive-but-entirely-SFW manner.)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by prakash on Friday July 09, 2010 @03:11AM (#1500020)

Any HN users want to do a meetup in Dubai? My email is in my profile.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by csomar on Friday July 09, 2010 @07:16AM (#1500319)

Only the future will tell if there Non-Smart automatic filters have detected it, or their Smart-Non-automatic filters.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Tell HN: HN is now blocked by UAE proxy by threepointone on Friday July 09, 2010 @04:55PM (#1502189)

also, http://hackerne.ws would still work, I guess.

[ Parent | on HN ]