Github, Vimeo released but 28 websites still blocked; CERT-In director elaborates on the reason behind blocks
We learned about the Department of Telecommunication’s (DoT) decision to block 32 websites last night. Apart from tweets from the head of BJP’s national IT cell, Arvind Gupta, there wasn’t any clear indication as to why these sites were blocked. But in a report in The Times of India, Gulshan Rai, the director India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has elaborated on the matter. He has said that the directions to block the said 32 websites were issued to the ISPs following the directions of a Mumbai additional chief metropolitan magistrate’s November order.
Rai added that Mumbai’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) approached the judiciary after interrogating Arif Majeed, a young ISIS recruit from Kalyan who returned to India. Another professional from Bengaluru, Mehdi Biswas was arrested for allegedly tweeting out ISIS propoganda on Twitter.
According to Rai, the 32 websites in the list of blocked sites were used to spread ISIS propoganda and used to hire youths to join ISIS. CERT-In had contacted the websites in the past to remove objectionable content, but these sites ignored the government’s requests. Rai stated that some of these sites which have been unblocked have agreed to work with the government.
When asked about blocking the URLs having the objectionable content rather than blanket-blocking of entire websites, Rai said that individual URLs could not be blocked as the content could easily be removed, copied and pasted elsewhere. This still dosen’t answer the question, what is stopping the so-called propogandists from still going ahead and pasting the removed content elsewhere?
Blocking of sites such as Vimeo and Dailymotion, which are video hosting sites similar to YouTube and GitHub, which is a platform for software developers to share code irritated regular users no end. Hacktivist group Anonymous India tweeted as follows.
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