

Open Rights Group has launched a UK Censorship Monitoring API and Botnet - namos
https://www.blocked.org.uk/

======
namos
For the past 8 months we've been working on building a series of probes;

\- Android
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.org.blocked...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.org.blocked.app)

\- Python
[https://github.com/openrightsgroup/OrgProbe](https://github.com/openrightsgroup/OrgProbe)

\- Raspberry PI images
[https://github.com/openrightsgroup/lepidopter](https://github.com/openrightsgroup/lepidopter))

And an open API to power them:
[https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Censorship_Monitoring_...](https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Censorship_Monitoring_Project_API)

This is helping to build a picture of what the UK Governments Internet
Blocking/Filtering/Censorship actually looks like.

You can submit URLs to be tested by visiting
[https://www.Blocked.org.uk](https://www.Blocked.org.uk) by installing the
Android app or by tweeting a URL with the hashtag #IsBlocked

Once we receive a URL it is dispatched to all probes over a period of time
where it is checked against a know list of blocking methods.

The results are returned back to the API for public evaluation.

For example:
[https://www.blocked.org.uk/results?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.yc...](https://www.blocked.org.uk/results?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com)

Please help us build a picture of UK Internet Censorship by adding URLs to be
tested, by helping develop new probes (browser extensions, an iPhone client
etc etc) or just by spreading the word that
[https://Blocked.org.uk](https://Blocked.org.uk) is available.

Please also see
[https://www.blocked.org.uk/faq](https://www.blocked.org.uk/faq) which will
explain the level of filtering enabled on some of the probes which will
explain why some sites may appear blocked even if you, being on the same ISP,
can reach said URL.

~~~
mike-cardwell
Please consider freeing the data and make it downloadable as a simple CSV. I'd
like a list of all of the sites blocked by particular ISPs...

~~~
namos
Snapshots are made available:
[https://www.blocked.org.uk/assets/data/alexa_100k_isp_latest...](https://www.blocked.org.uk/assets/data/alexa_100k_isp_latest_status_2014_06_29.ods)

------
lucb1e
Wow, I had not expected this. My personal blog (which is about technology) is
being blocked by one of the ISPs. I don't host porn nor have I ever, so why is
it blocked behind their porn filter? Interesting....

[https://www.blocked.org.uk/results?url=http://lucb1e.com](https://www.blocked.org.uk/results?url=http://lucb1e.com)

Edit: TalkTalk live chat support reports that I am not being blocked.
Citation:

> I can confirm that is not blocked by our Adult Filters as your website does
> not have any adult content.

So it seems blocked.org.uk has a false-positive...

~~~
blueskin_
TalkTalk are a completely awful ISP. Not sure what the US equivalent would be,
but they're the kind who do promotions of "Broadband for £3/month"-level. You
get what you pay for service-wise, but they are also by far the most
enthusiastic ISP around when it comes to censorship; they have a spider that
follows their users to all URLs they visit to categorise the sites[1] (giving
them the nickname StalkStalk), and have been doing this long before the
current set of idiots in Parliament forced censorship in (at least since
2011).

I'm in a similar situation, one site I run is blocked both by StalkStalk and
BT. No porn, no other 'adult' content; it's deliberately kept PG-13 to use the
US ratings.

[1]Check your logs for HuaweiSymantecSpider. It obeys robots.txt though, so a
quick "Disallow: /" in robots.txt stops it, although they still grab content
from unencrypted pages via DPI.

~~~
lucb1e
No HuaweiSymantecSpider in my logs in the past 8 months (grepped access.log),
but the site is available over both http and https so they might have
classified it using DPI (talk about evil...).

------
justincormack
Ah I knew something was in the works as Andrews & Arnold were writing about
obtaining connections from ISPs to test what was blocked. Great to know what
is being censored (if you are not on A&A).

~~~
dfkvldfmv
"(if you are not on A&A)."

Or if you're on any of the ISPs who do not have filters, including but not
limited to A&A.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
Who are the other ISPs who do not have filters?

~~~
dspillett
There is no handy list that I know of.

The big six definitely do have the filters. Some smaller players do too, but a
fair few don't. The only people I know for sure are A&A because they put their
heads above the parapet and made a stand.

Some simply haven't implemented it because it would be work and they therefore
won't until forced to (rather than because of any moral objection) - they'll
not make any statement about not doing it as it will look bad if they
eventually do.

There may of course be others in A&A's position who haven't done as good a job
getting the message out.

------
spingsprong
I've been checking various websites I go on that are completely fine for kids.
It's amazing what's getting blocked. One example according to that website is,
TalkTalk blocks
"[http://www.writingexcuses.com/"](http://www.writingexcuses.com/") It's a
podcast that teaches story writing.

Blocking that is insane!

And the blocked website itself is blocked on two ISPs
[https://www.blocked.org.uk/results?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblocked....](https://www.blocked.org.uk/results?url=http%3A%2F%2Fblocked.org.uk)

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I think TalkTalk is either using a whitelist or an oversensitive keyword
filter.

~~~
vidarh
My personal website is blocked by Talk Talk apparently. I guess compiler
writing must be harmful for children.

~~~
keithpeter
Here we go. If a lot of harmless or potentially even useful material gets
blocked, people who want to use that material will simply opt out or route
round the blocking, hence making it pointless.

~~~
vidarh
I kind of hope they overreach drastically for exactly that reason. It'll be a
lot easier to get the filters dropped entirely if we can attack them with
"useful website X is blocked for no good reason" over and over and over again,
than if we have to argue using examples that many people would actually have a
problem with.

~~~
keithpeter
OK, so I'll be keeping an eye on personal Web sites put up by teachers (of
which there are many, a couple of examples[1], [2], neither blocked to my
knowledge) that can be accessed from UKERNA provided College connections but
become blocked by domestic connections.

[1] [http://www.hegartymaths.com/](http://www.hegartymaths.com/)

[2] [http://www.themathsteacher.com/](http://www.themathsteacher.com/)

------
blueskin_
I just learned that one of my personal sites is blocked on BT and TalkTalk...
there is zero adult or other inappropriate content on it. Time to complain, I
guess, but I'm sure they will just go straight to /dev/null :(

~~~
AlyssaRowan
Have you considered legal action?

~~~
blueskin_
Nope. It's a medium sized site I don't get any money out of, not linked to any
business. I suppose I could theoretically small claims court them, but I'm not
sure if I'd win as they can probably piss about with their customers'
connections in whatever way they please due to their T&Cs :(

------
jamesbrownuhh
Sad to see that The Best Page In The Universe
([http://maddox.xmission.com](http://maddox.xmission.com)) seems to be blocked
by a non-zero number of larger ISPs.

Obviously all those children need to be protected from harsh reviews of their
artwork.

