
Indian government bans archive.org - anujdeshpande
http://imgur.com/a/2tD8B?
======
ShirsenduK
The following article has a tweet from a journo which says its because it was
hosting a movie (Jab Harry Met Sejal) illegally and the Madras court thought
banning archive.org is a solution.

[http://www.dailyo.in/variety/internet-archive-dot-
block/stor...](http://www.dailyo.in/variety/internet-archive-dot-
block/story/1/18854.html)

Update: A more detailed from from the BBC.
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-40875528](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-40875528)

~~~
ShirsenduK
For people saying; "its working for me". Here is the explanation.

The block has been implemented using a hosts based method. Such methods work
in HTTP as anyone on the network can intercept the traffic and modify it. This
snooping is not possible in HTTPS, hence the word secure.

(Update: The above statement is misleading. Please read TallGuyShort's comment
for clarity).

This kind of block sometimes take time to propagate given how our ISP networks
are setup. The blockage can be implemented at any level. ISP, acquiring ISP,
backbone etc.

But even HTTPS can get blocked via DNS provided you are using a DNS which is
under the influence of DoT. Most internet users use Google DNS(8.8.8.8) or
OpenDNS(208.67.222.222) or Berkeley DNS (4.2.2.2) as their DNS (They have
fallback ips also). This is set in your network adapter settings or router
settings. They are not under the influence of the DoT. I am not sure if there
is a DNS block as I use Google DNS.

Also, IP based blockage is possible which restricts access to HTTPS sites but
it is not the case here.

Censorship is no solution to piracy or terrorism. Burying your head in the
sand doesn't solve the problem.

Edit: Updated to read TallGuyShort's comment.

~~~
TallGuyShort
>> The block has been implemented using a hosts based method

I'm curious what exactly you mean by hosts-based. For it affect HTTP but not
HTTPS, routers would have to be inspecting TCP packets and parsing HTTP. I'd
call that packet-sniffing. hosts-based sounds like the DNS-level block to me.
Am I missing something?

~~~
ShirsenduK
You are correct. I should have explained it better. I tried to over simplify
it and ended up writing misinformation.

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msravi
I'm on ACT, and it appears that I can access both
[http://web.archive.org/](http://web.archive.org/) and
[https://web.archive.org/](https://web.archive.org/)

On Airtel, I can't access the http version. So must be an Airtel specific
block, unrelated to the "Indian Government."

~~~
captn3m0
archive.org is still getting blocked over Airtel:
[http://paste.ubuntu.com/25276595/](http://paste.ubuntu.com/25276595/)

~~~
majewsky
That's not blocking. I get exactly the same response from Germany. What's
happening is this:

    
    
      HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
      Location: https://archive.org
    

They're upgrading you from HTTP to HTTPS. curl, by default, does not follow
redirects. Add `--location` to enable it:

    
    
      $ curl --location --head archive.org
      HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
      Server: nginx/1.4.6 (Ubuntu)
      Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 13:20:21 GMT
      Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
      X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.21
      Location: https://archive.org
      Age: 0
      Connection: keep-alive
      Via: 1.1 akamai (ACE 5.8.1/5.8.1)
    
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Server: nginx/1.4.6 (Ubuntu)
      Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2017 13:20:22 GMT
      Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
      Connection: keep-alive
      X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.9-1ubuntu4.21
      Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=kb7jsuslq8hrsfg96obqc5gnq3; path=/; domain=.archive.org
    

EDIT: Apparently archive.org does not do HSTS. If they did, a lot less people
would be noticing the censorship.

~~~
captn3m0
Check the first response on the paste that I posted. The response is an
iframe:

    
    
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0"/><style>body{margin:0px;padding:0px;}iframe{width:100%;height:100%}</style><iframe src="http://www.airtel.in/dot/?dpid=1&dpruleid=3&cat=107&dplanguage=-&url=http%3a%2f%2farchive%2eorg%2f" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder=0></iframe>
    

which has the following content:

>Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from
Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Please contact
administrator for more information.

------
peterwaller
I'm amused by "Please contact administrator for more information".

... "But I _am_ administrator!?"

------
captn3m0
One of the best things I did recently was setup dnscrypt-proxy locally. Most
of the Indian ISPs just do transparent DNS proxying and dns-crypt helps avoid
those. Lots of them do DPI on HTTP requests, so HTTPS-everywhere helps as
well.

~~~
chatmasta
Similarly in the U.K., Potasto2 is a good solution to this kind of filtering.
It sets up a local vpn server that allows you to customize DNS servers and
proxy settings without added latency of a remote VPN (but of course without
the added benefit of encryption.) It's the only way I've found to use non-ISP
DNS servers on non-jailbroken iOS when connected to a mobile network.

------
mirap
May be related to this article?

Airtel is sniffing and censoring CloudFlare’s traffic in India and CloudFlare
doesn’t even know it. - [https://medium.com/@karthikb351/airtel-is-sniffing-
and-censo...](https://medium.com/@karthikb351/airtel-is-sniffing-and-
censoring-cloudflares-traffic-in-india-and-they-don-t-even-know-
it-90935f7f6d98)

~~~
captn3m0
Nopes, this is entirely different. CF was being MITM'd by airtel (likely still
is) because airtel was/is their upstream ISP for their edge locations in
India.

archive.org is blocked in India because of a court order somewhere.

------
anujdeshpande
A good (updated) place to see what ISPs and regions are seeing the ban -
[https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-
in...](https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-internet-
archive-wayback-machine/)

------
aussieguy123
DNS should be encrypted to prevent this kind of blocking. Were still using DNS
technology from the 80s.

------
192_168_0_1
So, it is the Judiciary (Chennai High Court) which ordered the ban and Indian
Gov. followed it.

------
glax
I also tweeted to @DoT_India

Let see their response

------
zac99
I dont think its banned i can browse it
[https://archive.org/search.php?query=india](https://archive.org/search.php?query=india)

~~~
falcolas
The comment on the image notes that http is being blocked, it https is not
(yet?)

------
dingo_bat
Sometimes I think court orders should be voted on. And if 5 people think your
order is stupid you lose your fucking job. Get disbarred from law for life.

~~~
k_sh
"Judicial independence is the concept that the judiciary needs to be kept away
from the other branches of government. That is, courts should not be subject
to improper influence from the other branches of government, or from private
or partisan interests.

Judicial Independence is vital and important to the idea of separation of
powers."[1]

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence)

~~~
dingo_bat
Yes, I know, but then we should have some procedure to prevent idiots from
becoming judges.

------
glax
Railtel user here. It shows 404 Not Found

[https://pasteboard.co/GESzgyf.png](https://pasteboard.co/GESzgyf.png)

------
factorialboy
Incorrect headline. It's not the government but a court, and it's only in one
state out of 25+.

~~~
anujdeshpande
I can confirm that it's blocked in Pune, India. [1] this article confirms that
it has been blocked in Delhi (and more). That's more than one state.

1- [https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-
in...](https://www.medianama.com/2017/08/223-india-blocks-access-internet-
archive-wayback-machine/)

------
sg24
HTTPS or HTTP; archive.org is not blocked across india,misleading & incorrect
post title.

------
cJ0th
and why is that?

~~~
rubenbe
I suspect there is an archived site that was removed/censored by the
government.

But this site is still available through archive.org, so as a drastic measure,
they block archive.org entirely.

~~~
cJ0th
Aparently, Bollywood is to blame
[http://www.livemint.com/Politics/VxFtRh0qs6H9I3rUWdtKWL/Inte...](http://www.livemint.com/Politics/VxFtRh0qs6H9I3rUWdtKWL/Internet-
Archive-blocked-after-Madras-high-court-order.html)

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nitin_flanker
It's working for me!

------
grey-sunshine
It works for me!

