New blocked page graphic + 'internet access management policy' categories

Emiratesmac's posting on the UAE community blog reveals that Etisalat has implemented a new block page.

Visible here:


More interesting than the visual change is a link contained on the new page to a PDF that lays out the categories that you're not mature enough to view.

Most of it is as expected, but finally an explanation for the TLD blocking (for instance how the UAE blocks all .il/Israeli websites)
13.
Prohibited Top Level Domain (TLD)
This category includes Internet Content under a Top Level Domain names which offends against, is objectionable to, or is contrary to the public interest, public morality, public order, public and national security, Islam morality or is otherwise prohibited by any applicable UAE law, regulation, procedure, order or requirement."

For now the new page is only visible to users of Etisalat's transparent proxy (i.e. those that have not filled out the proxy details in their browser) and as usual, the complaint form doesn't work (yet again)

last.fm and twitter unblocked

After what? over an entire year or two the TRA or Etisalat has finally managed to unblock both twitter and www.last.fm...

Well at least partly, you can't actually view people's profiles on last.fm, which kind of defies the whole point of the site.

Unfortunately, Flickr still remains completely blocked through Etisalat.

This follows a recent instruction by the TRA to unblock 1000 websites in the UAE, the list has not been made public yet.

Proxy serving private information

Over the past week a small controversy emerged regarding Etisalat's proxy; it had been serving up private information accidentaly to users. Although the problem has since been resolved, it sets an alarming precedent considering Etisalat doesn't seem to think that it's an issue worth commenting on.

"In a statement to media Google acknowledged that the problem appeared to be a caching error at the ISP, although it declined to name Etisalat as the affected ISP. Etisalat has still not commented on the issue at the time of writing.

The statement from Google reads: "We have had reports of this problem in the UAE and believe it was due to caching being done by a local ISP. We take our users' security very seriously and have made necessary changes to resolve this issue. It should now be fixed, but if users see any more instances, we'd like for them to contact the YouTube support team at http://www.google.com/support/youtube."

more links on the youtube problem:
some screnshots of the problem in action from blog.shijaz.com
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/24/youtube_uae_security_snafu/

Preliminary Du proxy testing

playboy.com = blocked
-http://216.163.137.3/index.html = blocked
-0330.0243.0211.0003 = blocked
-0xd8.0xa3.0x89.0x03 = blocked

arabtimes.com = blocked
-http://64.182.245.225/ = unblocked
secretdubai.blogspot.com = blocked
wikipedia article on 'fitna' = blocked

uaeprison.com = unblocked
skype.com = unblocked
blogger.com = unblocked
wikipedia = unblocked
benkerishan.blogspot.com = unblocked
flickr.com = unblocked
youtube.com = unblocked
digg = unblocked
vimeo.com = unblocked
hi5 = unblocked
much.net = unblocked
etisalat.tk = unblocked
onebigconstructionsite.blogspot.com = unblocked
uaecommunity.blogspot.com = unblocked
google search for 'fuck'= unblocked

imageshack

Dear the TRA/Etisalat,

I know it probably didn't occur to you that people pay for internet connections so they can access information on the internet;
but while leaving the front page of www.imageshack.us,
You appear to have mistakenly blocked http://img182.imageshack.us/ because the company known as "Secure Computing" which you employ to decide which sites to block decided to categorise it as being Computing/Internet, Pornography

Thanks for wasting more of my and everyone elses time once more.

The URL in question has now been unblocked. Thank you to those responsible.