business unaffected by du proxy?

According to Khaleej Times...

A du official said yesterday, “With immediate effect, all pornographic web sites will be blocked as per the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) requirements.”
[...]
"“du has blocked pornographic sites only, a move we are sure all parents will welcome. Content blocking guidelines are provided by the TRA and we abide by these,” he explained."
[...]
He also clarified that business will remain largely unaffected. “Normally business should not be affected because du has only blocked pornographic sites and sites that contain material that is offensive to the moral, cultural and social values of the UAE.

Despite claiming three times that only pornographic websites will be blocked (and also claiming only once that websites 'offensive' will be blocked) I find it interesting that on the 14th of April the following websites were blocked...

arabtimes.com = blocked
secretdubai.blogspot.com = blocked
wikipedia article on 'fitna' = blocked

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

First day of du proxy

Today marks the first day of internet censorship on Du internet connections; they have issued a public statement as follows:

"It is our constant endeavour to maintain the perfect balance between ensuring that all our customers' requirements are met, and that we comply with all the guidelines of the TRA, including those on internet content filtering.

The World Wide Web offers us great opportunities to get and share information and to communicate. However, it is imperative that when making use of this technology for its enormous benefits, we respect the moral, social and cultural values of the United Arab Emirates.

du will be blocking all content that is not in line with these values, effective from 14 April 2008. Due to the nature of the content filtering process, some harmless sites may also inadvertently be blocked. We request our customers' assistance in informing us when a site that they consider harmless has been blocked, by writing to safesurf@du.ae so we can look into the matter."

more here

Du censorship first began on the 23rd of March with the blocking of the Secret Dubai Diary website

According to the following Khaleej Times article, the proxy on Du is a result of a new "Internet Penetration Policy" (which as far as I'm aware hasn't been published publicly by the TRA yet);

"In a Press statement yesterday, Mohammed Al Ghanim, Board Member and Director-General of TRA, said, “Since du is a new company that has just started to implement the concept of monitoring in the best possible way, it has to comply with the policy within a month from the date it is announced.”

However, a TRA spokesperson clarified, “The policy actually means proxy. It will regulate the web content allowed in the UAE. Since du is new, it has to wait for the policy before it can buy the software to regulate its web content. Etisalat is already following the policy. Both telecom operators have to abide by the TRA regulations.”

Vimeo

Can anyone explain why Vimeo is blocked by Etisalat?

"The main difference between the site and other competing video sharing services such as YouTube is that Vimeo allows only user-created videos, of a "friends and family" nature. No pornography, TV shows, music videos, movies or anything not created by the user can be uploaded."

Du begins blocking

Du has gone and gotten itself a proxy page!


The page that has been blocked? Secret Dubai's blog! Congratulations!

Thanks to anonymous for tip and screenshot

(reportedly blogger/blogspot is now working on Du connections once again--except for Secret Dubai's blog)

Feedback Form No More

It appears Etisalat's incompetence has removed any chance for a user to complain about the blocking of a site...

The "Feedback Form" link no longer works (it points to http://eim.ae/feedback, a URL which no longer exists)

As is usually the case, I happen to possess a greater ability to provide customer service to Etisalat's customers than Etisalat itself by providing the following URL...

http://feedback.ecompany.ae/doconfirm.jsp?choice2=1&username=

Simply hit that link, and you no long have to provide a username or password when complaining about a website (perhaps you were unable to complain in the past due to concerns of anonymity, now you can.)

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.

myspace

Dear the TRA or Etisalat,

I know you probably couldn't care less, but you've left http://mediaservices.myspace.com/ blocked while unblocking the rest of www.myspace.com; this means no one can load any audio or video content.

Thanks for wasting everyone's time once more, in particular mine; Once for having to find out you've blocked said content, twice for having to go through the source code of a myspace page to try and find the URL that you've blocked, thrice for having to open Ethereal and record my data transmissions so I can find the URL and the forth time being that I had to write out this post.

I hope you can mess up more of the internet to waste more of everyone's time than you're already doing. That would be a great added service, you could probably charge for it too (that is, if you're not charging for it already; but if that is the case you could just charge twice and chances are no one would really notice or the only recourse available for consumers would take so long to enact that they'd just end up paying you all their money anyway.)