Malaysia: . ISPs 'block' reports on PM’s kangkung fiasco

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

ISPs 'block' reports on PM’s kangkung fiasco


A BBC report on Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's kangkung fiasco is inaccessible, and technical experts are pointing to possible censorship as the cause.

On Tuesday, the British broadcaster had picked up the story on the public ridicule drawn by Najib's remarks regarding vegetable prices, but netizens began reported problems accessing the article on its website last night.

According to Malaysiakini's own testing, the desktop version of the BBC report is still inaccessible as of 8am today through TM's Unifi and Maxis' 3G service, while Yes 4G's and Celcom's mobile internet services are unaffected.

The mobile version of the same article is still accessible and so are the rest of BBC's website.

BBC is currently making inquiries on the matter via Twitter, asking users, "Are you in Malaysia? If so, are you able to access our story about kangkung?"

Meanwhile, online news portal Digital News Asia quotes a security expert and freelance IT solutions provider saying that all requests to access the BBC article are being dropped by the internet service providers (ISP), effectively blocking it.

"BBC or any large portal uses a CDN (content delivery network) which handles page requests to its servers - if the servers are being overloaded, the main site bbc.co.uk would have been inaccessible.

"If it was hacked, the whole domain would have been inaccessible. This blocking of a specific URL would have only been possible by filtering the packets and manipulating the network traffic," @sniiffit was quoted as saying.

Such filtering would be a violation of the Multimedia Super Corridor Malaysia Bill of Guarantees, which states, among others, that the government would ensure no Internet censorship.

M'kini kangkung report also blocked

The report also quoted Sinar Project co-founder Khairil Yusof saying that this was the same type of selective Internet filtering done during the 13th General Election.

He refers to restrictions imposed on KiniTV's videos on an interview A Santamil Selvi, the widow of private investigator P Balasubramaniam, on the events relating to the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder, were not available when accessed through some local ISPs including TM.

"According to our tests, it's the same type of filtering as done during GE13. It is not new and this confirms the government still has these filters in place and is willing to use it," he reportedly said.

Meanwhile, Malaysiakini's report yesterday, 'Kangkung-theme protest draws giggles', had apparently faced the same problem as the blocked BCC article.

It was inaccessible after it was uploaded at 9.19pm, but Malaysiakini has re-uploaded the same report at 7.22am and so far this new version has yet to be blocked.

Malaysiakini is also investigating why its website has been mysteriously appeared inaccessible periodically over the past week.

However, the article was "unblocked" at 11.51am today after various news report and complaints from netizens on several online forums since last night.


http://my.news.yahoo.com/isps-39-blo...043655590.html


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