India's Yahoo! Groups Ban Continues

India's Yahoo! Groups
Ban Continues

By Harsh Kapoor

26 September, 2003
South Asia Citizen's Wire

India's blanket ban of Yahoo! Groups continues. It's not 100 per cent, but most of the largest ISPs have complied, removing access for over 80 per cent of users.

The Government's Computer Emergency Response Team - which normally releases security and virus alerts - issued a block on all groups after Yahoo! refused to remove messages in the low-traffic 'kynhun' group. The group carried postings by banned secessionist group the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council.

The "kynhun" discussion group was set up on 10 August,2002 under Yahoo!'s "Issues and Causes" directory listing.The group has only 25 members, who have posted ameagre 20 messages since the inception. The members'
e-mail addresses and contact information are readilyavailable on the site.

The topics posted on "kynhun" include discussions on editorials published in newspapers and frequent callsto the youth to "not be afraid" and promote "their cause". The site is dedicated to issues concerning the
governance of the North East states, particularly Meghalaya.

It functions under the broad motto of: "Oh people rise up from your deep slumber for it is time to fight for the Nation and its future."

The membership is open to all, and anyone can post messages, all of which "require approval." Blocking the Indian public's access to "kynhun" does not affect its presence on the global Internet.

According to readers, In2Cable, Bharti's two ISPs Mantra Online and TouchTel India, consumer dialup provider Sify, Hathway and
Siticable both cable providers, Caltiger, DDSL and BSNL blocked yahoo groups. However a reader in Pondicherry says that VSNL and Dishnet dialup are permitting access; while one of VSNL's downstream providers is maintaining the blanket block.

One user Siddharth Hegde writes in dismay "It is truly a shame that a country like India blocks a website. What they do not know is that within a year the most computer illiterate person would have found a five-minute work around. There is no point in try to block websites - people will find work around.

"I am a net user and use three ISPs - one Cable and two dial-ups. All three have blocked them. My cable connection (Hathway, VSNL and Satyam).
Satyam would be the first one to pull off this as earlier they had blocked all adult websites without authorization from users."

This is not the first time the Indian government has tried to block web
sites, during the Kargil war of 1999, the web site of the prominent Pakistan daily was blocked; this was very vigorously fought by many in the
media in India and some activists abroad. In 1998 a law suit was filed by online activist Arun Mehta to challenge other moves by the Indian
state to block some websites. [see: URL's below]

What we ought to and should do:

- Individuals or groups should actively consider filing a law suit or several law suits if possible.

- Feel free to write letters to members of India's parliament protesting the ban

- Write letters to editors to the Newspapers

- The ISPs are to blame too since they are playing too rigidly by the rules, they should overturn the ban in public interest. They should be pressured to break the rules.

- Call the ISP's and threaten to Refuse to pay the bills and write letter to them. In short make noise.

- Contact human rights groups in India which have been unable to get their act together and pressure them to move.

- Write to International Human rights groups to take this up.

- All public spirited citizens in India with Internet access are invited to openly violate / or evade the ban daily by using proxy servers
that allow you to bypass the servers of your ISPs.

Here is how to beat the ban:

1.: http://anon.free.anonymizer.com/http://groups.yahoo.com

2.:
http://www.citizenlab.org/cgi-bin/nph-groups.cgi/001010A/http/groups.yahoo.com/

* at the request of SACW this second proxy has been specially set up by Citizen Lab in solidarity with users in India. Please publicise the existence of this proxy to other users in india.

To better investigate the current process of blocking, Users are requested to report the exact error message they receive and any traceroute data. Send an e-mail to:
[email protected]

SELECTED ADDRESSES OF THE OFFICIALS AND BODIES TO WHOM PEOPLE
MAY WRITE TO PROTEST OR TO SEEK THEIR INTERVENTION

Arun Shourie
(Minister of Communications & Information Technology & Disinvestment)
Ist Floor,Electronics Niketan,
Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Email : [email protected]

Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad
(Minister of Information and Broadcasting)
E-Mail: [email protected]
Phone: (91) 23384340, 23384782 Fax : (91) 23782118

Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In)
www.mit.gov.in/cert/

India's Department of Telecom
www.dotindia.com
[email protected]

The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI)
www.ispai.com

Yahoo! India Web Services Ltd;

Bombay office:

386, Veer Savarkar Marg
Opp. Siddhivinayak Temple
Mumbai 400025
Phone: +91-22-56622222
Fax: +91-22-56622244

Delhi Office:

Yahoo! India Web Services Ltd;
Ground Floor, First India Place,
Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road
Gurgaon [Haryana]- 122002
Phone: +91-0124-5061888/9 (from Delhi 95124-5061888/9)
Fax: +91-0124-2560057
solutions.yahoo.co.in/contact.html

[* India's Official Human rights watch dog]
National Human Rights Commission(NHRC)
nhrc.nic.in/contact.htm

( Harsh Kapoor is the moderator of South Asia Citizen's Wire)