Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with censorship

Why don't my proxies work anymore?

msbrauer — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:08:00 -0800

Why have my proxies (Privoxy and GAppProxy) suddenly quit working? I'm using an up-to-date Vista installation. I use proxies periodically to get past China's Great Firewall. In the past, a strategy of Tor (by means of Vidalia/Privoxy/Torbutton) and GAppProxy (through FoxyProxy, set up using these instructions). I never use the two at the same time, i.e. if I'm using Tor, I'm not using GAppProxy, and vice versa. When I was last in China, in July, I had been using this setup for a few months with no problems.

I've just returned to China, and after a day or two of flawless operation, both proxies have quit working. To clarify, both proxy setups manage to get past the Great Firewall and transfer data. However, within a few seconds of data transfer through the proxy, I get a message from windows stating, "Privoxy has stopped working" or "HTTP Proxy. 127.0.0.1:8000 has stopped working" in the case of GAppProxy. Privoxy is running on port 8118.

Restarting the computer or the proxies doesn't solve the problem. Running one without the other doesn't solve the problem. Is there a possibility that something other than my computer is causing the problem, perhaps new strategies used by the Great Firewall spike the proxy somehow? The proxies remain operational if they are not in use, which is to say, if I start Privoxy or GAppProxy and don't transfer data through them, the services run with no problem.

While I haven't installed any internet-using programs in the week I've been back in China, since I didn't use the proxies for two months while outside of China, I can't be sure that the problem is a result of new conditions.

How can I troubleshoot this problem?

Is 'br****s' obscene?

knapah — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:03:16 -0800

I think the UK television gameshow Countdown just beep-edited out the word 'breasts' from their broadcast. Is this mandated by law or some broadcasting code? Is there some UK 'obscenity' law that prohibits the word breasts before the watershed? This was on Channel 4(+1), so I assume it was the same in the non-timeshifted broadcast, but don't know.

Oh, and if you search youtube for countdown videos you'll find amusing examples of swear words coming up as answers, but 'breasts'?!

SSH through the AS12880 / DCI Iranian government-run firewall?

thewalrus — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:54:42 -0800

Iranian firewallfilter: How to make SSH traffic not resemble SSH traffic, when examined by a deep packet inspection device (Ellacoya, Narus, etc)? Other advice on specific types of VPN from within Iran also welcome. I've been following the news about Iranian Internet censorship for a few years now, but obviously started paying more attention in the last couple of weeks. There's two interesting papers examining AS12880 (DCI)'s Internet transit from Arbor Networks:

Iranian Traffic Engineering

Deeper Look at the Iranian Firewall

Misc:

Robtex page examining AS12880's uplinks to the world

Rense page, strange changes in Iranian Internet transit

What I'm wondering specifically is methods which can be taken to make SSH traffic look -less- like SSH traffic. Assume that a person inside Iran has root on a European-colocated FreeBSD or Linux system (or root on a VPS/Virtual Machine) running the latest OpenSSH. The sshd would of course be listening for incoming connections on a nonstandard port, it could be any port, or multiple different ports. If I remember right OpenSSH now defaults to SSH2/AES but can also use Blowfish. Are there any methods that can be used to disguise the initial SSH handshake and packet headers? Any special tricks from the client software end, assuming that the client (OSX or Linux) can run any ssh client that will compile on it?

Is VPN traffic (Cisco, or Juniper-Netscreen SSL-VPN) less likely to trigger flags or get blocked than SSH?

Does anyone have firsthand or secondhand experience of Windows Remote Desktop / RDP 5.1 being blocked from within Iran?

Movie Scenes, As Seen on TV

joshrholloway — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:37:52 -0800

Have any movies ever filmed scenes during regular production that were meant specifically for the purpose of being used in a TV airing? Pretty simple question, I think. I couldn't find an answer on Google. I'm thinking of pivotal scenes in films that just could not be shown on television with any reasonable amount of editing, so the director shot a "self-censored" version of the scene meant to be included in TV airings of the film. What about additional dialogue or ADR specifically made for TV airings? I highly doubt either of these exist, but I'm just curious if the hivemind knows something I don't. Thanks!

Google's services don't work in a specific way

msbrauer — Sun, 24 May 2009 05:30:10 -0800

Why aren't most google services working for me and why do the error pages look identical in firefox, chrome, and IE8? For about a week most google services have stopped working for me. Oddly, I get identical error messages that look like this in all three browsers on my computer (firefox, chrome, and IE8 in Windows Vista) as well as on Mac with Safari in OSX. By identical, I mean that the layout, font, and wording is exactly the same. I am in China, so this may be related to the Great Firewall, but I don't think so. As a comparison, here's an image of the error page I get when trying to view youtube (which is currently blocked in China): firefox, chrome, IE8. While the error is the same in those 3 screenshots, the browsers display them differently.

This behavior happens with all www.google.com/* services that I can remember, but gmail (www.gmail.com redirecting to mail.gmail.com) doesn't exhibit the problem.

Help me find a Grass-Mud Horse t-shirt on the Web!

killdevil — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:11:43 -0800

Apropos of the recent MeFi front-page post concerning Grass-Mud Horses: could the Mandarin-speakers in the audience help me locate a place on the Web to buy a t-shirt featuring said animal? I haven't had any luck locating such an item on the English-language Web, but I'm sure there must be one for sale somewhere.

N***** With Hats

shmegegge — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:51:53 -0800

Is the movie Fear of A Black Hat normally censored? I watched the movie over streaming Netflix the other day, and noticed that it is HEAVILY censored, using cartoon noises to bleep out the words and cartoon hats to block their mouths and other objectionable material. The censoring was clearly a big joke, but it was so prevalent that I wonder if the movie was originally censored. Did I happen to watch a version that had been censored for TV or something, or was the movie always censored like this?

Journalist/Political Blogging from, and about, Turkey. Censorship issues?

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 11:41:18 -0800

I'm re-locating to Turkey in the upcoming months (due to unrelated circumstances), and whilst there, I intend on starting, and keeping, a regular blog about current events, human rights issues, the EU bid, and such. Photojournalism, where appropriate - and available - will also be included. So, I suppose I have a few questions. (long post, my apologies!) Due to current restrictions on freedom of the press, freedom of speech, Article 301, and others, any attempts at accurate journalism will either be censored, or may result in a less than friendly introduction to the Turkish legal system. However, human rights violations can't simply be ignored. The more they're spoken about, the more they're seen, the more can be done.

So, on to my questions:

1} What level of anonymity, if any, should I attempt? Should I go by a pseudonym? Or just leave out undue personal details and contact info?

2} Internet security. Would something like Hotspot Shield (on my personal laptop) be good, unnecessary, or not enough? Current laptop is running OSX.

3} To circumvent the frequent blocking of blogger.com and wordpress.com domains, I was thinking of using Wordpress, but on my own domain, hosted in either France, or North America. The content may still be blocked on an individual basis, but would my identity be protected?

4} Would it be better to access the internet from my home connection, via laptop, go to an internet cafe and use their connection, and their computer, OR, use my personal laptop in an area with WIFI access, such as a restaurant or hotel? [sidenote: At "home" I will be sharing internet with acquaintances, and will be unable to "reconfigure" anything, or whathave you.]

5} I'm not looking to make money out of this. I will be in the country primarily for other reasons. But I do hope to use this as a chance to gain more exposure, and promote dialogue, on daily Turkish life, whatever that happens to entail. It would be nice, though not entirely necessary, if I was able to add this to my journalistic resume in some way, professionally. Is there a way to do this, while keeping a relatively low profile, and avoiding arrest?

Should I just be submitting articles to small, foreign media outlets instead?

Any advice on how to be an online journo in Turkey, while keeping ones integrity, and still maintaining a minimal level of safety, would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps I'm being overly fearful. I hope I am. I realize Turkey isn't China. I would just rather seek out advice in advance, than regret my naivety. Thanks!

________________________________________

I'm certain you're going to be wondering if I have a background in this at all; if I have any idea what I'm doing... I know it certainly doesn't seem like it from re-reading this. Well, I have a background in broadcast media, ENG camera work, docu editing, television script writing, and freelance photography. I have also traveled rather extensively. The general field of work is not new to me. Political/journo human rights blogging, however, is a new endeavor.

*Throwaway email: journoblogger at yahoo.FR*

Obscenity these un-printable censors

hwyengr — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:03:42 -0800

I'm reading "For Whom the Bell Tolls", for the first time, that I got from the library. Every obscenity is printed as "unprintable", "un-nameable", or "obscenity". Obviously Hemingway didn't write that, and it's annoying. Would a modern printing still have these edits? I'm a grown adult. I am not offended by the work "fuck". I am offended by the disruption in the meter and phrasing, since I have to run it through my mind and figure out the tense and form of the intended word.

Was there any renegade publisher that printed uncensored books? Do the modern printings still do this? The one I'm reading is from the 70s, I think.

How did the obscenity/pornography laws change in the last 20 years?

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:54:59 -0800

Adult magazines and pay cable channels can now show more. Did the laws change, did society change, or both? I remember "reading" Hustler and Penthouse around 1990. Back then, magazines couldn't show any kind of penetration - and the editors said so. A few years later, I had the Playboy Channel, and they, too, couldn't show penetration.

Now, those same magazines show the complete sex act, including penetration, and even ejaculation. The Playboy Channel shows entire sex scenes except, strangely enough, ejaculation.

I assume we have the internet to thank for this. My question is, how did it happen? Not why, but how?

Did Congress change the laws of obscenity? Did the FCC change them? Were Playboy, Penthouse et al self-policing, and they simply decided to show more once they faced competition from the web?

I don't remember any sort of big news event such as a headline like "Hustler To Show Penetration For The First Time." As far as I can remember in those youthful days, the change came slowly -- first a woman could be shown penetrating herself, then the photos could discreetly show some penetration by a man, and then it was anything goes.

This interests me not just for prurient reasons but also because of the censorship implications. If the government can make something legal that easily, can it also make something illegal? And if it was legal all along, why did the industry move so slowly? Did porn on the web destroy all the barriers that Larry Flynt couldn't?

I understand this topic is provocative and the mods are watching. Let's try to keep this a legalistic discussion and not a debate for or against pornography.

Are there legal repercussions to inconsistent content censorship?

DoubtingThomas — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:13:08 -0800

What are the legal repercussions for censoring user-generated content (for example, product reviews)? For some reason I thought that by taking the time to examine some user content, organizations have implicitly agreed to examine all user content. But I'll be damned if I can find anything to support that view (or, alternately, point out why it's wrong, wrong, wrong...) Any thought? Links to scholarly-type articles appreciated.

Allez au !

ubernostrum — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:37:06 -0800

I'm looking for pointers on whether TV programs which are subject to censoring of obscene language have to also look out for obscenity in foreign languages. So the other night I was sitting up with a nasty cold and watching the hilariously-redubbed US TV edit of a movie that contained a fair amount of naughty language which, of course, had to be dubbed over to protect all the little kids who were undoubtedly up watching it at 2AM.

But there was a scene in a nightclub, where a Spanish-language song was playing, and that got me wondering: if that song contained obscenity, would the censorship regulations require it to be edited as well? I don't speak Spanish so I don't know what was actually being sung, but the beat certainly sounded as if the song had some, um, sexual connotations.

So... anybody know offhand (or have pointers to resources for looking up) how censorship applies to foreign-language content (a term which applies rather loosely to Spanish in the US, of course)? I'd be pretty amused if you could genuinely get away with nastiness by doing it in a different language...

I need to see the monkey smelling his finger!!!

afu — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:48:13 -0800

Using Youtube without using the front page, or any other methods of getting around Chinese censorship. I need to put some videos up on Youtube, but I am in China. They've opened youtube back up, but it will go down for a few seconds every time a questionable video goes up.

Since the front page of Youtube automatically cycles through videos, it is going down all the time, and it seems to always default to the front page every time I log in. Is there a way to use youtube, while never going to the front page, or is there some switch i can throw and make the front page of youtube cleaner and more google like.

Hate the govenment, not the people.

dawson — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:35:13 -0800

Relaying potentially 'subversive' information to a friend in China via email. How can I best go about it? Would IM be better? Youtube is one of the new sites that are blocked. Can I somehow embed vids in email? How can I tell him about getting around the filters (in public cafes) without arousing suspicion? It's not like I'd be denied another visa or he'd be hauled off to jail, but it is a touchy situation, and I've found it's not cool for an outsider to speak disparagingly of governmental policy, even if the native Chinese does.
Bonus: if you are currently in China and can offer solutions. I have always been able to get around the filters there, but, only by using my own machine and downloaded software.
It occurs to me I probably shouldn't use china as a tag?

i can has lolcats?

paduasoy — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:19:22 -0800

i can has cheezburger has stopped displaying images when I view it at work - help! When I look at the site at work the text displays fine but no images. I can click on the image titles to go through to the comments, but still no pictures.

We have WebSense but that usually blocks the site completely and gives a message about the site category.

I have used lolcats in presentations, so I could go to IT and explain this and ask them if they are blocking access, but I think exemption requests have to go through the Exec Director.

Can anyone explain what's happening here and if there's any way to view the images?

I do know there are other lolcat/cat macros sites, but prefer ican for my lolcat needs.

Is a .ae domain OK despite net censorship?

me3dia — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:19:44 -0800

I'm considering registering a .ae (United Arab Emirates) domain name for my business. I've got a couple concerns. I'm aware of the UAE's record on Net censorship, which brings up two issues for me:

1. I'm a little worried that even though my business would not deal in anything prurient or critical of Middle Eastern governments (both against the rules for the domain), my website may be censored in some manner. I'm a professional blogger and the site would link to client work; who knows whether one of those sites might offend a UAE censor.

2. I worry that my using a .ae domain will imply that I endorse or condone the UAE's policies. For obvious reasons (see 1.) I wouldn't be able to protest these policies, even though I disapprove of them. Is this a big enough issue to preclude using the domain, or, can anyone think of a good way to demonstrate my disapproval without getting my site banned?

The domain itself bridges the dot, incorporating ae into a word, so using another TLD would not be an option for this particular name. I could probably come up with another domain name, but it wouldn't be as cool.

Blockbuster censorship?

tzikeh — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 12:10:42 -0800

Can anyone prove that Blockbuster edits out content they deem obscene or immoral? I can only find hearsay of "My friend rented Movie A and said it didn't have Scene B in it", but I've never had any proof, either directly from an employee of Blockbuster (which would be preferable) or from someone who took the time to get several possibly offensive movies from both Blockbuster and either the officially released "for sale" versions, or a version from Netflix, or what-have-you.

Anyone have the real scoop?

What are the reasons for Chinese censorship?

jackypaper — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:09:17 -0800

I’m trying to help my students understand the reasons behind censorship in China. They ask very simple and yet very profound questions: Why keep information and knowledge from your people? In the long run, how can a free-thinking populace be anything but good? I tell them that those in control of government wish to perpetuate that control. If the people hear or say too many “bad” things about that government, it might be in danger of being replaced. And perhaps, by introducing too many outside philosophies, you might also be in danger of altering your culture; the fear of being overly “Westernized” is a legitimate one. But having been born in the West and nourished on Western thought and media, I am unable to speak logically from a Chinese perspective. How do I explain to American high school students, in a way that makes sense, that some governments see the introduction of unfettered speech and religious practice as detrimental?

Why censor town names?

haveanicesummer — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 01:11:24 -0800

Why do/did certain old novels censor names of towns/shires/boroughs? Examples of this phenomenon can be found in Charlotte Bronte's "The Professor."

"they knew also they had influence in the borough of X-------"

"but he said I might come down to -------shire."

I have found numerous examples of this in literature of this period, but nary an explanation.

Is it ever OK to change peoples posts on a web forum?

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:26:32 -0800

Is it ever OK to change peoples posts on a web forum? Say theoretically a government department ran a consultation via web forum, with invited, non anonymous participants, and wasn't happy with what some of their own staff said. Would it be ok for them to order the staff to edit the posts? Are there any useful examples of the consequences?

bookfilter: protagonist is government remover of "deleted" artists

cps — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:46:42 -0800

bookfilter: main character is a government collector of "deactivated" artists / works of art SF / slipstream

Set in a world where the supply of art is kept on a constant level (or somesuch), the main character's job is to go around and collect e.g. all Vonnegut novels once Vonnegut has been marked for deletion from the canon (e.g. to make room for a new artist, I think). Plot features protagonist's transgressions, underground resistance, in a somewhat Philip K. Dickish manner.

Think it also featured a type of drug addicts (grinders? crunchers? shifters? diggers?) whose drug induced them to go digging through landfill for treasure, but that could be a different novel.

Help me mefi mind!

Help me sift through the deluge of potential topics!

fvox13 — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:07:47 -0800

What do you feel is the biggest case, or group of cases, concerning online censorship and a breach of first ammendment rights to happen in the past five years? I'm writing a paper for Communication Ethics and Law class, and I've narrowed my potential topics to one: Internet censorship. But I'm really struggling to find a particular case or group of cases to focus on (there's just so much!) I can't just blab on and on for 5 pages about how bad I think censorship is -- I need to discuss the specific ethical/legal implications of a particular case or group of cases. Any ideas?

P.S. By "case," I don't necessarily mean "court case." I mean "instance" or "example."

Yippie Kai Yay Mr. Falcon!

jeff_w_welch — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 08:15:19 -0800

"Yippie Kai Yay Mr. Falcon!" In a censored version of Die Hard II, a dubbed over Bruce Willis exclaims these words as a final FU to the bad guys. Anyone know where I can download this tidbit?

Did President Bush swear today?

pwally — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:56:37 -0800

Did President Bush swear today during his speech? Part of his answer to a reporters question was bleeped out today on the radio, and it was close to a five second bleep. If he didn't swear, do you know what the cause of it was?

Who's blocking my Web site, and why?

elmwood — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 10:26:52 -0800

Is there any way I can figure out how a Web site is classified by different Web filtering services and systems? If they classify it incorrectly, is it difficult to make my case and get the classification changed? I found a Web filtering service, SmartFilter, that classifies a site that I run, dealing with a niche professional subject, as "Chat". (It's not a general interest site or something dealing with celebrities, games, partisan politics, adult subject matter, dating, or the like.) However, it classifies a very similar site, dealing with the same niche professional subject, as "General News." Unfortunately, it means that site may have an unfair advantage over my site, because it will be less likely that site will be blocked by employers.