Cross-posted from Historicus.us
In a quick non-history, academic, or teaching post, it appears that India is blocking access to blogs that are stored on blogger or typepad.
People that are tracking the issue indicate that it is related to reported terrorist use of blogs to coordinate the Mumbai explosions. Geocities-based blogs and websites are also blocked by the Indian Department of Telecommunications. The Great Indian Mutiny is reporting that Wordpress and Livejournal are not effected. This restriction on free speech and free access to information puts India in a new select group other than the nuclear club: Pakistan, China, and Saudi Arabia also censor portions of the Internet.
Interestingly, there are already a large number of methods readily available to work around India's (and other nation's) attempt at censorship. Digital inspiration provides a full list of methods to access blocked sites. The site also describes
how bloggers can ensure that people in areas practicing censorship of the Internet can get to their content, by using Feedburner to syndicate their sites. India Uncut provides a different group of suggestions, including subscribing to blogs via Bloglines, or using the www.pkblogs.com service created for Pakistanis during their government's crackdown. Torpark
provides a utility that you can run from a USB key fob to create a secure web connection that seems basically unblockable. If these methods aren't sufficient you (or people in India, China, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia) can use this nicely detailed (and long) list of methods around censorware, courtesy of Boing Boing.
So, obviously, my small readership here is not likely to run into the problems plaguing India's blog readers. I would be shocked if anyone in India even found this place, much less read it regularly. However, censorship and free speech are extremely important to my heart - one of my never-ending research projects deals with censorship during wartime. I understand the need and the desire to block the communication methods that terrorists use, but once you find these links, does it make sense to shut them down from a national security standpoint? Think about it - if you discovered this communications method, why not just monitor it, and use the information you gather to scoop up the bad guys. That's basic intelligence work. Censoring the blogs is a knee-jerk reaction of scared officials and politicians.
Anyway, I'd appraciate it if you would spread the word - either on your own blogs, links here, or however.