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VLC media player banned in India

indiatoday.in

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Re: VLC media player banned in India

#141

Post by arise »

patrakov wrote: post #120
jbk wrote: post #45

President of VideoLAN here: we got banned since a few months, and we don’t know why. (According to my stats, it is since the 13 February 2022) . We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? V…

Please watch my FOSDEM talk from 2020, it explains the similar effect in Russia: https://archive.fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/sdnpof/ The most likely explanation is: the government does not want to block your website, it is collateral damage. They want to block something else, but there is no technical possibility to block that without also blocking your website. This also explains variation between ISPs: there is…

Thank you... It's a good reminder that censorship always has collateral damage.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#142

Post by dartharva »

pabs3 wrote: post #130
game-of-throws wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't wait until the Indian government tries to ban debian.org https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/vlc

They have a Debian derivative called BOSSLinux, so Indians can just use that if Debian gets blocked. https://bosslinux.in/

That's not a mainstream distro, it's just a standard-issue OS for govt office computers.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#143

Post by heynowheynow »

jbk wrote: post #45

President of VideoLAN here: we got banned since a few months, and we don’t know why. (According to my stats, it is since the 13 February 2022) . We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? V…

Because The Great Dictator said so.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#145

Post by shmde »

jbk wrote: post #45

President of VideoLAN here: we got banned since a few months, and we don’t know why. (According to my stats, it is since the 13 February 2022) . We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? V…

> The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government?

Please, please, please don't include these sentences in any email you send to Indian govt. My ISP usually doesn't listen to the blocking instructions and most sites are unblocked, if you ask these questions directly to the government maybe they will go all in and enforce this rule. This blocklist is quite lax and not enforced with much severity, but if my government figures it out that there are many local ISPs who don't use the blocklist, the government they might start enforcing it more severity.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#146

Post by pythonb3sss »

jbk wrote: post #45

President of VideoLAN here: we got banned since a few months, and we don’t know why. (According to my stats, it is since the 13 February 2022) . We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? V…

Although I'm not sure, this [1] could be the reason. TLDR: A chinese hacker group took the official exe, added a malicious dll in it and distributed it to NGOs and government institutions, most likely through a clone website or phishing email. Purpose was said to be espionage.

[EDIT]

Ofcourse the Indian media reported that the official VideoLAN org was controlled by the said hacker group which leveraged it's position to distribute malware.

[1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/chinese-hacke...

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#147

Post by hiyer »

b215826 wrote: post #38

The Indian government (and Indian courts) is infamous for these random harebrained stunts. In the past, it has banned archive.org [1], continues to block the French ISP free.fr, etc. VLC was likely banned because people use it to watch pirated films (the same reason free.fr continues to be banned [2]). And it's plain f*cking stupid to just ban videolan.org, because it can be downloaded from numerous other websites [3…

FWIW, Indian website blocks are usually DNS-based, so you can easily get around them by using a different DNS provider from your ISP's or DNS-over-HTTPS.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#148

Post by toast0 »

jbk wrote: post #45

President of VideoLAN here: we got banned since a few months, and we don’t know why. (According to my stats, it is since the 13 February 2022) . We’ve asked the Indian government and we got no answer. We probably did not ask the right place though. I wish I knew how to ask properly. The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? V…

> The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government?

From experience being blocked from time to time in many countries...

Most countries that block things ocassionally just aren't very good at blocking things. They might not consistently communicate with all ISPs; it's pretty common that all mobile ISPs will do blocking but no wireline ISPs do it. Sometimes only the major ISPs get asked. Sometimes they get asked and don't block for whatever reason. Sometimes ISPs take a long time to update block lists. Sometimes they'll block things from DNS, but only for people using their DNS servers.

Best in class at blocking is probably the great firewall, but they sometimes do inconsistent blocking on purpose.

As a sibling said, it's best not to bring up the inconsistencies if you find the right people to ask. If you haven't already contacted the TRAI (telecom regulatory authority of india), that's where I'd start, but I dunno.

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#149

Post by ishanjain28 »

jbk wrote: post #72
xNeil wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The weirdest is that some ISP are blocking it and some are not. So why is that the case? Are some ISP not listening to the government? Pretty much. My ISP doesn't block half the stuff the Indian government has banned, while my mobile data provider has - it's genuinely very weird. Regarding contacting the government - maybe https://pgportal.gov.in should help? File your grievance with the section of the government yo…

> maybe https://pgportal.gov.in should help? File your grievance with the section of the government you want to complain to - in this case, I'd guess that's the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. I will do that again then.

A internet freedom activist group had filed a Right-to-Information(RTI) query to know why VLC was banned. The ministry responsible says they have no data on it. https://twitter.com/sflcin/status/1539877804116168704

Re: VLC media player banned in India

#150

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

butterNaN wrote: post #64

It is cute to see non-indians trying to guess the reason. We were like you once. It is an exercise in futility. Our government is run by monkeys. They are stubbornly uneducated about science and technology, at the same time pretending to know everything about it. How does our government take decisions? My best guess is they consult a successful team of astrologers.

I absolutely love your username.
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