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India Orders 32 Websites Blocked, Including GitHub, Archive.Org, Pastebin

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Re: India Orders 32 Websites Blocked, Including GitHub, Archive.Org, Pastebin

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that ISIS isn't a terrorist organization doesn't mean that user is defending the organization. Terrorist has become a catch-all term that is used way too broadly (seems to cover any armed force motivated by Islam for many people). ISIS can be an awful organization without consisting of terrorists.

They are terrorizing local populations for a political goal. They are not just fighting battles they are slaughtering civilians into compliance. How is that not terrorism? Edit: He also claimed that it would be better if ISIS was in charge of the area. That is quite ridiculous.

I've never heard anyone describe Hitler as a terrorist. Not the Soviets either. Even the US during the cold war terrorized their own population (only the communist part of it, but I'm sure IS is fine with the local population as long as it adheres to the IS ideology)

I think in order to be a terrorist, terror has to be your main political tool.

Re: India Orders 32 Websites Blocked, Including GitHub, Archive.Org, Pastebin

#72
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, but only if you have access to a machine outside the ban. So outsourced employees and established companies are going to be fine, but if you're a 15 year old just getting into hacking spending $5 a month on a VPN service or a private server out of the country is going to be a problem. I can't imagine becoming the programmer I am today without the huge resource that is Github.

Does Tor work in India?

How will you get Tor binaries if they block Tor project website in the next wave of bans?

Re: India Orders 32 Websites Blocked, Including GitHub, Archive.Org, Pastebin

#73
post #4

Arvind Gupta, the head of IT Cell, BJP Tweeted: "The websites that have been blocked were based on an advisory by Anti Terrorism Squad, and were carrying Anti India content from ISIS. The sites that have removed objectionable content and/or cooperated with the on going investigations, are being unblocked." This is bad. archive.org by default should have all sorts of offensive things on it. Pastebin and github should…

Strange that they're blocking software rather than websites. E.g. the github block says "gist-it" next to it, which implies they maybe wanted to block https://github.com/robertkrimen/gist-it ? There's also http://atnsoft.com/atnsoft.com/textpaster/ blocked and http://sourceforge.net/projects/phorkie/ which is described as "Self-hosted pastebin software written in PHP. Pastes are editable, may have multiple files and are stored in git repositories." Which is really strange because it says there were only 4 downloads of this software in the last week -- doesn't that make it easier to track?

Re: India Orders 32 Websites Blocked, Including GitHub, Archive.Org, Pastebin

#74
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a point, you know. His claims are: 1) IS is not a terrorist organization, it is an army. 2) IS is better, or at least not worse, than existing middle east governments. 1 seems pretty obvious to me. Sure, they are terrorizing the local population, but lots of governments do that without being labeled terrorists. 2 is more difficult to swallow. Many ME governments are pure garbage, but IS looks a lot worse.

> Sure, they are terrorizing the local population, but lots of governments do that without being labeled terrorists. ...including the US government, let's not forget. Drone strikes aren't "local" to the US, but they are conducted against US citizens in countries that the US is not at war with[0]. Moreover, if any middle eastern country did to the US what the US does in Pakistan, you'd bet the US would call it "terror…

The Oklahoma City bombing was considered terrorism.

Re: India Orders 32 Websites Blocked, Including GitHub, Archive.Org, Pastebin

#75
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a point, you know. His claims are: 1) IS is not a terrorist organization, it is an army. 2) IS is better, or at least not worse, than existing middle east governments. 1 seems pretty obvious to me. Sure, they are terrorizing the local population, but lots of governments do that without being labeled terrorists. 2 is more difficult to swallow. Many ME governments are pure garbage, but IS looks a lot worse.

Exactly. His point is well stated too, and ironically the grandparent in this thread fell victim to the mode of thought the author of the linked comment cautions against.

Armies do not melt into the civilian population at the first sign of trouble.

Re: India Orders 32 Websites Blocked, Including GitHub, Archive.Org, Pastebin

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that ISIS isn't a terrorist organization doesn't mean that user is defending the organization. Terrorist has become a catch-all term that is used way too broadly (seems to cover any armed force motivated by Islam for many people). ISIS can be an awful organization without consisting of terrorists.

They are terrorizing local populations for a political goal. They are not just fighting battles they are slaughtering civilians into compliance. How is that not terrorism? Edit: He also claimed that it would be better if ISIS was in charge of the area. That is quite ridiculous.

If "terrorism" is to retain some specificity, I don't think you can include very old-fashioned war crimes in it. Slaughtering civilians during an attack or pillaging cities after a victory are millennia old types of atrocities, and I'm not sure they need to be recategorized under a neologism.

Re: India Orders 32 Websites Blocked, Including GitHub, Archive.Org, Pastebin

#77
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has a point, you know. His claims are: 1) IS is not a terrorist organization, it is an army. 2) IS is better, or at least not worse, than existing middle east governments. 1 seems pretty obvious to me. Sure, they are terrorizing the local population, but lots of governments do that without being labeled terrorists. 2 is more difficult to swallow. Many ME governments are pure garbage, but IS looks a lot worse.

> Sure, they are terrorizing the local population, but lots of governments do that without being labeled terrorists. ...including the US government, let's not forget. Drone strikes aren't "local" to the US, but they are conducted against US citizens in countries that the US is not at war with[0]. Moreover, if any middle eastern country did to the US what the US does in Pakistan, you'd bet the US would call it "terror…

A terrorist, I seem to remember, is someone whose main political tool is the spread of terror. A bombing is not terrorism unless used in the pursuit of political gain.

Re: India Orders 32 Websites Blocked, Including GitHub, Archive.Org, Pastebin

#80
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That pro-ISIS guy that was recently id'd from Bengaluru was posting on Twitter. Is Twitter banned? Major oversight or perhaps it is random. This impacts the average person more than any terrorist - such a delusional policy.

Post the offending content as a comment somewhere on the Indian government's own web site. They'll block themselves. Problem solved.

Being an Indian, I wish that this was true.
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