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Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

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Re: Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

#11

Post by unmole »

throwfghyy585 wrote: post #3

Looks like a glitch (as the reddit thread indicates). DDG works fine on BSNL. Note that r/India is very intolerant of views which are pro-India, and has consequently become an echo chamber for endia folk. I'd take anything coming out of this subred with a bucket of salt.

The fact that it works on BSNL means absolutely nothing. The implementation of blocking across ISPs is extremely inconsistent: https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.08590

> Note that r/India is very intolerant of views which are pro-India

/r/india heavily skews liberal and anti-Modi. That is not the same thing as being intolerant of pro-India views.

Re: Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

#12

Post by fennecfoxen »

wobbly_bush wrote: post #10
Marc_Bryan wrote: post #6

India, ruled by some big(!) heads who doesn't understand a dot in technology. They are governed by impulsive decisions of the policy makers and it's a name sake democracy. No real freedom of speech is allowed there AFAIK. Govt / Private / Policing is just too much and a lot of gag order as well. They just can't stand anything and consequences could cost a life too! Technology is being used by most of the population w…

> there is a ruling body known as TRAI / DOT which doesn't care to explain the rationale behind any of their decisions for blocking / banning etc. This is a big misconception in India. The URL blocking for the major part is ordered by courts and not the government - https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/ban-porn-sit...

> The URL blocking for the major part is ordered by courts and not the government

I can't speak to TRAI and DOT involvement, but the statement that courts are not part of the "government" is an over-technical definition centered around Parliamentary technicalities that happen to use the word, and of limited utility here. The courts are very much part of the apparatus which governs the people of a nation.

Re: Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

#13

Post by wobbly_bush »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #12
wobbly_bush wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is a ruling body known as TRAI / DOT which doesn't care to explain the rationale behind any of their decisions for blocking / banning etc. This is a big misconception in India. The URL blocking for the major part is ordered by courts and not the government - https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/ban-porn-sit...

> The URL blocking for the major part is ordered by courts and not the government I can't speak to TRAI and DOT involvement, but the statement that courts are not part of the "government" is an over-technical definition centered around Parliamentary technicalities that happen to use the word, and of limited utility here. The courts are very much part of the apparatus which governs the people of a nation.

I see where you are coming from but the distinction is important because a lot of times these discussions are followed up by discussion about voting for certain political parties with suggestions of one political party banning/censoring more than other political parties. If one doesn't focus on the exact points of change where it's possible, complaining against the "big government" is going to be a very slow process to bring change.

Re: Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

#14

Post by godelski »

wobbly_bush wrote: post #5

> Meanwhile, DuckDuckGo confirmed on Twitter that it’s looking into the issue and suggested Android users change their DNS provider to get around the issue. If changing DNS works, how is this blocked by the ISP? Seems to indicate there is some other technical problem. Treat the rest of the article, and specially with tweets, with skepticism.

ISP's DNS, which you use by default, has a blacklist.

You change your DNS, no longer see ISP's blacklist.

IIRC Cloudflare (1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1) also support encrypted DNS.

Re: Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

#15

Post by ignoramous »

prashnts wrote: post #9
wobbly_bush wrote: post #5

> Meanwhile, DuckDuckGo confirmed on Twitter that it’s looking into the issue and suggested Android users change their DNS provider to get around the issue. If changing DNS works, how is this blocked by the ISP? Seems to indicate there is some other technical problem. Treat the rest of the article, and specially with tweets, with skepticism.

Haven’t been back in India for a while, but the DNS blocking happens all the time. One big provider (AirTel) even injected ads in non-https pages quite frequently. Anecdotally, I had a cable service in Delhi where the provider started throttling me if I didn’t make any request to their dns server in some arbitrary time interval. So changing your dns might not be the fix (i fixed it by sending random queries to their…

> One big provider (AirTel) even injected ads in non-https pages quite frequently.

...and in "HTTPS" pages "secured" by cloudflare. https://medium.com/@karthikb351/airtel-is-sniffing-and-censo...

Re: Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

#17

Post by sbmthakur »

Marc_Bryan wrote: post #6

India, ruled by some big(!) heads who doesn't understand a dot in technology. They are governed by impulsive decisions of the policy makers and it's a name sake democracy. No real freedom of speech is allowed there AFAIK. Govt / Private / Policing is just too much and a lot of gag order as well. They just can't stand anything and consequences could cost a life too! Technology is being used by most of the population w…

TRAI does come under RTI. Any instance of them denying a RTI request?

Re: Multiple service providers are blocking DuckDuckGo in India

#19

Post by castevictim »

throwfghyy585 wrote: post #3

Looks like a glitch (as the reddit thread indicates). DDG works fine on BSNL. Note that r/India is very intolerant of views which are pro-India, and has consequently become an echo chamber for endia folk. I'd take anything coming out of this subred with a bucket of salt.

Unfortunately its those people who think criticising government policies are antinational are being convinced by government by banning of Chinese apps, meanwhile Chinese troops have captured Indian territory, written China in mandarin all over for satellites to see and butchered Indian soldiers.

This was coming, very same people voted this party to power for supposedly bombing Balakot and killing terrorists when satellite pictures showed clearly that IAF missed the targets because PM asked them to bomb during cloudy weather. At least then this government only made IAF a laughing stock, but now its started belittling soldier deaths on Chinese hands.

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