Surely this should be within the 5xx range of status codes? I get there's a reference to be had using 451 but this is more of a server error than client.
Is the 451 a reference to something?
Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
31–40 of 93 posts
Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
#32I don't get it? There are already drafts for it, which were created close in time to when Bradbury died. http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-tbray-http-legally-restrict...
A draft is not an implementation. And an implementation in browsers is not an implementation in providers or webservers.
This is a very good way to make people aware of legal blocking, and to make sure that it is adopted.
Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
#33Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is some reasoning about this on: http://www.451unavailable.org/why-do-we-need-error-451 Still, imho, 4XX could be a response for a given URL, but when "a website is blocked" (from the text of the previous URL), we should go to 5XX, as in 503 - service unavailable.
does it really matter if it's 5xx or 4xx?
Yes. 400 responses are because of client error. 500 responses are for server error.
Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
#35Surely this should be within the 5xx range of status codes? I get there's a reference to be had using 451 but this is more of a server error than client.
Is the 451 a reference to something?
Yes, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
A dystopian novel about a world where all books are banned and fire squads roam around to burn them.
Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
#36Surely this should be within the 5xx range of status codes? I get there's a reference to be had using 451 but this is more of a server error than client.
Is the 451 a reference to something?
Going by something someone has put on wikipedia "A reference to the 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, where books are outlawed".
On that note it looks like Microsoft have already dibs'd 451 for an Exchange ActiveSync redirect anyway.
Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
does it really matter if it's 5xx or 4xx?
Yes. 400 responses are because of client error. 500 responses are for server error.
Legal restrictions on content are almost always issues on the client side, otherwise they should not be made available at all.
Consider for example the blocking of sites in the UK, or the blocking of the PirateBay website in the Netherlands. Those are all very limited audiences where the location of the client is causing a legal reason why the content can not be displayed.
Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
#38Seems like a good idea, but the wrong way to achieve it. The right way, as I understand it, would be to write it up as an RFC and submit it to the IETF; and to contribute code for it to some of the popular web servers (apache, nginx, etc). The site doesn't make any mention of either of those things. Edit: oops, I was wrong. There is an RFC and it's linked from http://www.451unavailable.org/what-is-error-451/
Since the sites blocked on ISP level code contribution to apache/nginx or other web servers is irrelevant.
Disclaimer: I work for an ISP and every ISP in Russia is legally required to do the censorship (and mirror all traffic to FSB black boxes, but that's another story). I'm not partucilarly happy with the situation, but can't do anything about that.
Nginx is totally relevant as many ISPs including our use GNU/Linux boxes running Nginx as a highly performant transparent proxy (there are TPROXY patches for Nginx) to dive into HTTP traffic and do URL filtering (obviously, after initial crude IP-based filtering). Costs less than those fancy Cisco solutions, and it's not like we're willing to spend additional money on something that downgrades the service.
Also, there are cases where actual sites are legally forced to remove resources. Well, not really forced, but it's just a sort request too many sites can't really decline. You either comply and remove a single page (blocking for Russian visitors only seems sufficient), or get blocked on ISP level and since many ISPs (including several giant ones) just blacklist a whole IP address, that means your site becomes completely unavailable.
Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
#39Why wouldn't we just put the countries with censorship against the wall? All such error code does is just giving it green light to block content with arbitrary legal reasons.
Re: Campaign for a new HTTP Error code: 451 - Blocked for legal reasons
#40Seems like a good idea, but the wrong way to achieve it. The right way, as I understand it, would be to write it up as an RFC and submit it to the IETF; and to contribute code for it to some of the popular web servers (apache, nginx, etc). The site doesn't make any mention of either of those things. Edit: oops, I was wrong. There is an RFC and it's linked from http://www.451unavailable.org/what-is-error-451/
Then to make things easier, some people need an http verb called patch_legal, to take down pages for dmca and other legal reasons.
[deleted]