Blocked websites
Keith Parkins | 18.08.2009 16:33 | Other Press | Repression | Technology
Hampshire County Council has of this week blocked access to bit.ly on the grounds that the website is malicious!
Blocking of websites by Hampshire County Council is is getting to be more and more of a problem, blanket blocking of websites without rhyme nor reason. As library users are finding, censorship of the net is getting worse and worse. There is total ban on Google images!
Monday bit.ly was blocked on the grounds that it is a malicious website. It is not a malicious website, it is a url shortening service. All it does is reduce a long web address to a shorter web address. If you are a member, it also provides access statistics. Click on the short url and you are redirected to the original url.
http://bit.ly
http://bit.ly/Czlq1
By blocking access to this website, at a stroke twitter has been rendered useless, a large part of the net has been blocked off.
http://twitter.com/keithpp
http://twitter.com/campaigncc
http://twitter.com/withouthotair
http://twitter.com/ecointernet
By calling the website malicious, HCC has opened itself up to a very expensive defamation case.
A useful plug in for firefox is provided by bit.ly that shows where a link goes before the user goes there.
If bit.ly is blocked, it begs the question, are other such websites blocked?
http://tinyurl.com
Cambridge Professor David MacKay in his excellent book Sustainable Energy uses these tiny urls for his references, in order that they may easily be embedded in the text. Is his book to be rendered unreadable?
'The text also contains pointers to web resources. When a web-pointer is monstrously long, I've used the TinyURL service, and put the tiny code in the text like this – [yh8xse] – and the full pointer at the end of the book on page 344. yh8xse is a shorthand for a tiny URL, in this case:
http://tinyurl.com/yh8xse. A complete list of all the URLs in this book is provided at
http://tinyurl.com/yh8xse.'
Monday bit.ly was blocked on the grounds that it is a malicious website. It is not a malicious website, it is a url shortening service. All it does is reduce a long web address to a shorter web address. If you are a member, it also provides access statistics. Click on the short url and you are redirected to the original url.
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
By blocking access to this website, at a stroke twitter has been rendered useless, a large part of the net has been blocked off.
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
By calling the website malicious, HCC has opened itself up to a very expensive defamation case.
A useful plug in for firefox is provided by bit.ly that shows where a link goes before the user goes there.
If bit.ly is blocked, it begs the question, are other such websites blocked?
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Cambridge Professor David MacKay in his excellent book Sustainable Energy uses these tiny urls for his references, in order that they may easily be embedded in the text. Is his book to be rendered unreadable?
'The text also contains pointers to web resources. When a web-pointer is monstrously long, I've used the TinyURL service, and put the tiny code in the text like this – [yh8xse] – and the full pointer at the end of the book on page 344. yh8xse is a shorthand for a tiny URL, in this case:
![](/img/extlink.gif)
![](/img/extlink.gif)
Keith Parkins
Homepage:
http://twitter.com/keithpp
Comments
Hide the following 12 comments
Well this is just one of many examples
18.08.2009 18:14
Anonymous
But ...
19.08.2009 07:40
ada
but but but
19.08.2009 09:17
everything belongs to the people, hampshire council is run by and on behalf of the people.
the people want to use their computers ... sometimes, even, to keep tags on the likes of hampshire council, who want to stop people from using their own computers for this type of thing.
are you saying their 'right' to control the peoples computers is greater than the peoples right to control hampshire council?
if so [insert abuse here]
mild manered
Deep waters here ...
19.08.2009 10:16
ada
Shouldn't be a problem.
19.08.2009 11:26
NP
Ah!
19.08.2009 11:33
What's the point of you coming on here whining about us coming on here whining about ...?
Bored of you.
Dewy Decimal
Just get the internet at home?
19.08.2009 22:57
mike
public libraries
20.08.2009 14:11
Public libraries are what it says on the label, public libraries, and yet the public has little or no say in what they do, how they are run or for what purpose is the building used. They should be a public resource under direct control of the public.
There is the danger they will be stocked with rubbish best-sellers, but that is happening anyway. Periodically, Farnborough Library sells off its best sellers, to make shelf space to stock yet more populist trash.
The Internet access in Hampshire is the People's Network. For the people, paid for by the people, therefore it should be people who decide how it is run and are free to decide what they access.
Irrespective of the censorship, the software installed is now so outdated, that many websites are now either inaccessible or do not work properly.
Blocking of websites, net censorship is a growing problem. Strange that sites blocked tend to be radical or activist sites, sites that help hold authority to account, better still help to overthrow authority, thus seen as a direct threat to those in power.
One of the sites blocked in the past and maybe still blocked is RAWA, a women's rights group in Afghanistan fighting fascist Muslims.
The block on bit.ly has been lifted.
Libraries have to be open and accessible to all shades of opinion. Where would Karl Marx have been without the British Library?
Keith
Sorry, Keith
20.08.2009 20:53
May I suggest that next time you see a police car, you flag it down, ask the driver for the keys, and take it for a spin? The car's yours, after all - you're a member of the public and have paid for it.
Don't think the coppers will agree. Nor will the magistrate.
Similarly, you can't walk into a library and say, I am a member of the public, and I pay your wages, and I want you to buy some better books, and, while you're at it, just unblock those websites, will you?
ada
If I do not like government use of computers
20.08.2009 22:11
You have an ideological axe to grind that equates anything to do with speaking up against authority as being bad, negative and infeasible.
You are wrong. You fail to understand the purpose taxation is used to provide in Libraries: access to information. Failure to provide that information can be due to crapness of computers or wilful obstruction. The analogies with private companies and police cars are quite vacuous. You are wrong.
ada lovelace
Wrong again.
21.08.2009 06:25
ada
yes we get the idea ...
04.09.2009 12:17
Lady Grey