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Summary: Everyone knows a 404 Web status messages means you can reach the Web server, but it cant find the page youre looking for. In these days of Internet censorship, a new HTTP Web status message, 451, has been proposed for pages and sites blocked by censorship.

TIm Bray thinks you should know when censorship is blocking you from a Web site.

Back in the early days of the Web, we set up Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) status messages to let people know what was going on with a Web server. Today, we still use 401 error messages for pages youre not authorized to see, 403 pages for pages you cant see even with authentication, and the ever popular 404 for Web pages that cant be found. Now, with the rise of Internet censorship, Tim Bray is proposing a new HTTP code: 451, for Web servers and pages that are being censored,

Bray, a leading Google Android developer and co-creator of one of the first Web search engines, Open Text and XML, has proposed to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that code 451 be used for, when resource access is denied for legal reasons. This allows server operators to operate with greater transparency in circumstances where issues of law or public policy affect their operation. This transparency may be beneficial both to these operators and to end users.

Formally, this would be:

451 Unavailable For Legal Reasons

This status code indicates that the server is subject to legal restrictions which prevent it servicing the request.

Since such restrictions typically apply to all operators in a legal jurisdiction, the server in question may or may not be an origin server. The restrictions typically most directly affect the operations of ISPs and search engines.

Responses using this status code SHOULD include an explanation, in the response body, of the details of the legal restriction; which legal authority is imposing it, and what class of resources it applies to.

The name of this code, Bray notes in passing comes from the late Ray Bradburys classic science-fiction novel, Fahrenheit 451. In it, Firemen no longer fight fires, but start them to burn books. The title comes from the ignition point for paper.

Originally posted here:
451: Web censorship status code

Artists Biennial Germany The German artist Gregor Schneider says organisers of the exhibition have blocked a work he planned to install in Karlskirche church, Kassel

By Julia Michalska. From Art Basel daily edition Published online: 12 June 2012

The German artist Gregor Schneider says that the organisers of Documenta have censored a work he planned to install in the Karlskirche church in Kassel, home of the quinquennial exhibition (until 16 September). Schneider says that Its all Rheydt Kolkata, Kassel 2012, consisting of material dredged from the river Ganges in northern India, was withdrawn after Bernd Leifeld, the managing director of Documenta, intervened.

Schneider was given 70,000 by the Protestant Academy of Hofgeismar to make the piece. The Art Newspaper understands that Leifeld expressed concerns that visitors could mistake the

installation for a Documenta project, and that any mix-up could have damaged the reputation of the prestigious German exhibition. Representatives of the academy declined to comment.

A spokeswoman for Documenta says that Leifeld heard some time ago that the church was planning an exhibition during Documenta, though no one was aware which artist the church had in mind. After consulting the church, [its officials] decided to concentrate on seminars and lectures [instead].

Meanwhile, the German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol has installed an outsized human figure with outstretched arms in the bell tower of a Catholic church in Kassel despite opposition from Documentas management. He reportedly accuses Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev of curtailing cultural events in Kassel, but the exhibitions artistic director says that she would never [censor art]. The German artist Siglinde Kallnbach has launched a campaign in support of Balkenhol and Schneider.

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Documenta sparks “censorship” row

Protesting regulations that they say are tantamount to online censorship, members of the hacking collective known as Anonymous gathered in more than a dozen cities throughout India Saturday though according to some reports, the results of those assemblies were mixed.

According to Rajini Vaidyanathan of BBC News, members of the group organized their gatherings across 16 cities nationwide, including Mumbai, where an estimated 100 protesters donned their trademark Guy Fawkes masks in order to voice their disapproval of federal Internet laws.

Im here for internet freedom. Theres restrictions on speaking online. Thats why Im here, a 19-year-old student named Amisha, who attended the Mumbai event, told Vaidyanathan.

India is following China and Iran. They dont want the right information to reach people, added a 20-year-old student Nishant, whose identity was obscured by sunglasses and a scarf. There are some sites theyve blocked for information which is relevant to us. Information which is useful to us as citizens of this country.

Thousands had agreed to participate in the rallies, but far less actually turned out on Saturday, with members being for the most part invisible during the first hour, Abhimanyu Chandra of the weekly news magazine Tehelka reported. Furthermore, Chandra added that journalists, policemen, and tourists joined the actual protestors during the gathering, and that not everyone in attendance agreed with the groups methods.

I am unsure about their means of seeking their ends. Systematic taking down of websites Im not sure how I feel about that, a Mumbai-based college student, who wished to remain anonymous, told Tehelka. Likewise, another referred to the group as hypocritical and adding, You cannot fight authoritarianism by yourself being authoritarian. Hacking is a sort of violence, while others expressed doubt that the protests would change anything.

The Saturday evening protest included the distribution and presentation of Anonymous paraphernalia. Leaflets were distributed and Guy Fawkes masks were also available, Chandra said. A banner read: The Corrupt Fear Us. The Honest Support Us. The Heroic Join Us. Posters proclaimed: You can censor the internet, but not my mind; and If the government shuts down the internet, keep calm and shut down the government.;

While it teemed with activity and conversation, the event was marked with some disorganization and a low turnout, the Tehelka writer added. Initially scheduled to take place at the Gateway of India, it was eventually held at Azad Maidan [and] the Delhi protest too saw a low turnout at Jantar Mantar.

In related news on Saturday, officials from Indias top agency for dealing with cybersecurity contingencies told the Times of India that their website had not been attacked or taken offline, despite claims made by hackers affiliated with Anonymous earlier in the day.

The cyberattackers had claimed to have brought down the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) homepage with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, but officials with the organization told the newspaper that those claims were without any basis and at complete variance with the facts. The fact is that the website has been running continuously & uninterruptedly including the whole of today.

Link:
Anonymous India Censorship Protests Draw Hundreds

HONG KONG, China Googles biggest move against Chinese censorship in two years has won plenty of applause in the West, but skeptics say it does nothing to help Chinese web users themselves.

Last week, the internet giant rolled out a new feature on its Hong Kong-based search site that warns users when a term they are searching for will be blocked, resulting in being shut out from Google for a minute and a half.

Because Google does not comply with Chinese censors as Chinas largest search engine, Baidu, does the government automatically blocks a wide range of words, including some apparently benign and non-political terms. Yangtze River, for example, lands users in the penalty box because of its similarity in Chinese to the name for former president Jiang Zemin.

Google rolled out the feature to plenty of fanfare, with an official blog post and video demonstrating how it works. It is the companys most confrontational public move against Chinas censors since it left the mainland in 2010 after it was hacked by Chinese attackers.

More from GlobalPost: Google to alert Chinese users when keywords being censored

But will it actually make a difference for Chinas internet users at large?

Some experts say that Googles policy is a lot less productive than other ways of bringing better information to Chinese users.

Tricia Wang, a sociologist researching the digital habits of Chinese people, sees this as a sign that Google is trying to be nothing more than a niche search engine in China."

I dont see how this actually reaches their goal, she says. First it only antagonizes the government more, and thereby could make it even harder for the existing user base to access Google. So it could be counterproductive. Second, its targeting people who are already their existing users, so theyre preaching to the preachers."

Ordinary Chinese users are aware of censorship, she says, but what matters most to them is getting useful results. Google's new policy does not make that any easier. The only difference is that now, people searching for the Yangtze River on Google will get a warning to change their language or be blocked. On Baidu, people can search directly for the Yangtze because the politically sensitive results have already been weeded out.

Read the original:
Google's latest anti-censorship play in China a net loss?

New Delhi:A countrywide protest against censorship on the Internet saw youngsters join hands at Jantar Mantar in the national capital. Wearing 'Guy Fawkes' masks, synonymous with global protests where protesters prefer to keep their identity concealed, the protesters raised slogans to create more awareness on the new amendments to the IT Act.

The call for demonstrations was given by the Indian arm of international hackers' group 'Anonymous', after a March 29 court order in Chennai demanding 15 Indian Internet providers to block access to file-sharing websites such as Pirate Bay.

The protest was spearheaded by 'Save Your Voice' and planned at various historic monuments in 16 cities, including at the Jantar Mantar.

Holding banners, the members of the group raised slogans like, "Raise your voice, save your voice."

The order has resulted in access being denied to a host of websites that carry pirated films and music among other legal content, including http://www.isohunt.com and http://www.pastebin.com.

On Wednesday, the Anonymous forum fired an opening shot by attacking the website of state-run telecom provider MTNL, pasting the logo of the group - the mask of 17th century revolutionary Guy Fawkes - on http://www.mtnl.net.in.

In an open letter the same day, the group accused the government of trying to create a "Great Indian Firewall" to establish control on the Web and issuing a "declaration of war from yourself... to us."

Concerns about Internet freedom in India go beyond the court order in Chennai, however, and stem from an update to India's Information Technology Act that was given by the IT and communications ministry in April last year.

The new rules regulating Internet companies - providers, websites and search engines - instruct them that they must remove "disparaging" or "blasphemous" content within 36 hours if they receive a complaint by an "affected person".

Groups such as the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based research and advocacy group, have waged a year-long campaign for amendments to the rules, which were quietly released in April.

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'Anonymous' protests in Delhi against Internet censorship