Every now and then, you’ll see this message on some websites..

“The URL has been blocked as per the instructions of the Competent Government Authority/ in compliance to the orders of Court of Law.”

And this will make you feel something strange but then, you ignore it because the way it happens, you feel may be you did something wrong. but it’s not you, it’s your ISPs playing the moral game. Sometimes, the governments order the blocking of sites (porn sites, torrents, etc). And whether we agree or not, but still, we live by the government orders.

the problem begins when the ISPs start blocking sites and sniffing web traffic on their own. They don’t give a shit to your privacy. they sniff every single packet that passes through their network and then, you are at a mercy whether you can even access the legitimate websites or not.

Let’s get into some gory details with a recent example:

ACT Broadband (Act Fibernet or Beam Telecom) had blocked access to bit.ly . Now, you must be thinking bit.ly seems to be a legitimate URL shortening service in India. I also thought so and still I believe the same. but ACT does not think so and blocks with a standard message that it is blocked because of government orders. What the hell ? Now, you switch to your backup internet connection with Airtel and hell yes, it works. Airtel allows bit.ly service. You contact your friends who are on different ISPs and it works everywhere.. That means it’s not government. It’s something shady going on inside ACT broadband.

Check this article for details .. Indian ISP ACT Fibernet blocks bit.ly. Does DNS Hijacking *Indian ISP ACT Fibernet (aka Beam Telecom) hijacks its users' DNS requests (even when using public DNS servers like…*tech.shantanugoel.com

And the way ACT fibernet is doing it doesn’t seem to be fully legal. As it seems to be DNS hijacking in technical jargons, which if done, by individuals can be strictly illegal and can cause action against them.

Now, you must be thinking why to make a hue and cry about one ISP. anyway, you are on Airtel ?. yes, then go ahead and read this first… Airtel is sniffing and censoring CloudFlare’s traffic in India and CloudFlare doesn’t even know it. *Note: This is largely due to the work done by @captn3m0 and @shantanugoel. I’m merely writing this because they are too…*medium.com

Airtel has been sniffing your traffic and you don’t even have a fucking clue about it.

In the airtel case, The Register UK (a UK based media site) covered it. CloudFlare probes mystery interception of site traffic across India *An unknown agency in India, possibly telco Airtel, is quietly capitalising on encryption gaps in sites tended by DDOS…*www.theregister.co.uk

and what Matthew Prince, CloudFlare CEO told medianama is this.. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince on whether Airtel is sniffing data packets to block websites *Yesterday, Karthik Balakrishnan, a volunteer with SaveTheInternet.in, wrote about how Airtel was possibly checking each…*www.medianama.com

Cloudflare called for an emergency meeting in UK headquarters and then, accepted it and blamed airtel for it. Airtel denied it publicly when reported to them through twitter. Game Over !!! Because it did not make to national news, it did not matter to anyone. Because in this country, if you want to fight for something wrong, you need Barkha Dutt and Arnab Goswami shouting about it and you don’t have deep pockets to get them talking.

and now, you’ll be thinking again… what can I do ? and anyway, it does not matter much right now… Yes, Even I cannot do much about it. Except making people aware by writing about it and sharing it with all the people to get myself heard.

Who decides what is a good site or a bad site? what is legitimate or what is illegal ? I understand the government’s decision about pornography, piracy etc. Whether I am in favour or it not, I’ll not get into that debate. But I am definitely against this policing by ISPs in India. and on top of that, when they don’t even care about it even after charging a hell lot of money every month with a pathetic service.

I don’t know what is wrong or what is right ? I just know that I don’t want ISPs to control my internet life and I don’t want ISPs to direct me which sites I should visit and which sites I cannot because they don’t like it. and may be they cannot control the bad traffic so they block everyone.

If you don’t share this article today and not make noise about it, don’t tell me when ISP’s will block a lot more stuff and may be, they’ll sniff out your information and are not able to safeguard it making you vulnerable to any kind of digital attacks.