From ngourlay at gmail.com  Sat Sep 22 04:41:02 2007
From: ngourlay at gmail.com (Nigel Gourlay)
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 14:41:02 +0300
Subject: [Qatar-pm] Batch testing websites for HTTP status codes
Message-ID: <2379a820709220441gda59535h4e8366790718c91b@mail.gmail.com>

The Qtel filter returns a HTTP status code of "403 Forbidden" when it
receives a request for a blocked site:

  ng at laptop:~$ telnet taipai.pm.org 80
  Trying 208.69.32.139...
  Connected to taipai.pm.org.
  Escape character is '^]'.
  HEAD / HTTP/1.1
  Host: taipei.pm.org

  HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
  Cache-Control: no-cache
  Pragma: no-cache
  Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
  Connection: Keep-Alive
  Content-Length: 515


  Connection closed by foreign host.

I wanted to determine the status codes returned for a list of URLs,
supplied one-per-line in a text file. The following script did the
job:

 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
 use warnings;
 use strict;
 use LWP::UserAgent;

 my $url_file = $ARGV[0];
 my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
 $ua->timeout(30);
 $ua->env_proxy;

 open(URLS,"< $url_file") or die($!);
 while(my $url = <URLS>){
     my $result;
     chomp($url);
     $url =~ s/^(\S*).*?$/$1/;
     my $response = $ua->get($url);
     printf("%s\t%s\n",$url,$response->message());
 }
 close(URLS);

From nigel at qatarjournal.com  Sat Sep 22 06:39:46 2007
From: nigel at qatarjournal.com (Nigel Gourlay)
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:39:46 +0300
Subject: [Qatar-pm] What material does Qtel block?
Message-ID: <2379a820709220639t38f18448i9c19911690f07ff0@mail.gmail.com>

Last week, Qtel gave an interview to Gulf Times, explaining the
criteria it uses for blocking websites [1]. I wanted to know whether,
in reality, Qtel blocked "pornography, political criticism of Gulf
countries and anti-Islamic sites."

Alexa.com provides rankings of the popularity of websites. I
downloaded their list of the global top 500 sites, and used a Perl
script to find out whether each site was blocked by Qtel's filter.

Out of 500 sites, 47 sites (9%) were blocked by Qtel.

I found that, out of these 47 sites, 38 (81%) were devoted to
pornography, none contained political criticism of Gulf countries, and
none were anti-Islamic. The blocked sites not devoted to pornography
were as follows:

 http://www.vkontakte.ru/ - Russian social networking site
 http://www.yourfilehost.com/ - File hosting services
 http://www.anonym.to/ - Link anonymizer
 http://www.torrentspy.com/ - Bit Torrent search engine
 http://www.flurl.com/ - Video sharing
 http://www.o2.pl/ - Polish web portal
 http://www.newgrounds.com/ - Flash gallery
 http://www.wrzuta.pl/ - Polish video/image/audio sharing
 http://www.broadcaster.com/ - Videos and webcams

These sites fall into two main categories.
 * Media-sharing and community sites that have been overblocked
(thousands of harmless pages blocked for each offensive page).
 * Tools to avoid Qtel's filter.

Links
[1] http://qatarjournal.com/article.pl?sid=07/09/18/1842215
[2] http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none
[3] http://tor.eff.org/

From kutch at km33.com  Sat Sep 22 22:21:21 2007
From: kutch at km33.com (Kutch)
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2007 08:21:21 +0300
Subject: [Qatar-pm] What material does Qtel block?
In-Reply-To: <2379a820709220639t38f18448i9c19911690f07ff0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <2379a820709220639t38f18448i9c19911690f07ff0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <op.ty3c5vsqddn34s@it-pc-acer.alwabra.local>

How about the following sites;
www.thepiratebay.com <- Torrent Search Engine
www.metacafe.com <- Media Sharing same with YouTube

They block everything what they feel to be blocked, they really don't know  
how to alter site contents....

I found one site Looks cool www.qhell.com :))

Thanks SSH I can access everything with out any pain-in-the-ass by Q Hell!



On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:39:46 +0300, Nigel Gourlay <nigel at qatarjournal.com>  
wrote:

> Last week, Qtel gave an interview to Gulf Times, explaining the
> criteria it uses for blocking websites [1]. I wanted to know whether,
> in reality, Qtel blocked "pornography, political criticism of Gulf
> countries and anti-Islamic sites."
>
> Alexa.com provides rankings of the popularity of websites. I
> downloaded their list of the global top 500 sites, and used a Perl
> script to find out whether each site was blocked by Qtel's filter.
>
> Out of 500 sites, 47 sites (9%) were blocked by Qtel.
>
> I found that, out of these 47 sites, 38 (81%) were devoted to
> pornography, none contained political criticism of Gulf countries, and
> none were anti-Islamic. The blocked sites not devoted to pornography
> were as follows:
>
>  http://www.vkontakte.ru/ - Russian social networking site
>  http://www.yourfilehost.com/ - File hosting services
>  http://www.anonym.to/ - Link anonymizer
>  http://www.torrentspy.com/ - Bit Torrent search engine
>  http://www.flurl.com/ - Video sharing
>  http://www.o2.pl/ - Polish web portal
>  http://www.newgrounds.com/ - Flash gallery
>  http://www.wrzuta.pl/ - Polish video/image/audio sharing
>  http://www.broadcaster.com/ - Videos and webcams
>
> These sites fall into two main categories.
>  * Media-sharing and community sites that have been overblocked
> (thousands of harmless pages blocked for each offensive page).
>  * Tools to avoid Qtel's filter.
>
> Links
> [1] http://qatarjournal.com/article.pl?sid=07/09/18/1842215
> [2] http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=global&lang=none
> [3] http://tor.eff.org/
> _______________________________________________
> Qatar-pm mailing list
> Qatar-pm at pm.org
> http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/qatar-pm



-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

From nigel at qatarjournal.com  Sat Sep 22 23:54:26 2007
From: nigel at qatarjournal.com (Nigel Gourlay)
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2007 09:54:26 +0300
Subject: [Qatar-pm] What material does Qtel block?
In-Reply-To: <op.ty3c5vsqddn34s@it-pc-acer.alwabra.local>
References: <2379a820709220639t38f18448i9c19911690f07ff0@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.ty3c5vsqddn34s@it-pc-acer.alwabra.local>
Message-ID: <2379a820709222354ne01afbdtac331db595fdfa0f@mail.gmail.com>

> www.thepiratebay.com <- Torrent Search Engine
> www.metacafe.com <- Media Sharing same with YouTube
> www.qhell.com :))

None are blocked. The filter seems pretty good at blocking porn
(probably using SmartFilter's list), but the other sites it blocks are
pretty random. I think that Qtel just responds to angry emails, rather
than searching out sites.

> Thanks SSH I can access everything with out any pain-in-the-ass by Q Hell!

Yes. It would be madness from a business perspective to block port 22.
No one would have a secure route out of the country. I guess if
tunneling became a widespread method and someone complained it would
be blocked too.

The same goes for the ports used by peer-to-peer software, although of
course a few of the clients use tricks to avoid being blocked. It
seems weird that you would block a popular torrent search engine, but
not bittorrent itself.

Qtel could easily block all ports apart from those being filtered, but
they don't. Amongst those I've asked, most people think that filtering
porn is a good idea. Even Europeans have told me that they think these
sorts of filters should exist in their home countries, which seems to
suggest that most people don't find the filter annoying. I do.

--nigel

From kutch at km33.com  Sun Sep 23 01:58:41 2007
From: kutch at km33.com (Kutch)
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2007 11:58:41 +0300
Subject: [Qatar-pm] What material does Qtel block?
In-Reply-To: <2379a820709222354ne01afbdtac331db595fdfa0f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <2379a820709220639t38f18448i9c19911690f07ff0@mail.gmail.com>
	<op.ty3c5vsqddn34s@it-pc-acer.alwabra.local>
	<2379a820709222354ne01afbdtac331db595fdfa0f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <op.ty3m73beddn34s@it-pc-acer.alwabra.local>

> Yes. It would be madness from a business perspective to block port 22.
> No one would have a secure route out of the country. I guess if
> tunneling became a widespread method and someone complained it would
> be blocked too.

I don't think so... Impossible if they block port 22 if they do, that will  
be a hell of madness!

Well if port 22 is gone there is still options to do VPN! (weheeee)

I really disagree with they blocking within the GCC countries it feels  
like you have limited resources. It is nice only for individuals of they  
have kids or conservative family.... Ok ok qhell can do a reverse method  
they can add it in their services as 'Site filtering enabled - free of  
charge' They the rest of the population can use the unlimited resources.  
[it is just meh! just thinking for a better as a resident of qatar :D ]


On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 09:54:26 +0300, Nigel Gourlay <nigel at qatarjournal.com>  
wrote:

>> www.thepiratebay.com <- Torrent Search Engine
>> www.metacafe.com <- Media Sharing same with YouTube
>> www.qhell.com :))
>
> None are blocked. The filter seems pretty good at blocking porn
> (probably using SmartFilter's list), but the other sites it blocks are
> pretty random. I think that Qtel just responds to angry emails, rather
> than searching out sites.
>
>> Thanks SSH I can access everything with out any pain-in-the-ass by Q  
>> Hell!
>
> Yes. It would be madness from a business perspective to block port 22.
> No one would have a secure route out of the country. I guess if
> tunneling became a widespread method and someone complained it would
> be blocked too.
>
> The same goes for the ports used by peer-to-peer software, although of
> course a few of the clients use tricks to avoid being blocked. It
> seems weird that you would block a popular torrent search engine, but
> not bittorrent itself.
>
> Qtel could easily block all ports apart from those being filtered, but
> they don't. Amongst those I've asked, most people think that filtering
> porn is a good idea. Even Europeans have told me that they think these
> sorts of filters should exist in their home countries, which seems to
> suggest that most people don't find the filter annoying. I do.
>
> --nigel



-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/