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posted by Blackmoore on Thursday December 04 2014, @11:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the great-firewall-of-rus dept.

Russia has blocked access to GitHub after finding a text file in a repository entitled 'suicide.txt'. Surely this is pretext for Russia's continuing move towards isolation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692584

Techcrunch has Russia Blacklists, Blocks GitHub Over Pages That Refer To Suicide

Developers in Russia are putting up their feet today — that is, after they have finished stomping around in frustration for a little while. It’s emerged that Russia’s regulator RosComNadzor has blocked GitHub after the popular software and coding collaboration platform was found to be hosting content related to suicide — specifically, see this file that details 32 ways to kill yourself.

The “block” effectively amounts to an order to ISPs to restrict access to the site. And because GitHub works on HTTPS, providers can only comply by restricting access to the entire site, rather than individual pages. According to Russian blog Meduza, several leading ISPs have already complied with the order, including Beeline, MTS, MGTS and Megafon.

The block reignites the debate over how Russia’s government decides what is and what is not appropriate Internet content for people in Russia. The country’s firewall, when it was originally raised in 2012, was controversial not only because of concerns that it would be used against freedom of speech (especially in cases when that speech was critical of the state), but also because it was deemed to be too heavy-handed in how it would get implemented.

 
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Yog-Yogguth on Friday December 05 2014, @05:36AM

    by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 05 2014, @05:36AM (#122850) Journal

    That's the key part, that is the memo: it is Russia who is isolating itself. Write it a hundred times on the blackboard.

    Never mind China or the rest of the world (not including the EU, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Norway): it's isolation! Not “our” fault at all, they forced us to it! See? Our hands are squeaky clean.

    According to Kerry, this story, the US house of representatives [rt.com], and the US government the Russians forced the US to act to isolate Russia which means that it is Russia who is isolating itself. That's the message. It is what you are expected to believe.

    By the same logic the US will bomb itself into a lifeless radioactive wasteland before christmas¹ because the Russians forced them to.

    Nobody playing nuclear chicken? People shouldn't be so sure about that [rt.com]².

    ¹ not that I believe the US has the capability any longer.
    ² I have no idea who this Paul Craig Roberts guy is, ‘Reagan economic ex-advisor’ doesn't really say all that much (there could be hundreds who could claim the same title).

    --
    Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
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    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 1) by Noble713 on Friday December 05 2014, @10:58AM

    by Noble713 (4895) on Friday December 05 2014, @10:58AM (#122884)

    I too immediately picked up on that whole "Russian isolation" propaganda angle...