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New HTTP Error Code 451 to Signal Censorship
from the hail-bradbury dept.
El Reg reports [theregister.co.uk]
After a three-year campaign [theregister.co.uk], the IETF [ietf.org] [Internet Engineering Task Force] has cleared the way for a new HTTP status code to reflect online censorship.
The new code--451--is in honor of Ray Bradbury's classic novel Fahrenheit 451 in which books are banned and any found are burned.
The idea is that, rather than a web server, proxy, or some other system returning a 403 code to a browser when information is blocked--i.e. you are not authorized to see it--the 451 status code will mean "unavailable for legal reasons." Specifically, according to a draft RFC [ietf.org]:
This status code indicates that the server is denying access to the resource as a consequence of a legal demand.
The server in question might not be an origin server. This type of legal demand typically most directly affects the operations of ISPs and search engines.
The IETF published the proposal late last week; this should encourage some people to start using it early. There will be a few more steps before it becomes official. It was first proposed back in June 2012 when British ISPs started being forced to block The Pirate Bay.
That sparked a blog post [shkspr.mobi][1] that proposed a special censorship code, and in turn a campaign [tbray.org] to make it happen.
In a post on Friday [mnot.net],[2] the chairman of the relevant working group, Mark Nottingham, revealed why it had taken so long to get approval: because the powers that be at the IETF were not persuaded is was a good use of a limited number of status codes.
[1] I remember that article being the base for a story on the other site (the week Ray Bradbury died).
[2] I got a 408 error. Google cache [googleusercontent.com]
