Thailand blocks 2,300 websites

[lonelywombat]

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Thailand blocks 2,300 websites

January 6, 2009 - 5:21PM [AEDT]


Thai authorities have blocked 2,300 websites for allegedly insulting the country's revered monarchy and are waiting for court approval to restrict a further 400, the government says.

The blocking of the websites under harsh lese majeste laws which protect King Bhumibol Adulyadej has been criticised by rights groups and media organisations in recent months.

"The blocking of websites that disseminate content and pictures which insult the monarchy is one of the government's crucial policies," Information and Communication (ICT) minister Ranongruk Suwanchawee said in a statement on Tuesday.

"We have blocked more than 2,300 websites. We are preparing to ask for court approval to shut down an additional 400 sites and will amend the... law to increase powers of ICT officials as soon as parliament reopens," she said.

The ministry had spent 45 million baht ($A1.78 million) to buy equipment for a round-the-clock "war room" targeting inappropriate websites, Ranongruk said.

The ministry would ask the ministries of justice, interior and defence to "decisively" prosecute violators, who face imprisonment and a fine for breaking the law, the minister said.

Defaming the royals in Thailand carries a maximum jail sentence of 15 years but media groups say the law is often used as a political tool.

Thailand made headlines around the world in 2007 when it blocked the popular video-sharing website YouTube after clips started appearing mocking the 81-year-old King Bhumibol.

Global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders recently accused the Thai government of using the laws that protect the monarchy to suppress dissenting voices on the internet.

New Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva however defended the crackdown in a recent interview with AFP, saying that there were "historical and cultural differences" with other countries.

┬й 2009 AFP

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[Lunchtime O'Booze]

New Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva however defended the crackdown in a recent interview with AFP, saying that there were "historical and cultural differences" with other countries.

This isn't the West (thank God!). Things work a little differently here, and Western standards certainly don't apply - it only shows culture-centric ignorance.

To the contrary !!

I believe that land where men dress as women..the home of Lonelywombat is soon to attempt a similar blocking of websites which will put it on par with Thailand, Iran and China. :study:

Is gaytingtong one of them

We live in hope. Isn't that racist gerontophobe Aunty a moderator over there?

[Bob]

Is gaytingtong one of them

We live in hope. Isn't that racist gerontophobe Aunty a moderator over there?

Al u get on it is sunee paedosand their sympathisers

Bullshit. Your comment is untrue but I hope, by implication, it means that you don't and won't post there.

My work, and hobbies, revolve around the Internets and severe site blockages would rule out my coming to Thailand.

Breakages in the undersea cables between Thailand the US occur with monotonous regularity also.

[quiet1]

Yes, there are too-frequent undersea cable breakages that affect internet traffic to/from Thaliand. There were a couple off the shore of Taiwan which affected the main access route to the USA, and a couple were in the Indian Ocean affecting the primary access to Europe. In both cases, the traffic was routed in the opposite direction, but it slowed down traffic noticeably regardless of the destination.

An improvement over the past few years (beside lower ISP plan prices with faster speeds) is that there is now more than one internet gateway (IIG) for internet traffic in/out of Thialand. In the past the Communications Authority Of Thailand (CAT) maintained the only IIG and it was a bottleneck. Nowadays some ISPs maintain their own IIG, and it has alleviated that bottleneck to a degree.

[Hmmm]

Hypothetically, if one were to access the entire net, including blocked sites, from their home and do it privately, would one think that the surveillance methods are sophisticated enough to find it & if they did, is this a severe penalty infraction? There are other laws in Thailand, such as the laws against prostitution, which don't seem to bring harsh penalties.

Thailand's draconian cyber crime law, enacted in 2007, makes all sort of stuff illegal, including the use of circumvention software to avoid blocks (at least that's how it was interpreted at the time).

Several Thais who posted messages to Thai forums that were deemed to be lese majeste have been arrested. Whether they were traced via a traceable user email address (rather silly on their part) or IP address tracking is not clear.

Since August 2008, the law has required all providers to keep records of users' traffic for 90 days. How many are actually doing that is anyone's guess. It is probably even more ad hoc that site blocking, which comes and goes and varies across providers. The current blocking announcement is just the latest in their ham-fisted attempts.

I have not heard of any reports that circumvention software users have been targeted. And opponents of the latest blocking moves have stated openly that it is easy to circumvent the blocks. It is questionable whether certain techniques are able to be traced anyway (eg onion routing), although use of known proxy gateway sites would be (however commercial proxies are often blocked anyway).

Like in most countries, what lawmakers want and what is possible are two different things.

And given that static IP addresses are probably relatively rare, and many people use wireless connections via a common router, the likelihood of being traced would seem to be very slight indeed. However if you are a high bandwidth customer you may not fall into these categories and may therefore be easier to find.

Thai lawmakers are obsessed by lese majeste, a few 'national security' issues (eg southern insurgency, Thaksin supporters) and, probably to a lesser extent, pornography (what kind is probably not too important to them). Of course if you're using circumvention software they can't tell which of these you might be engaging in anyway.

Bottom line ? Short of cutting the cable there's no way they can stop you getting to whatever sites you want if you know what you're doing, and you'll probably be untraceable. However the internet in Thailand is slow enough without the extra hit required for some techniques, which may make them impractical for what you want.

https://secure.wikileaks.org/wiki/Inter ... n_Thailand
http://facthai.wordpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_c ... n_Thailand

Thailand's draconian cyber crime law, enacted in 2007, makes all sort of stuff illegal, including the use of circumvention software to avoid blocks (at least that's how it was interpreted at the time).

Several Thais who posted messages to Thai forums that were deemed to be lese majeste have been arrested. Whether they were traced via a traceable user email address (rather silly on their part) or IP address tracking is not clear.

Yes, amazing isn't it that the King is "revered by all Thais" and yet they have to have heavily enforced lese majeste laws?

And given that static IP addresses are probably relatively rare, and many people use wireless connections via a common router, the likelihood of being traced would seem to be very slight indeed.

obviously a user with a static IP address would be easy to trace, but I wonder if ISPs are required to have logs running on their DHCP servers to record the dynamic IP address allocations?

Yes, amazing isn't it that the King is "revered by all Thais" and yet they have to have heavily enforced lese majeste laws?

Interesting observation, although I'll refrain from discussing it so we don't get 2301 websites blocked. :albino: