Etisalat's 'Blocked' pageEtisalat rarely makes public announcements regarding the reasons for its blockages; users that do complain in the manner suggested by the ISP are usually greeted with a pre-written email which suggests the mentioned website contained nudity. Etisalat never announces that it is going to block / unblock a website; its actions are widely seen as obscure to the user on many counts. Etisalat employees have previously made statements in the media that they do not agree with the censorship of the internet; in many cases they point the finger towards the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority which apparently forces the censorship, as the country is Islamic. However, some Muslims of the UAE also say the censorship is irrational and uncalled for.[weasel words]
Numerical Blocked PageOn visiting a website that is blocked, the user will redirected to http://proxy.emirates.net.ae (only accessible from the UAE.) However, in cases where the blocking may be considered detrimental to public image, a generic TCP error page will be displayed instead. This second method has been witnessed in use after public scrutiny of the Skype block and is currently being used to block the popular social blogging site, LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com)
Also, Etisalat blocks numerical IP address from being directly accessed. Instead, they must enter a page address after the IP address. Example; Instead of 123.123.123.123, the user must enter 123.123.123.123/index.html
The SecureComputing system categorises sites into one of 62 categories, including pornography. Anyone can check what a site has been classified as and suggest an alternative or categorize an unlisted website using the URL: http://www.securecomputing.com/sfwhere/. It is believed that Etisalat have partial control over the list.[weasel words]
Etisalat also individually bans websites by IP address. In some cases, when alternative access is available (Etisalat does not proxy the HTTPS protocol, so if a site opens https ports it will always be available), they may remove the site from their DNS servers entirely; an example is http://www.antiproxy.com. Obviously, plenty of hackers have used diverse ways to pass through the Etisalat firewall.[citation needed] The usual method is to tunnel the traffic through an overseas proxy. Much free software allows this, such as putty and ssh. Users can then use their favorite Browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox) or VoIP software (Skype, etc.) in a totally unblocked way. There is even an added level of privacy, since all the traffic to the proxy server is encrypted.
This article has been tagged since December 2006.
In mid 2000, Etisalat accused a British expat of hacking into its network, Lee Ashurst claimed to be being used by the ISP as a scapegoat.
In mid 2005, Etisalat had experienced supposed "international submarine cable cuts". These have brought Etisalat's so-called "redundant" network to its knees on more than one occasion. On occasions when the bandwidth throughput of the country have been affected, Etisalat prioritised http requests (web surfing) and blocked most other traffic completely. Etisalat said that either an anchor from a boat dragged on the seabed and damaged the cable, or a ship sank and fell on the cable damaging it. It denied compensation to individuals/companies affected by the internet cutoff, which lasted for several months.
Take care and deal with blocked sites like everyone else here.
2007-02-27 16:46:17
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answer #1
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answered by Anonymous
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If you get caught, you get in major trouble. Are you sure it is worth it?
2007-02-27 09:04:23
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answer #3
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answered by Love Shepherd 6
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