Parliament blocking blogs
I’ve just been notified that all blogspot blogs have been blocked at Parliament by Websense. Heh not just the Chinese Government censoring blogs 
I wasn’t aware Parliament now has any sort of filter system. It didn’t when I was there. Or if they did, it was very invisible.
UPDATE: Sounds like it was primarily an IT problem and access will be restored. People should let me know next week if there are still problems.
UPDATE2: Now this is really silly. They’ve even blocked a blog run by an MP. Is it January 1st and the Electoral Finance Bill is already law?
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Tags: Blogosphere
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:13 am
Ha ha, brilliant. I expect you’ll have a downturn in comments from taxpayer funded Govt employees who will have to do their jobs now!
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:14 am
Guess thats the last we’ll be hearing from Tane and Robinsonod for a while…
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:16 am
No clint, Im sure they will make exceptions from some employees…..
Mind you, it could explain why sonic hasnt been posting much lately.
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:18 am
Where is sonic and redbaiter ?
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:18 am
Don’t think it’s all blogspot sites DPF.
I managed to get into No Right Turn and Lindsay Mitchell’s blog, but have been denied access to No Minister and the Mike Earley’s blog
I haven’t tried Clint’s blog…who the hell would want to go there anyway?? :p
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:19 am
I assume that Websense would apply the filter following a creditable complaint.
It would be instructive to know who made the complaint and when..
Any chances of finding out.??
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:20 am
Yeah Bev – that’s right Tane and I are paid commenters and that’s why you get your arse kicked by us ‘cos we’re pro’s with a research unit behind us blah, blah, blah. There does that make you feel better about your stupidity?
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:22 am
Please robinsod your statement has just given National at least 100,000 votes !!
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:23 am
Oh yes , I am a charity research unit . Bring it on boyo !!
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:25 am
yay, banned from parliament. now lets ban parliament from us as well
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:28 am
When is up in smoke on ? oops I meant to say when is Guy Fawkes day ?
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:36 am
“I managed to get into No Right Turn and Lindsay Mitchell’s blog, but have been denied access to No Minister and the Mike Earley’s blog
”
Bahaha,
I’m not banned in China, but I’m banned in parliament! Awesome.
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:38 am
We have chinese warships in wellington harbour,
now we have censorship from parliament.
signs of the times….. you bet!
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:41 am
This needs further investigation David. Most of us thought free speech was safe until January 1st.
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:44 am
I understand they will allow access to some blogs on an individual basis, if they are political not general.
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:46 am
Yeah Bev – that’s right Tane and I are paid commenters and that’s why you get your arse kicked by us ‘cos we’re pro’s with a research unit behind us blah, blah, blah.
Oh dear me, declaring victory on an Internet blog, now THAT is funny! How old are you again? 12?
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:49 am
To think that robinsod is paid by the Labour government for being a stupid lickspittle ? No wonder the country is in a mess. This cretin should be back at school trying to get an education , so he can be a productive member of society .
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:52 am
Nah Bev I’m 15. But guess what?? I’ve got school C! (well, NCEA level one). How about you?
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:16 am
Covert filtering such as this is, in my view, one of the greatest threats to our expressive and discrimination rights.
Public and private agencies are adopting – without any thought – proprietory software that operate inconsistently with the laws and values of our country.
I can attest that websense is much more aggressive at censoring gay and lesbian sites than straight sites. Yes IT coneheads do not recognise that this might be a problem….
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:17 am
Do electorate agents use parliaments server ?
That would stop a few national party agents from filling the mornings?
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:32 am
Funny I was only wondering yesterday on here how long before blogs become subject to regulation…
I was wondering what had happened to sonic.
Roll call of those who have departed (with bugle)
sonic….
tane….
Sam D.
But not gnome – he doesn’t have a job.
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:41 am
When I worked at Parliament (until about two months ago), I was able to call up any site at all and this fair astonished me. The opportunity for people to spend hours of their time on You Tube, Face Book and Trade Me was too much to resist for some people I noticed.
At my current workplace, there is a service called WebMarshal that blocks access to all kinds of inoccuous sites that I need to access for work, requiring frequent calls to IT. However a check I made showed it will allow access to virtually any blog except Cactus Kate, which came up as “blocked due to pornography — you have been reported for attempting access.”
As for No Minister, it is the nastiest site I have ever seen. Pure vile. I am not surprised that a work server would block it.
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:42 am
Lee C – DPF’s archives are a treasure trove of the trolls that came before -
Logix, Cadmus and other assorted ner well to doers make the present bunch look like the rank amateurs they are.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:31 pm
According to public Address its an IT Stuff up….
Still mildly entertaining though.
November 2nd, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Let me guess, the IT stuff up is blocking access to all instead of just the ones that don’e support the Labour led govt.
November 2nd, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Yesterday I had an email I sent to 2 people in different government departments blocked. When I contacted the web admin I was told it was because the attachment I sent included the word Audit. No explanation as to why.
Now if the attachemnt had included bomb Osma terrorist etc etc I could understand but WTF has Audit to do with blocking emails Very strange.
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Wouldn’t the parliamentary server by run by parliamentary services and not the government? In fact, I think they’re run independently of the ministerial services servers.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:44 pm
This might have something to do with it:
http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f51/unholy-trinity-flaws-put-google-users-risk-154803/#post1198296
In summary, a few flaws in Gmail and Blogspot allowing a hacker to potentially display private information from your gmail accounts.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:49 pm
davemc, you were doing alright until you buggered up your epithet. The word you are looking for is ‘bile’ old chap. Perhaps you could try some milk of magnesia to go with your rusk.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:55 pm
As Noted in ZDNet – http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=539
Google (Blogspot) Polls vulnerability
A third issue has been disclosed at Beford.org to show how a cross-site scripting bug in Google’s Blogspot Polls could allow the hijacking of sensitive information.
The ‘font’ parameter was not being sanitized before being used inside an STYLE tag, so you could inject IE’s expression() and Mozilla’s -moz-binding.
Several proof-of-concepts — this one hijacks your Google contacts, this one intercepts incoming GMail — are publicly available. (IMPORTANT NOTE: clicking on those links while logged into Google Accounts might not be such a good idea).
Or right from the source Here http://blog.beford.org/?p=3
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Had a govt.nz ISP show up on my site meter this afternoon – so perhaps reading my blog is considered essential research.
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Heheh… it’s a bit of a flippin concern isn’t it. If the EFB goes through, I’d say several of us guy’s blogs will get blocked by the Govt. if we refuse to “register” them or whatever the heck they expect us to do…
You guys seen http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org ?
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Apparently that’s quite unreliable – in fact the great firewall itself is a bit random at times I’ve been told.
Apparently in china you can’t get to blogspot blogs, but putting up new posts isn’t blocked.
Go figure.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Andymoore,
If the EFB goes through, I’d say several of us guy’s blogs will get blocked by the Govt. if we refuse to “register” them or whatever the heck they expect us to do…
Coming to a place near you soon, very soon.
All blogs, not just guy’s blogs.
It is a “shut up you, we are in control” situation.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:23 am
I don’t think it’s purely a Parliament issue. I connect to TelstraClear cable at home in Wellington, and since yesterday have been unable to access the Kiwiblog site. The only way I can access it now is via an Australian proxy server (finally a use for something from Aussie!).
I wonder if parliamentary services use Telstra as their ISP?
[DPF: Have heard a number of people on TCL can not access Kiwiblog. Not sure why]