I noticed yesterday that HN is now blocked by Etisalat, one of the United Arab Emirates' two telecom companies. Their proxy server displays a page like this instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Block_etisalat_3.jpg<p>Sites usually get blocked because a customer complained to Etisalat about their content, or because they were arbitrarily added to the SmartFilter database. I think it's the latter in this case.<p>I will follow up with Etisalat and let you know if I make any progress...
After reading this: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etisalat#Internet_Censorship" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etisalat#Internet_Censorship</a><p>I'm forced to conclude we all must be doing something right.
I noticed this yesterday at work (who use Etisalat). I emailed then, trying to explain the usual content of HN.<p>Back at home though (on Du), it's not blocked.<p>I suspect it is just an automatic block, but we'll see.
in the non-english nanny state you really wonder how HACKER news got b& when most americans conflate hacker/cracker?<p>I think you'll hit a wall pretty quick. Some bureaucrat saw hacker or maybe even realized there IS disruptive info here and ban it went.
I get a little bit more scared each time I hear this type of story. Is there any hope for clever technology which makes it impossible to intelligently filter traffic? Some sort of mesh networking something? Surely someone on HN must know the state of the art here.
https is a good way to get around the block. Unfortunately https on HN redirects to http.<p>edit:<p>@andrewtj : yes, <a href="http://apps.ycombinator.com" rel="nofollow">http://apps.ycombinator.com</a> works.
I liked their old image better: <a href="http://widgetsex.com/uae.png" rel="nofollow">http://widgetsex.com/uae.png</a><p>(disregard what looks like an NSFW domain, it's just a URL I bought on a whim. If you take off the image, you'll see my friend's dog, widget, winking at you in a suggestive-but-entirely-SFW manner.)