23 Aug 2011 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost
A major Chinese online commerce site, Taobao.com, has banned sales of software used to bypass internet censorship. The site said it took the action on its own and received no official orders. A notice on the site said virtual private networks (VPNs) and Internet protocol proxies — common tools for evading web filters — were being used to illegally visit foreign websites. It told merchants using the site to stop selling them and said the accounts of violaters might be cancelled.
22 Aug 2011 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost
Hackers launched a sustained attack against pro-democracy website Viet Tan on 13 August in a denial-of-service (DDoS) operation. Of the 77,000 IP addresses employed, 73 per cent originated from Vietnam. The Hanoi government’s firewall on www.viettan.org was lifted so that the network relying on computers from the country could take down the site. Viet Tan has been constantly blocked by Vietnamese censors, with web users in the country requiring proxies or other circumvention tools to access the site.
22 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
In addition to last week’s suspension of Zhao Lingmin, editor of Guangzhou-based news and current affairs magazine Window on the South, the magazine’s president, Chen Zhong, has been removed from his post, though not dismissed. The changes have been linked to Zhao’s 25 July interview with Taiwanese historian Tang Chi-hua, in which Tang had criticised Sun Yat-sen, an early 20th-century political leader referred to as the “Father of the Nation.”
22 Aug 2011 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
Bahraini authorities have blocked access to the website of the Bahrain Justice and Development Movement, a London-based group consisting mainly of Bahraini exiles that denounces human rights violations in the country and advocates democratic reforms. Without elaborating, authorities accused the site of “breaking Bahrain’s laws.”
