Wikipedia Blocks Qatar [Updated] 204
GrumpySimon writes "Wikipedia has blocked the entire country of Qatar from editing pages. Whilst the ban is due to spam-abuse coming from the IP address in question, the fact that this belongs to the country's sole high-speed internet provider has the unintended consequence of stopping Qataris from editing the wiki. The ban has raised concerns about impartiality — the majority of Al Jazeera journalists operate out of Qatar, for example. This raises a number of issues about internet connectivity in small countries — what other internet bottlenecks like this exist?" Update: 01/02 13:32 GMT by Z : Jim Wales wrote in the comments that the story is 'completely false'. Either way, the ban has been lifted and anonymous editing is once again possible from Qatar.
IPv6 (Score:4, Informative)
Impressive... (Score:5, Informative)
Proxy servers to blame (Score:4, Informative)
If Wikipedia's information on the linked page is correct, the reason that the entire Qatar is blocked, is that it is the ip of a proxy server...
It is common practice for ISP's in countries with limited bandwidth to transparently proxy all HTTP traffic in order to save bandwidth
South Africa's SAIX [wikipedia.org] does the same. However they have several proxy servers doing load sharing, which cause even more problems with sites that associate session information with one's IP. Online games preventing the trading of items by users on the same IP is also problematic.
Sites offering access on an alternative port in addition to 80 would offer a solution.
summary wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Users can still edit wikipedia throught this proxy by creating an account and logging in.
Creating a wikipedia account only requires a (throw-away) email, and is actually more anonymous, since your IP will not show up in the public logs if you are logged in.
OT: Qatar is not in the UAE (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar [wikipedia.org]
If you agree that Qatar is not part of the UAE, please tag this story 'notuae' and mod this comment 'Informative' so everyone will see it.
Let's show Qatar that unlike Wikipedia, Slashdot is not a haven of ignorance.
Re:summary wrong (Score:3, Informative)
I am a Wikipedia administrator, and I think this block on IP edits is completely correct. IP edits (edits from users without accounts without accounts) from proxy servers with many misbehaved users should always be blocked.
Re:summary wrong (Score:2, Informative)
Re:IPv6 (Score:5, Informative)
It's a matter of more cables. The recent outages in Asia were exasperated by the lack of redundant routes. You see to save money they only installed the minimum necessary cables as they 'weren't in an earthquake zone'.
--
God is dead - Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead - God
Nietzsche thinks he's a tulip
Some additional info... (Score:5, Informative)
IT in Qatar (Score:5, Informative)
So, the problem appears to be fixed. Users can now register for accounts. Thank you slashdot front page (Kjkolb [wikipedia.org]) ;)
The problem came from QTel censorship [qatar.net.qa]. Every connection passes through a QTel proxy server, which uses some simplistic rules to determine whether you should be protected from your own surfing habits. If you hit blocked pages too often, your phone rings and when you answer in English you get "I'm sorry, I must have a wrong number. CLUNK." Thus your voice has been recorded for posterity.
The shambles of Qatar's connection might be fixed soon. Q-CERT [qcert.org] has just been set up and (hopefully), someone with a bit of influence will be in charge. It is obvious that a single point of failure for an entire population's internet connection is not sensible, but whether this means a better censorship system or the scrapping of censorship remains to be seen.
Re:Only anon users (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's actually a blow AGAINST censorship (Score:3, Informative)
You are correct in that there is more freedom of expression in Qatar than in Saudi, and the Ministry of Information was abolished in 1996. Unfortunately, QTel has not yet realised [qatar.net.qa] that there is no censorship in Qatar [bbc.co.uk].
Re:OT: Qatar is not in the UAE (Score:5, Informative)
Re:summary wrong (Score:3, Informative)
While possibly being logged in will allow editing of pages - that may be so for Qatars.
Re:IPv6 (Score:3, Informative)
Ummm, it's a very wealthy country. They have less than a million people, which is why a sole ISP might make sense, but they're not exactly suffering from poverty.
Don't write if you don't read (Score:2, Informative)
IT DOESN'T, YOU TARDS!
I'd complain about the lack of editing skills on the part of the Slashdot guys, but we already know that when they say "editor", what they really mean is "monkey trained to click a button when a text blurb makes him grin."
Re:Wikipedia also blocks a Canadian School Distric (Score:4, Informative)
/. does the same thing (Score:3, Informative)
Some Context: Blocking Wikispam (Score:4, Informative)
I can't speak for Wikipedia's spam blocking process, but I operate a Wiki that is well known enough to get a lot of spam. I block that fairly effectively. Seven pieces of true spam have gotten through over the two and a half years since I implemented the first version of my spam blocking, but I had almost half my site overwritten at one point before that, so I take it pretty seriously. I fully understand why many Wiki owners have decided to make their Wikis read only rather than deal with it and why others have resorted to required logons, confirmations of the existence of a human, and other measures. Some useful factoids:
I don't want to make any great claims, at least in part because I don't want to increase the attack frequency on my site or get slashdotted, but my software has been very effective in blocking almost everything that the spammers throw at me. I don't currently block any countries and am reluctant to publicly reveal the rules I use for the blocking, but do block about a dozen IP addresses that have been used enough to suggest that they are directly associated with individual spammers.
Re:OT: Qatar is not in the UAE (Score:4, Informative)
"All articles must follow our no original research policy and strive for accuracy"
I mean, if accuracy isn't part of their mission then there's no reason that all their articles must strive to be accurate, right?
Re:Impressive... (Score:2, Informative)
And how about the fact that your administrators block people with non-Western usernames on sight, with no warning and no recourse? Once you're blocked, you can't even try to create another username for 24 hours. I guess we must be vandals and trolls simply because we happened to be born with names in a script unreadable to Western eyes.
Ugh. Apologies, but the mentality surrounding the whole project disgusts me.
Re:IPv6 (Score:3, Informative)
Qatar not able to afford to upgrade to IPv6? And stuck using Win95?
Uh... respectfully, how did the parent get marked "interesting"? Anyone who's thought about the middle east is well aware that, while it's a small country, "Oil and natural gas revenues enable Qatar to have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world." (CIA World Factbook, 2007).
We seem good at marking Qatar as UAE, and characterizing it as a country too poor/ignorant to evolve beyond Win95.
We should be thankful they're still allies of the US.
Holmwood
Re:Only one IP for the whole country. (Score:1, Informative)
This story is completely false. (Score:5, Informative)
Move along, nothing to see.
--Jimbo Wales
Re:This story is completely false. (Score:2, Informative)
My point is that a headline of "Wikipedia blocks Qatar" is inflammatory and gives people entirely the wrong idea.
Re:This story is completely false. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This story is completely false. (Score:3, Informative)
According to Wikipedia's own logs [wikipedia.org], "under 12 hours" is totally inaccurate. A block was put in place on 30 December; then 44+ hours later it was lifted and immediately re-established (the comments suggest that this was removal of the account creation ban); then 8 hours later the block was removed. Anonymous editing was blocked for over two days.
Re:This story is completely false. (Score:3, Informative)