I've been banned!
For seven years, this site has been up and running and available for all
the world to see, until now. My website has officially been banned in the
United Arab Emirates:
From: Zero Tolerance
Hey
I have a friend whos a vegan, so figuring that she would find your article
Keep up the good work.
Zero
To: maddox@xmission.com
Hey Maddox it's your abu-dhabi fan again.
One down, 191 more countries to go before this site is banished from the
Internet. On an interesting side note, some firewall programs are coming
pre-packaged with my site blocked because it's listed as being "militant /
extremist." Ironically, none of these packages block the US Air Force
(af.mil), US Army (army.mil), or any other "military" web site. You can't get
any more militant than the military. The thing that really bugs me is
that I know these fascist PETA assholes probably don't have their site banned.
It seems like network administrators are partial to hippies. More to come
as this develops...
Update: 01-03-04
It may have been a fluke, or a temporary ban (until Etisalat saw how awesome
my site was), because I got this today:
hey maddox,
Arsal
Update: 01-08-04
Alas, the reason for the discrepancies:
Easy Maddox,
The reason that some people don't have access to your website is because
Best Regards
More to come as this develops...
To: maddox@xmission.com
Subject: Your banned from the emirates
on eating 3 times the ammount of meat humourous, i sent her the link in a
msn conversation. Now the catch is she lives
in the united arab emirates. So she clicks the link and gets a webpage
saying and i quote "emirates internet denies access to this site". What do
you know, your banned from a whole country. Thought that you would find that
interesting.
Subject: Blocked
Your site has literally been banned from the united arab emirates. The one
monoply phone company here called Etisalat is the only phone company , it
controls the internet, cell phones, basicly all communcations. This company
restricts certain sites that it finds offending or just unapropriate and i
was checking your site because it's the coolest sight in the universe this
page came up saying it was a blocked site. haha, they block sites for no
reasons, its pathetic, and then all these arab nations bitch about the US
being biased and controlling the american people making them think that all
arabs are terrorist are bad, well here nothign bad ever happens, in the
papers you arent supposed to report accidents, murders, or several rapes
that occur almost everyday, they want the people to think this country is
perfect when it isnt, you can be put in jail just for bad talking the
goverment, or have your phone calls inturrupted when you talking about
certian politcal issues. It sucks here, just be glad your living in america.
Keep going ur site kicks ass, it just sucks now that i cant view it
thanks to fucked up goverments
To: maddox@xmission.com
Subject: hey
i was just browsing through your website and i read that article about your
website being banned in the united arab emirates. well i wanted to say that
i live in the united arab emirates and i can tell you that in no way is your
website blocked or anything. last i checked your website was today 1/3/2004.
anyways thats all and i also wanted to tell you that your website rules!
To: maddox@xmission.com
Subject: The Emirates Internet Ban : Some Information
we have a pool of proxies governing our internet connection. Dial-Up
users might be on a different proxy than people running DSL connections.
In addition, we have a free zone called Dubai Internet City which has its
own Backbone internet. I actually tried accessing you site this morning
and they have you blocked on that network as well under the military
excuse. The software is called SurfContol as far as I remember. People
with leased-lines (Static Company T-1 IP addresses) can access your
website without any problems. I think a way to rectify this problem is to
run a copy of your site with SSL. Basically https:// instead of http://;
just a suggestions anyway. I was quite shocked to see your site blocked.
I think it's quite ridiculous actually haha. Have a nice day and keep the
good true laughs coming.
602,688 people have taken this site for granted.
© 2004 by Maddox