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Error 451: A New Dystopian Internet Code With a Very Important Meaning
'If your government does that, it sends a strong message to you as a citizen about what their intent is.'
Dec 22, 2015
A new internet code, Error Code 451, inspired by Ray Bradbury's dystopian writings, aims to alert users when websites are unavailable because the state has censored them.
The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), a global body that reviews internet standards, approved the XML specification on Monday, which can be used to alert users when requested content has been blocked by "legal obstacles" that all government censorship. T former Google engineer and co on Monday. The specification suggested the term in 2012 as a reference to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a 1953 novel in which books are outlawed and burned--an allegory for state suppression of free speech.
"[A]s censorship became more visible and prevalent on the Web, we started to hear from sites that they'd like to be able to make this distinction," wrote IETF HTTP Working Group chair Mark Nottingham in a blog post last week. "More importantly, we started to hear from community members that they wanted to be able to discover instances of censorship in an automated fashion."
Sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and GitHub are often required to block access to their websites in repressive countries like North Korea and Russia or during civil unrest, such as the 2011 protests in Egypt and the 2009 Iranian presidential elections.
"It is imaginable that certain legal authorities may wish to avoid transparency and not only forbid access to certain resources but also disclosure that the restriction exists," Bray told The Verge on Monday.
However, web developers believe it could prove particularly useful in countries like the UK, which in 2012 forced internet service providers (ISPs) to block user access to the torrent site The Pirate Bay. Now, instead of greeting visitors with a vague error code such as 404 for "not found" or 403 for "access is forbidden," ISPs could use 451 to signal government influence.
"In some jurisdictions, I suspect that censorious governments will disallow the use of 451 to hide what they're doing," Nottingham wrote. "We can't stop that (of course), but if your government does that, it sends a strong message to you as a citizen about their intent. That's worth knowing about, I think."
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Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
transparencyrussianorth koreamass surveillancebig brothercivil libertiesfree speechtechnologygoogleopen internet
A new internet code, Error Code 451, inspired by Ray Bradbury's dystopian writings, aims to alert users when websites are unavailable because the state has censored them.
The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), a global body that reviews internet standards, approved the XML specification on Monday, which can be used to alert users when requested content has been blocked by "legal obstacles" that all government censorship. T former Google engineer and co on Monday. The specification suggested the term in 2012 as a reference to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a 1953 novel in which books are outlawed and burned--an allegory for state suppression of free speech.
"[A]s censorship became more visible and prevalent on the Web, we started to hear from sites that they'd like to be able to make this distinction," wrote IETF HTTP Working Group chair Mark Nottingham in a blog post last week. "More importantly, we started to hear from community members that they wanted to be able to discover instances of censorship in an automated fashion."
Sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and GitHub are often required to block access to their websites in repressive countries like North Korea and Russia or during civil unrest, such as the 2011 protests in Egypt and the 2009 Iranian presidential elections.
"It is imaginable that certain legal authorities may wish to avoid transparency and not only forbid access to certain resources but also disclosure that the restriction exists," Bray told The Verge on Monday.
However, web developers believe it could prove particularly useful in countries like the UK, which in 2012 forced internet service providers (ISPs) to block user access to the torrent site The Pirate Bay. Now, instead of greeting visitors with a vague error code such as 404 for "not found" or 403 for "access is forbidden," ISPs could use 451 to signal government influence.
"In some jurisdictions, I suspect that censorious governments will disallow the use of 451 to hide what they're doing," Nottingham wrote. "We can't stop that (of course), but if your government does that, it sends a strong message to you as a citizen about their intent. That's worth knowing about, I think."
From Your Site Articles
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
A new internet code, Error Code 451, inspired by Ray Bradbury's dystopian writings, aims to alert users when websites are unavailable because the state has censored them.
The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), a global body that reviews internet standards, approved the XML specification on Monday, which can be used to alert users when requested content has been blocked by "legal obstacles" that all government censorship. T former Google engineer and co on Monday. The specification suggested the term in 2012 as a reference to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a 1953 novel in which books are outlawed and burned--an allegory for state suppression of free speech.
"[A]s censorship became more visible and prevalent on the Web, we started to hear from sites that they'd like to be able to make this distinction," wrote IETF HTTP Working Group chair Mark Nottingham in a blog post last week. "More importantly, we started to hear from community members that they wanted to be able to discover instances of censorship in an automated fashion."
Sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and GitHub are often required to block access to their websites in repressive countries like North Korea and Russia or during civil unrest, such as the 2011 protests in Egypt and the 2009 Iranian presidential elections.
"It is imaginable that certain legal authorities may wish to avoid transparency and not only forbid access to certain resources but also disclosure that the restriction exists," Bray told The Verge on Monday.
However, web developers believe it could prove particularly useful in countries like the UK, which in 2012 forced internet service providers (ISPs) to block user access to the torrent site The Pirate Bay. Now, instead of greeting visitors with a vague error code such as 404 for "not found" or 403 for "access is forbidden," ISPs could use 451 to signal government influence.
"In some jurisdictions, I suspect that censorious governments will disallow the use of 451 to hide what they're doing," Nottingham wrote. "We can't stop that (of course), but if your government does that, it sends a strong message to you as a citizen about their intent. That's worth knowing about, I think."
From Your Site Articles
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