Who controlls the Internet?

Fred Baker fred at cisco.com
Sun Jul 25 19:14:40 UTC 2010


On Jul 25, 2010, at 7:24 PM, Tarig Yassin wrote:
> Deal all
> 
> I want to show you some obstacles that some countries face them every day.
> 
> For example when users from Sudan trying to access some web site they will get a *Forbidden Access Error* message.
> 
> And some messages say: you are forbidden to access this web site because your IP address appears form country black listed due to USA government policy.

I don't know of USG blacklists. There are certainly blacklists looked at by operators; they do this for their own reasons, not due to government pressure. Understand that the kind of thing that would motivate the USG to blacklist a country from looking at a given web site would be if the web site displayed information that would enable that country to threaten the US. There is information that is covered by a set of regulations called ITAR; it doesn't say what country can't receive information, it says what information a US citizen cannot legally communicate to anyone that is not a US citizen.

I suspect that what is really happening here is that the Sudan has a redirect in place that blocks information it considers its citizens should not be able to access. The web page you see is designed to get you to wonder about those evil devils, the Americans, rather than those who are actually blocking the traffic.

> I would like to issue a question here, who controls this Internet?

Nobody, and everybody. 

> ThanksTarig 		 	   		  
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