Blocking certain terrorism/porn sites and DNS

Thu Aug 18 15:18:40 UTC 2005

 you seem to have a couple of ideas co-mingled.
	) whois == dns  ...  there is zero technical requirement for 
	  whois to exist.  removing or blocking entries in your whois
	  of choice is trivial and painless. 
	) URLs map to IP addresses.  ...  you can or your ISP can 	
	  filter based on IP address pretty easily.  You only task here 
	  is to keep up with the DNS changes that move the URL to new
	  IP space.
	) there is NO centralized system here.  there are hundreds of
	  whois systems in place and the DNS is structured so that
	  responsibility is delegated... there would have to be worldwide
	  agreement on not only what should be filtered but how.  And 
	  that (worldwide agreement) is going to be hard to bring to pass.
	  So just because the VSGN whois does not have the entry, does
	  not mean that the IN whois does not have it either.  Or because
	  VSNL blocks IP packets to certain prefixes does not mean they are
	  not routed elsewhere in the Internet.
 --bill


On Thu, Aug 18, 2005 at 03:27:14PM +0530, Abhishek Verma wrote:
> 
> > It was bad enough back in the '90s when Internic refused to accept
> > registration of certain four letter words.  DNS is not a proper venue
> > for censoring ideas.
> 
> Again, I am not discussing "censoring ideas". I want to know if its
> indeed "tehnically" possible and feasible to block a website URL from
> being accessed.
> 
> > 
> > 
> > > No, that wasnt my point. I just wanted to make sure that my
> > > understanding of banning a hostname was indeed correct. We can this
> > > way atleast block all websites with *alqaida* domain names.
> > >
> > > I wanted to know if the arguments of "freedom of speech" etc. apply to
> > > the Internet also, wherein somebody could argue that no central
> > > authority can stop somebody from expressing their thoughts, etc.
> > 
> > Within the USA, arguments of "freedom of speech" DO apply.
> > 
> > Somebody can and should argue that no central authority
> > is entitled to stop somebody from expressing their thoughts.
> > 
> > IMHO, it is not the purpose of network operators to make value
> > judgments regarding the packets that we transport.
> > 
> > Why not just bring back the "evil bit" as a serious proposal?
> > 
> > 
> > Kevin Kadow
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> --
> Class of 2004
> Institute of Technology, BHU
> Varanasi, India