Accessing the Internet via e-mail is primary a service provided to users who have limited access to the Internet. With net penetration increasing all the time, the use of such a service has been in the decline for a number of years. However, considering the fact that censorship is functionally a limitation of Internet access to the end user, these services can be availed of to our benefit.

Internet access via e-mail can be used from any e-mail address. To retrieve a webpage (e.g. quillem.com/censorship, send an e-mail to an address listed below with the associated subject and / or body.

This page exists as a result of this story.

This document is a work in progress:

Common techniques used to defeat censors:

1. Using proxies: Proxies act as middlemen between you and the website that has been blocked. They can be used to retrieve the page on your behalf, thereby bypassing the censor. There are various kinds of proxies out there. The proxy guide has more information.
2. Using web caches: Search engines, proxy caches and archive sites quite frequently save copies of websites on their servers which can be retrieved in lieu of a censored site.

The Economic Times confirms that the DoT has ordered ISPs to only block the blogs in question rather than entire domains or IP addresses.

DoT has also issued a show cause notice to ISPs following pressure from the government. “The DoT has further sought explanation from the erring ISPs as to why action be not taken against them for blocking unintended websites and webpages,” a government notice on the issue said.

This page exists because of this story.

• Coral Cache: To access (for e.g.) http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/, modify the URL to http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8080. Similarly, to access a page like http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com/2006/07/how-can-we-help-you.html, change the URL to http://mumbaihelp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8080/2006/07/how-can-we-help-you.html. So, it's just a question of inserting the string .nyud.net:8080 immediately after the hostname.
  

After the public exhibition of gross incompetence by the Indian government and ISPs alike, it is in everybody's interest to know how to bypass these ridiculous blanket bans.

The following is a general guide that will ideally allow you to visit said blocked sites. If you have any questions or comments, please use the fora.

It is recommended that you use Firefox to follow any steps outlined below. However, it should be reasonably straightforward to adapt them to other browsers as well.

What is a proxy?

A proxy (server) to put it simply, acts like a middleman and retrieves web pages on your behalf. For e.g. since the GOI and incompetent techs at ISPs all over India have decided to block blogs like mumbaihelp on blogspot, instead of asking your browser to retrieve the mumbaihelp page, you can ask your browser to ask the middleman (proxy) to get it for you. So, for all essential purposes, you are only accessing the middleman (who has not been censored) and not mumbaihelp.

It appears that ISPs all across India have been ordered by the Indian government to block a number of key websites on the Internet.

ISPs are believed to have been asked to block sites like bloodspot.com, hinduhumanrights.org, hinduuni-ty.org and clickatell.com, besides frontline blogs like the Google-owned blogsp-ot.com. Deepak Maheshwari, secretary of ISP Association of India said: “We have received a letter from DoT, asking us to block around 18 URLs.”

Though the communication, dated July 13, by the telcom department to ISPs lists specific pages/ websites, several ISPs have blocked all blogs because they were not equipped to filter specific pages. This could be because all websites hosted on blogspot.com, for instance, have the same IP address.

Officials defended the decision saying, "We would like those people to come forward who access these (the 12) radical websites and please explain to us what are they missing from their lives in the absence of these sites."