Anonymous leaked a list of URLs allegedly blocked from internet access in the United Arab Emirates. VoIP sites, most interestingly, are blocked at large, a move Anonymous chalks up as one with economic motivation.
A group of hackers flying the Anonymous flag dumped a list of URLs allegedly blocked by the United Arab Emirates’ Netfilter servers operated by the government’s internet service providers. Most telling, as Anonymous pointed out, is the denial of access to websites relating to VoIP phone services.
In the page that links to the data, Anonymous speculates that the move to censor information about VoIP from UAE residents relates to the economic importance of the telecom industry in the area:
A large part of UAE’s population is made of migrant workers and the telecom industry made a lot of profit by overcharging them for international phone calls. But with the raise of VOIP and internet communication they were afraid that this would take away their profits and thus went ahead to block VOIP.. Is this something a country can be allowed to do? Force people to cough up more money when they are already paid the lowest wages possible?
Indeed, 163 webpages containing the term “voip” were found in the list. Some examples include “just-voip.net,” “vopieasy.info,” and “voipblog.org.”
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The list is long and, fair warning, replete with URLs for pornographic and sex-related websites, including those focused on sexual education. In the same regard, online dating sites were also blocked, and quite extensively at that.
Ironically, the homepage for notorious imageboard website 4Chan.org was blocked outright. 4Chan is known as the original home of and long-time community for Anonymous participants.
Also interestingly, the list included the URLs “dubai.facebook.com,” “facebook.com/pages/LOCAL-NEWS-uae/” and “login.facebook.com.” While the homepage of Facebook was not included in the list, the fact that it blocks the login page makes for an interesting twist on social networking access in the UAE. In total, 196 pages from the “facebook.com” domain were blocked.
Perhaps not surprisingly, a substantial amount of the allegedly blocked content pertains to religious and government issues. The list includes 157 links containing the word “Islam,” as well as 50 containing the word “Muslim,” and 22 with the word “Allah.” Similarly, the list contains 17 sites domains containing the term “Christian,” 13 with the word “Jesus,” and nine with the word “Bible.”
