Many free proxy and virtual private network services make blocked sites available for the eager user
New Delhi : With the central government banning some of the pornographic websites, experts believe that accessing the blocked stuff on the internet is not difficult as many free proxy and virtual private network (VPN) services make it available for the eager user.
The Ministry of Communications and Information and Technology, in its order of July 31 under section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act 2000, had banned 857 websites terming their content “immoral and indecent”.
Sources in the government, however, denied that there was any crackdown. They said denial of access at the Department of Telecom’s (DoT) instance was “temporary, insisting that it was a prelude to the creation of a regular regulatory oversight”.
They said the directive was necessitated by the Supreme Court’s observations last month over the home ministry’s failure in blocking child pornography on several sites, and claimed that the idea was not to “black out or police what people did in their bedrooms”.
The government order seems to target many sites which have nothing to do with child pornography.
Experts say there’s always a workaround for accessing a blocked website as long as it’s there on the Internet. “The easiest method would be to make use of proxies and VPNs. Many proxy and VPN services make it possible to access the banned stuff with complete anonymity on the Internet,” Hoshie Ghaswalla, CEO of media business for CyberMedia, told IANS.
“Accessing blocked websites is even easier on android devices thanks to free VPN apps. Apart from the basic VPN feature, the app even allows you to switch countries with ease, which makes it easy to bypass geographically blocked websites,” he added.
The Supreme Court in its observation on the issue on July 8 had said banning such sites would be violation of an individual’s right to liberty.
