Turkey strikes ‘hat-trick’ in censorship

Google’s public DNS has been hacked by most Turkish Internet Service Providers (ISPs) revealed Google on Saturday last week. The company in its online security blog mentions that they have received several credible reports and confirmed with their own research that Google’s Domain Name System (DNS) service has been intercepted by most Turkish ISPs. The company details the problem as - “imagine if someone had changed out your phone book with another one, which looks pretty much the same as before, except that the listings for a few people showed the wrong phone number. That’s essentially what’s happened: Turkish ISPs have set up servers that masquerade as Google’s DNS service.” In a way Google is alleging that Turkey is attempting to block its DNS service, which is a way to tell your computer to find a address of a server. “It seems likely that Google's public DNS servers are being blocked to prevent people from circumnavigating Turkey's ban on sites like YouTube and Twitter reports Cnet. Just ahead of the elections Turkey is witnessing a bid ‘Internet censorship’ period. This month Twitter and YouTube was banned in the country. According to a report in PCWorld Internet monitoring firm Renesys have said that major internet provider Level 3’s DNS service was also hijacked. “People who try to use Google or Level 3 DNS services are ‘surreptitiously’ redirected to alternate providers within TurkTelekom, wrote Earl Zmijewski, a vice president and general manager for Renesys, on a company blog”, says this report.

Turkey lifts controversial ban on Twitter after UN urge ahead of local elections

An Ankara administrative court on Wednesday lifted the controversial ban on micro blogging site Twitter after the United Nations called for authorities to bring the related laws into compliance with international human rights standards. Turkey’s telecommunications authority had imposed a controversial ban on Twitter six days ago after its PM’s vow to “wipe out” Twitter ahead of polls. A number of complaints were filed challenging the controversial ban last week. The Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB), the Ankara Bar Associations, and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Oktay Vural were among those who applied to the administrative court to challenge the ban, Turkey’s Hurriyet daily reports. The Constitutional Court is expected to review individual applications pertaining to the ban on Wednesday. The RT reports: “I'm told since this is a stay of execution, it can only be lifted by the court that stayed it. Probably. So govt may need new court order,” Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina and a fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, wrote via Twitter. “In any case, I hope that the Internet governing agency, TIB, immediately removes the block on Twitter as now ordered by Ankara court,” she added. On Friday, Turkey blocked Twitter hours after Erdogan threatened to close it down as the country braces for contentious local elections on Sunday.