Adil Lateef
SRINAGAR, May 2: After struggling to enforce ban on social networking sites and instant messaging applications, the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have finally started to ban Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) in Kashmir on Government directive.
In a bid to curb use of social media to incite protests, mobilize protesters and ‘transmitting objectionable contents’, the Government last week directed ISPs to block Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, QQ, We Chat, Qzone, Tumbir, Google+, Baidu, Skype, Viber, Line, Snapchat, Pinterest, Telegram, Reddit, Snapfish, You Tube (upload), Vine, Xanga, Buzznet and Flickr.
Initially, the ISPs failed to ban these sites and applications but after gap of few days, they managed to block Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and other social medium sites and messaging applications. However, the installation of VPNs and other Proxies by Internet subscribers made mockery of the blockade of sites and applications as they were easily accessible from mobile phones as well as desktops and laptops.
Sources said that after monitoring the situation and bypassing of the ban with the use of VPNs, the Government directed the ISPs to block the VPNs which are used by subscribers’ en-masse. Although several VPNs have been blocked by the ISPs but Internet subscribers are turning to other VPNs available online to bypass the ban. Sources said a team of Department of Telecom (DoT) along with engineers has already arrived in the Valley and they are helping ISPs and police to enforce the ban.
A Home Department official said that they held a meeting with the DoT team and the latter assured them about blocking the VPNs and other accessible sites and applications. He said that they are hopeful of putting curb on the use of social media in the Valley. Sources said that strict directions have been passed to State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) authorities to ensure ban on all sites and applications.
The VPN is a secure tunnel between two or more devices and it channelises network traffic via a sort of road tunnel. According to experts, the tunnel is able to see what is passing through it. Similarly, these network tunnels transport network traffic, from one device to another over the Internet, bypassing any other traffic or firewalls or in simpler terms road barricades that are put in between, like security checks.
Cyber experts said that there are numerous VPNs that are available online, free and the ones for which a user has to pay for. “In developed nations, it is very common to use VPNs not only to bypass censorship but also to protect one’s own privacy, as these VPNs make your traffic to seem to connected to just one device to your Internet service provider, thus blinding it from maintaining a log, that which websites you’re accessing.
“To the ISP it seems you were just communicating with one device and in this case a server that was acting as a tunnel for you. For an ISP it is quiet easy to block known VPN services, by their known addresses, but if in the case of VPNs which you usually pay for, they provide you with a static IP address to be used as a VPN server, thus making it difficult for an ISP to block it successfully,” they said.
Stating that blocking all VPNs is ‘impossible’, the experts said there are open VPN servers that are maintained by different hosts across the globe which change from time to time and are “like a variety on the menu of a public restaurant you visit in your neighborhood”. “As long as your ISP doesn’t know it, you can use it as well to bypass the censorship,” they said.
They added that certain ISPs also block known ports on which these VPNs’ services work but if someone has a little know-how how this stuff works he or she can easily get a VPN that lets them setup the service on any random port, thus again bringing the ISP into fix.
Ever since ban was announced last Wednesday, there seems no effect on routine content that was being uploaded and shared on social media. Even the militants have also uploaded videos and pictures on Facebook. Apart from militants and commoners, the State Government officials, politicians, police and army are also using social networking sites and instant messages applications apparently with the help of VPNs.
Meanwhile, students of Kothi Bagh Girls Higher Secondary School held a brief and peaceful protest at Regal Chowk here today against the State Government. The students of Gandhi College and MP Higher Secondary School in Bagh-e-Dilawar Khan in downtown here also held protests and pelted stones on police after which classwork in both these institutes was suspended.
Although calm returned to Pulwama educational institutes but students of Shopian Higher Secondary School in Main Town boycotted their classes and protested to demand release of detained students. Police also lobbed few teargas shells to disperse the students. The situation in the Shopian town later returned to normal.
According to district administration Srinagar, the teaching work for class 9 and 10 in Sri Pratap Higher Secondary School here at Maulana Azad Road will resume tomorrow after a week. However, the teaching work shall remain suspended for class 11 and 12 at SP HSS as well as MP HSS here, it added.
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