The Hindu : Protest against blocking of Yahoogroups

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 25, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala

Protest against blocking of Yahoogroups

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM SEPT. 24. Protest is mounting against the blocking of the Yahoogroups by the Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the country on a directive from the Union Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

Though the directive was aimed at blocking just one of the hundreds of discussion groups on Yahoogroups, the entire Web site and services of groups.yahoo.com was blocked in most parts of the country. This has angered users ranging from professionals to laymen who use Yahoogroups for discussions on a variety of topics. Some members of the Cybercom India mailing list is planning to petition the Ministry as they are also users of Yahoogroups.

The directive, issued by the Department of Telecommunication under the Ministry, was aimed at blocking a discussion group called `kynhun', allegedly run by Naga insurgents. However, service providers operating the gateways seem to have blocked the entire site. This prevents moderators and owners from carrying out their functions though discussions though email could be continued.

The former Director General of Police and one of the early users of Internet in Thiruvananthapuram, P.R. Chandran, told The Hindu that blocking discussion groups might not be a vary effective way of checking dissemination of information by insurgents or terrorists. Hardened people would find alternate ways.

Even if they do not have the necessary technical expertise for that, help from other extremist groups would be easily forthcoming.

He said that the Government has the right to check the functioning of such groups. Its intentions are good. However, setting up facilities for monitoring the users of the groups would be more effective than blocking access.

What has happened now (the blocking of the entire Yahoogroups) was the result of incompetent persons handling technology.

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