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in the morning of 1 march 2012, about 8000 websites, including google and
facebook, were blocked by the danish child pornography (cp) filter. When the
customers of the affected isps, siminn denmark and tele greenland, made
google searches or accessed their facebook pages, they were met by the stop
page for the danish cp filter. The stop page warns people that they are
trying to access websites with cp content, and that even viewing such
content is illegal under the danish law.
The danish cp filter is implemented using dns hijacking (dns redirection).
The participating isps (which are all mainstream isps with private customers
in denmark) receive a list of domains to be blocked from the danish police,
and the isps implement this list in their dns resolvers. This is done in a
completely automatic process, and the isps believe that the danish police is
responsible for the domains on the blocking list (although the police
usually claim that they are merely simply providing a "service" to the isps,
so the legal ramifications of who is responsible for what remain unclear).
The police made a serious error when they added the 8000 legitimate domains
to the blocking list, including google.com and facebook.com. The error only
affected two smaller isps in denmark, because they were the first to do the
daily cp list update on their dns resolvers, but this was sheer luck. It
could just as well have affected tdc, the largest danish isp. The vigilant
technical support staff at siminn denmark immediately alerted the danish
police about the error, so that the blocking list was not pushed to the rest
of the danish isps.
The danish police have issued a public statement about their error and made
some comments to journalists. A police officer was investigating a number of
websites, and by accident he copied the list with 8000 legitimate domains to
a file directory that was used for updating the cp domain blocking list. The
human error combined with sloppy procedures escalated into something that
can almost be described as a "kill switch" for the internet in denmark.
Attempts to censor the internet always create an artificial single point of
failure.
facebook, were blocked by the danish child pornography (cp) filter. When the
customers of the affected isps, siminn denmark and tele greenland, made
google searches or accessed their facebook pages, they were met by the stop
page for the danish cp filter. The stop page warns people that they are
trying to access websites with cp content, and that even viewing such
content is illegal under the danish law.
The danish cp filter is implemented using dns hijacking (dns redirection).
The participating isps (which are all mainstream isps with private customers
in denmark) receive a list of domains to be blocked from the danish police,
and the isps implement this list in their dns resolvers. This is done in a
completely automatic process, and the isps believe that the danish police is
responsible for the domains on the blocking list (although the police
usually claim that they are merely simply providing a "service" to the isps,
so the legal ramifications of who is responsible for what remain unclear).
The police made a serious error when they added the 8000 legitimate domains
to the blocking list, including google.com and facebook.com. The error only
affected two smaller isps in denmark, because they were the first to do the
daily cp list update on their dns resolvers, but this was sheer luck. It
could just as well have affected tdc, the largest danish isp. The vigilant
technical support staff at siminn denmark immediately alerted the danish
police about the error, so that the blocking list was not pushed to the rest
of the danish isps.
The danish police have issued a public statement about their error and made
some comments to journalists. A police officer was investigating a number of
websites, and by accident he copied the list with 8000 legitimate domains to
a file directory that was used for updating the cp domain blocking list. The
human error combined with sloppy procedures escalated into something that
can almost be described as a "kill switch" for the internet in denmark.
Attempts to censor the internet always create an artificial single point of
failure.
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