International blocking of Internet sites - How to get around it?

[Roger Sofarover]

In Thailand the government have started blocking sites such as Youtube, if they have any material thought offensive to the monarchy. The question is, can i use proxy servers etc to 'pretend' I am out of the country and therefore access youtube (which I do like very much), or am I now a youtube orphan?

[Bushfiva]

Yes you can.

[ZFT]

No you shouldn't. Using a proxy is against the Thailand Computer Crimes Act B.E 2550 (2007).

Youtube is still working OK, however, it was blocked earlier this year.

[el #]

ZFT, what exactly this law says? There are many means of bringing in internet content to any PC, without using a proxy.

[bnt]

It's been a few years since I tried this (in Dubai), but try the following:
- go to Google Translate or Yahoo! Babel Fish
- Under "translate a web page", enter the address e.g. http://pprune.org/
- for languages, select e.g. Spanish to English

Because pprune.org is not in Spanish, it doesn't get translated from Spanish, so it's "translated" as English, but appears to come from the translation service. Unless, of course, the "authorities" block the translation services.

[ZFT]

ZFT, what exactly this law says? There are many means of bringing in internet content to any PC, without using a proxy.

This law is a catch all for everything deemed 'offensive' to the authorities. Just this week they have advised all ISPs that if anything 'offensive' is available through them, then their license will be canceled.

'Offensive' appears to be anti Monarchy, anti social, and anything deemed to be pornographic.

We are all treading a fine line here these days.

[x213a]

Bloody hell! Do you really want to be transgressing such laws over there??

[el #]

Ah, but tunneling/anonymizers work without intervention of the ISP actually circumventing their blocks so the ISP cannot do anything against them and I don't see how it can be help responsible if you use one.