Internet Filters, unblocking, and what you should know

Internet filtering. Its not just OmanHel who are doing it, naturally. Iran, China, the UAE, Saudi, Tunisia, heck, even America. Until I figured out how to get around Omantel it really used to piss me off. Especially when it was just a pretty harmless site like www.goremy.com, home site of the funny Arabian comedian.

However, even if the blocking doesn't bother you, you should be aware - especially if you're a parent with teenage kids - that it's not difficult to circumvent these Omantel blocks. Especially with both the high level of IT savvy kids have today, and the supersonic rate at which information can and is shared. For example, a super common programme popular with the kids in Oman right now is called hotspot shield. Have a look and see if you can find it amongst the applications on your kids computer. Google will help you find it (although the home website is, of course, blocked by Omantel).

Most people don't actually have a problem with OmanTel blocking criminal, pornographic, or dangerous sites, or monitoring your every move on the internet. But I know almost everybody - except it seems the TRA and Omantel - gets really pissed off with the blocking of Skype and other VOIP providers just to protect their old world monopoly on international phone calls, and to assist the security services in listening in on those calls too (its notoriously difficult to listen in on skype calls). Same with blocking YouTube, or MySpace (neither yet blocked in Oman, BTW).

[One excellent VOIP that isn't blocked so far, BTW, is www.XXXXXXXXX.YYY .... no, I won't tell Omantel here (I get several readers from the countries IT monopoly). Email me and I'll send you the link if you're desperate.]

Omantel also, understandably, block pretty much every proxy site and proxy programe download site too. So, you may need to be persistent.

To assist you in getting access where you want, and to give my readers real, solid advice from someone who's an expert and really smart (rather than you trying to get advice from your little brother's IT savvy friend) - here's an excellent professional guide on the issue of filtering, site blocking, unblocking, and how to circumvent those controls by Ron Deibert, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. They've produced a laymans guide that explains all you need to know to get around Internet censorship and filtering systems, and the serious considerations you should consider (for example, it may be illegal, and you may not be as anonymous as you think...).

So. here is all you need to know about Internet circumvention technologies:Everyone's Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide. Highly recommended.

You will be pleased to know (or maybe not?) that getting around the filters is straightforward, especially if you have a friend on the outside who can email you the applications discussed in detail in this article. But be aware that this may be dangerous and illegal.

Another WayA
nother way around if you don't have time, don't like messing with scary proxy programs, are on a shared computer, or just aren't very IT savvy at all, is to use good old www.Google.com as an effective proxy because Google is, of course, not likely to be blocked by Omantel. This works because the IP address will appear to Omantel as Google instead of you. Note that this is not always effective as it can easily be combated by the more sophisticated techniques, and it is NOT anonymous, but no harm trying!

There are 4 ways:
1/ After a normal Google search, select the "cached" version, which will download from Google's memory banks rather than the original site.

2/ Use google images - its not filtered, especially if you set safe mode off in the preferences (although following the links probably will be if you search naughty things).

3/ Even better, Use the fantastic Google translate utility to access to blocked sites. Here's the URL to use directly:
http://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl=en#web:zh-CN|en|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.OMANTELBLOCKEDSITE.COM
(where OMANTELBLOCKEDSITE.COM is the site that you wish to visit)

If you want to see a blocked page thats already in English, set translate mode from "Chinese into Enlish", you'll get it unchanged and viewed through google. You may need to select the no frame option if you don't get the whole site (see top right).

4/ Use another great utility Google offers to convert any site into mobile friendly format.
If you want, you can see Muscat Confidential this way.
Just search for your blocked site with google mobile and click on the link it provides. Once again, this will often allow you to bypass any blocks because the IP request comes from Google. The only side effect of this method is that google formats the site for a mobile device.

So, enjoy your Eid folks. This should enable you to see anything you want on the internet anyhow. Drive safe.