Ban Over?

Some readers have informed me that we are NO LONGER banned.

My understanding was the the original 17 sites would continue to be blocked. Considering that regular readers of this blog (with the exception of Rotwang and jd) are rarely wrong, I must conclude that the government had a change of heart.

If anyone has anything official on this, please send to me ASAP.

Update: The Indian governments inability to ban only a few sites is the likely reason this and other "banned" blogs are being accessed directly. It appears it's an all or nothing proposition.

14 days later, ISPs can’t solve blog ban

Fourteen days after the government asked Internet Service Providers(ISPs) to block access to four ‘‘offensive’’ blogs, India’s world-renowned computer techies have not been able to selectively ban only those websites. Instead, all of blogspot, geocities and typepad.com are only accessible in fits and starts throughout the country.

ISPs say this is due to technical constraints, but now, some experts are saying that the situation is more a sign of incompetence than technical constraints.

‘‘There are tools for ISPs to block websites selectively, but the skills to use those tools appear missing,’’ says Suresh Ramasubramanian, Manager, Antispam Operations, Outblaze Ltd. Hong Kong-based Outblaze Ltd is one of the world’s largest providers of e-mail services, with 40,000,000 active users.

Some of the greatest computer minds in the world come from India and this issue has them hamstrung. Just another example of how anything directed by bureaucrats in the government is destined to fail.