Good afternoon everyone.

Has anyone else noticed that Telbo is blocking the website www.geenstijl.nl ?
I assume it has something to do with the atricle there last week about mr Wesselius.Still in my opinion Telbo has no right to tell it's customers what to read on the internet.I at least do not pay them to be my babysitter and am very dissapointed with this action on the part of Telbo.I don't know if Flamingo is also blocking this site.It makes me wonder where my freedom went
To me this is really very wrong of them.

Jennifer,

I'm on Flamingo, but also cannot find the site.

Harrie

Hi Jennifer. Welcome to Bonaire Talk!

I use Telbo wireless and I just clicked on your link and had no problem getting to the site...I have noticed Telbo being slow today, maybe they are having some sort of problem....?

no they are actually blocking the site.
we did a traceroute and the site is blocked from Telbo.
And it's not only Geenstijl.nl but Geenstijl.be as well.why it does work for Telbo wireless customers i don't know.
A few friends are testing to see what happens if they try to access the site from other providers.

Oh and we use Telbo adsl and the speed is normal,no problems there.
Yes Harry i know other people on Flamigo have the same problem

Very strange. I can still access the link with no problems (of course I can't read it as I don't speak Dutch!), although I get a 'can't find the server' message on the geenstijl.be...

yeah that message we get on the geenstijl.nl as well.Well i think it's very strange especcially because of the whole Wesselius fiasco.

The site is definitely blocked for Telbo ADSL users. I can get to it fine via my leased line as well as my VPN connections to the U.S. Am having some problems with Flamingo TV Cable Internet, but lots of reloads get me some of the page content.

I think the page Jennifer is trying to get to is here the page at http://www.geenstijl.nl where there is an article posted about Ernst Wesselius (Bonaire's public prosecutor). I can't seem to post the complete URL, however (maybe some filtering occurring on Bonaire?).

To build the URL, start with http://www.geenstijl.nl

Then append "/mt/"

Then append "archieven"

And then "/013407.html"

Alternately, click this link: http://tinyurl.com/f35xf

As best I can tell, that page talks about how Bonaire's prosecutor managed to leave his computer wide open via software called LimeWire so that anybody with the same software could see all the files on his system. There's a screen shot of the prosecutor's system courtesy of LimeWire at the following location:

http://dump.geenstijl.nl/mediabase/1222/38ff73cd/index.html

As best I can tell, Telbo is blocking access to the site to at least its ADSL users (don't know about dial-up, and wireless users who are routed via Telbo's web proxy server).

That begs the question of what else Telbo might be blocking access to that it finds objectionable. Kind of scary to have the island phone company (and the largest ISP here) censoring any sort of content.

I don't approve of hacking or probing of this sort on anyone's system, but censoring is just as bad, if not worse.

Hey - I wonder if all of BonaireTalk will now get censored by Telbo because of this thread. I guess we'll find out.

Jake

Thank you Jake,

This is what i meant with my innitial post.
I really do think they are knowingly and deliberately blocking access to this site.
As faras i am concerned this is an invasion of my freedom despite what they wrote about mr Wesselius.They have no right to tell me what i can read in my opinion.
It also makes me wonder what else they may be blocking that we know nothing about.It makes me wonder also why they would do this.The article can be found by anyone that knows where to look and should not matter in theyr investigation.

At the request of Alex, the message which was originally posted here was translated. It was removed due to adult content.

Thank you Alex,

This way the people who have not read it yet still have a chanse.you could use a web translator so you can read it

Well Telbo can always kill all our accounts.That would really shut us up for now.
Let's hope they don't take things that far .

Not trying to defend Telbo but a while back a friend could not receive e-mail from me at home. It seemed his provider was blocking all of Comcast. My theory is that it has nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with spam. If I ran a provider and saw bunches of spam from a service I might block it also.

agreed but this has nothing to do with spam

There has been an article on (I think) nu.nl about this subject. There are now rules to block people (or sites that are hacking or stealing (like Geenstijl.nl did with the so called confidential documents on E.W. computer.

I just spend nearly 3 months in Florida and depending on the hotel and the wireless connection used, a lot of the pages hosted in the Netherlands Antilles and Venezuela were blocked - like Extra, Amigoe, ElUniversal etc ... and with one server I could not even acces BT .... when I asked at the reception desk they said "homeland security" .... no problems with the wireless connection used by our friends in Sarasota....
Martin, I would not think that Extra or Amigoe or BT are stealing ......

"homeland security" More like firewalls, pop-up blockers, spam blockers.

You mean on my computer ? I don' t think so, otherwise I would never have opend any of these pages in any of the places I went to ....

Brigitte, let me rephrase it: There are now rules that the Bonarian ISP's have agreed to, to block people ...

Martin, I think I understand what you mean - this geenstijl steals articles or papers from other web sites or computers so it may be blocked ..... right ?????

They have "stolen" confidencial documents from the prosecuters computer, although he had them shared on his computer. That's why both Telbo and Flamingo have blocked the site.

And No, BT doesn't steal

I don't think it has been proven that they stole anything yet.they merely posted things that where shared on his computer.

I have no idea if Antillean law covers the Internet for this situation, but I believe in the U.S. it could be argued that he published the information by making it freely accessible on his computer via that software (which I believe has to be explicitly installed by the user - it's not spyware that is installed on a user's system without their knowledge - see http://www.limewire.com/)

Jake

i agree Jake.And as far as i know there is still a thing called freedom of the press here.

My apologies--after reading a 'translation' (and I use the term loosely as online translators are not as helpful as one might like!) I see that the 'article' I copied and pasted seems to me a bit graphic for a 'family friendly' forum--so I am sorry if anyone has been offended by the content. I have contacted the moderators and leave it up to them as to whether the post should edited.

Interestingly enough, the site is still accessible through Telbo wireless...

yes i know
odd that

Alex,

That's likely because Telbo has a mish-mash of servers and sub-nets which they have not, for some reason, set up to share the same set of outbound pipes and resources.

There are two categories of wireless users - ones connected by PPPoE and those using fixed public addresses. I suspect the former would be blocked, while the latter might not. Telbo's ADSL uses PPPoE. No idea about dial-up users, but I would guess they are blocked too since Telbo has greater control about how they connect.

Jake

Thanks for the explanation, Jake, although I preferred thinking it was just because I'm special

As far as i know the dial-up users are also being blocked.

Hi all , I've been a fan of GeenStijl for years, and registered member for months.
They are what they call a shock log.
Name and Shame is part of their oparation. Most interesting are the threads that appear to draw witnesses or characterwitnesses of crime and criminals.
Soooo much faster info than normaal newsbulletins.

Anyway , here is the answer to your questions.

http://www.webwereld.nl/articles/41193/providers-bonaire-blokkeren-toegang-geenstijl.html

Sjoske

Info as far as I can recall is this :

mr Wesselius got a computer because his was broken , on this computer installed was Lime wire.
Through lime wire you can search for specified named files, soo info about agents, bolitas swallowers and oparations were freely accessable for anyone with a limewire connections.
besides that Mr.Wesselius wrote his : memoires , or wannabe memoires. Erotic, not really shocking anyway.
Geenstijl did not , I repeat: DID NOT publish the case files!!!!
Just to show they had acces to the files they quoted some of Mr Wesselius wetdreams.

So , Bonaireans , enjoy your censorship ...
Any more questions about what is going on in the world and Telbo or Flamingo TV doesn't want you to know ???
feel free to ask, ....

Sjoske

i agree completely it is pure censorship and why a lot of people are not complaining about it i do not understand.
If the have a problem with www.geenstijl.nl they should sue them to have the article in question removed or take other legal action,to deny us all access to that site is simply wrong and should not happen .
www.geenstijl.nl is reachable through a proxy so any and all who still want to go there just find a proxy to work through

Isn't there some metaphor about locking the cage after the animal has already escaped?

Jake

BTW, can someone provide an accurate translation of the link that Jos posted?

To me (with my partial understanding of Dutch) it seems that R. Vos (I presume that's Riccardo) is saying that this was a one-time event because the site was found to be so distasteful.

Jake

If "distasteful" is the criteria then hopefully we can soon look forward to their blocking all porn sites and the Fox News website.

Hi Jake,
I can and will translate it for you, but I don’t have time to do so now.
Director R. Vos is indeed Riccardo.

2nd paragraph: “This is a once-in-a-while action, because the publication affected our feelings of ethics”, according to Vos. “It is not the standard, we are not any censoring organisation.”

Rest will come tomorrow, unless someone else translates it for you.

Harrie


(Message edited by harmoni on May 17, 2006)

Martin confirmed that the article Alex posted was indeed, not something that we would even consider posting on BT. After Alex had run it through an online translator, she immediately emailed it to the moderators for review because it was definitely not even close to "family friendly". I thought maybe the online translator wasn't "accurate" as they usually really don't translate very well, but it did a pretty good job. Please do NOT post the article that has been blocked and that Alex posted on BT in Dutch, or in English.

Cynde,

I think the link referred to is an article about the site being blocked, although clearly someone should make sure that's all it is and not repeat my mistake!!

Alex,

I hope you're not advocating that blocking access to things one person or group of people find distasteful is okay? Pron (misspelling intentional due to spam filters) wouldn't exist if there wasn't a market for it, and the same with Fox News. You may not personally agree with them and find such sites distasteful, but that's not a reason to completely block access to such sites.

In fact, the attitude that one person (or a small group of people) can decide what's right and what's not for everybody else in terms of writings and imagery is why folks keeping getting jailed in China for merely expressing themselves publicly, on-line. It's why Castro has held on to Cuba for so long, and it's how the Bush Administration has justified many of its actions over the last few years (just go and try to find anything remotely useful on government-operated web sites these days - it's all been removed under the auspices of "Homeland Security").

Okay. Done with my rant...

Jake

PS And if anyone's tempted to start up about Cynde's message about the content in Alex's repost not being family friends, please note that the BT mods have not blocked access to the original site in question, nor removed links to it - that's not the sort of censorship in question here.

Cynde, The link Jos has posted is the official reaction from the ISP's on Bonaire about this. It is not the same article Alex did post.

Jake,

Gasp! that I gave that impression. Nothing could be further from the truth. I used to be a librarian and as a breed we abhor and oppose all forms of censorship. I was being a bit flip in my post--sorry.

In fact I was just trying to point out that there are a million things out there that people find distasteful or offensive (and obviously different people have different ideas as to what is distasteful). That our local ISP's have presumably never thought to block access to, for example "pron', makes the current situation perhaps all the more egregious, as one assumes there is is some sort of government pressure being exerted....

Regardless, censorship in any form is a terrible thing. And I do hope that those of you who are being denied access raise holy heck with your provider. And if there is a petition, a plan, etc., I'm happy to help. I cannot complain on my own behalf as I have not been blocked.

I still hate FOX News though , but that is why I make my own informed choice to avoid it. No one needs to make that decision for me.

Alex

I'm relieved to hear that you're not advocating censorship Alex :-)

I think on Bonaire most folks just give up complaining to Telbo and FTV about service issues - I know I have. I'm still trying to get Telbo to explain to me why as a "favor" to me and all the other suckers paying top level ADSL and wireless prices why we are getting only 50% more downstream bandwidth than the next lowest tier, but paying 2-2.5x their price. And with Telbo Wireless, they actually reduced my upstream bandwidth. And, as usual, I can't get anyone to give me a straight answer - it's been several months now that I've been trying.

So, Telbo (and probably FTV to a lesser extent) will do whatever they please, regardless of what their clients want. They both need a little bit more competition, I think.

A sadly humorous anecdote:

Reporter: "Sir, let me ask you, what do you think about the ignorance and apathy so prevalent in our society today?"

Man: "I don't know and I don't care."

Jake

The site www.geenstijl.nl is available again. In the archives you can look for the censored part. It is also available.

I had send Flamingo a mail with complaints, didn't get any official reaction, but at least the entry to that site is restored.

Jake, do you still want me to translate the text Jos posted (17-05-2006, 07:09 am.)?

Harrie

If you don't mind, that would nice, Harrie. Interesting that the block has been removed by FTV.

Jake

Here is the translation:
(I did the best I could, but cannot guarantee it is 100% correct. I'm a languagy-dummy).

<<Providers Bonaire block entrance to “Geenstijl”.

Wednesday 17th of May 2006, 09:21am. Geenstijl.nl is temporary not available from Bonaire, after the weblog published private documents from the Public Prosecutor Ernst Wesselius.

By Edwin Feldmann

The two biggest internet providers decided to block Geenstijl temporarily because of solidarity with Winsemius, as informed by ANP (dutch news agency). “We have together taken care that Geenstijl just cannot be visited”, says director R. Vos from the provider FlamingoTV. The other big provider on the island, Telbo, did the same.

“This is a once-in-a-while action, because the publication affected our feelings of ethics”, according to Vos. “It is not the standard, we are not any censoring organisation.”

Yet the providers decided immediately after the publication of Geenstijl to redact some rules of conduct, to deal tougher with internet-criminals. Everybody who is guilty of hacker-practices, theft of information from anybody else computer, internet-threat, internet-slander or privacy-infringement will be blocked by the providers.

Geenstijl.nl published last Thursday documents which they –after own information- took from the pc of the Public Prosecutor on Bonaire with a p2p-programme. The weblog cited also some erotic quotations from the diary of Wesselius.>>


Harrie


(Message edited by harmoni on May 19, 2006)

Yet the providers decided immediately after the publication of Geenstijl to redact some rules of conduct, to deal tougher with internet-criminals. Everybody who is guilty of hacker-practices, theft of information from anybody else computer, internet-threat, internet-slander or privacy-infringement will be blocked by the providers.

And another remarkable fact.

The two competitors found each other in this point, and will perhaps talk more with each other.
That means: sen/plaka; will cost the users money....

Harrie

Jake , Cynde, Martin , ....

I bet I've got you attention now , LOL.

this censorship is a , very nasty , side effect of the real issue here: Public Prosecutor Ernst Wesselius left his confident files wide open for the whole F.......g world to download, with names, dates , operations , agents, the whole inside info any narctrafficer would love to get his hands on . that's what it's about !!!
Not some steamy red-eyed wannabe ron jeremy memoires.
( and don't even deny knowing that name!)
It's another screw-up in a long row of justice prosecutors, agents , lawyers and judges screw-ups in the Netherlands. That's what it's about!

Rant mode off.

SJosss

PS: I'm sure some one at geenstijl .nl would be kind enough to give you acces to the real files if you ask them kindly.;-)

Sjosss
pps: thanks Harry for translating, mistake by me to think it would be readable for nondutchies.

sorry , that should be Harrie ofcourse.
Love your dive certification level

sjoske

How do you find out if a web site is blocked by a Bonaire provider ? The last 2 days I can not open the site http://www.vcrisis.com/ using Flamingo wireless system, but have no problem using Telbo ....

It opens normally through Flamingo TV-cable-internet

Harrie