After Blocking Zero Hedge and Others, NZ Telcos Demand Big-Tech Censorship Surge to “Protect Consumers”
March 21st, 2019People are emailing me about these bans.
I just now browsed (on a remote machine under my control) ZeroHedge, Gab and Dissenter without any problems on Spark, the largest ISP in NZ. Also, my small, regional ISP has not blocked any of these sites.
Whatever is happening with regard to sites being blocked in NZ, it’s definitely not consistent for everyone here.
Since I’m not experiencing any bans, I can’t say how to bypass this for sure, however, it might be as simple as changing your DNS settings to use any of several public DNS services. I recommend CloudFlare’s public DNS.
If you’re more technically adept, or if your ISP is using a transparent DNS proxy and won’t let you use an alternate DNS, you might want to check out DNSCrypt.
If the bans go beyond DNS, you can look into using a VPN service. I consider all VPNs to be potential honeypots, so I don’t recommend any of them, even the one I personally use. VPNs don’t actually offer much in the way of privacy, regardless of their claims of not keeping any activity logs, etc. They simply change who can spy on your activity from your ISP and the cops and spooks in your country to the VPN provider and the cops and spooks in that country.
The key point to remember when using VPNs is this: Don’t think you’re doing much to protect yourself by using a VPN. Think of it more as playful antics that can be used to frustrate an overzealous dog catcher.
Hint: Don’t use VPNs headquartered in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia or New Zealand. And even if you choose a VPN outside the 5 Eyes System, I’d assume they have that traffic anyway.
Finally, you can use Tor Browser. This is a much slower browsing experience than you’re used to and many sites will give you hassles when you try to use Tor, but it’s free and probably offers you more privacy than VPNs.
“Use Tor? Didn’t you warn us about Tor back in 2007?”
Yep.
But you need to understand, there’s a big difference between privacy vs. an overzealous dog catcher and privacy vs. NSA (or similar orignizations). What I’m telling you can potentially give you privacy vs. an overzealous dog catcher. If you need privacy vs. NSA (or similar organizations) I can’t help you. And I’d be very hesitant to believe anyone claiming to be able to do that.
Via: ZeroHedge:
In the wake of last week’s terror attacks at two New Zealand mosques which left 50 dead, several websites which either reported on the incident, hosted footage of the attacks, or have simply allowed people to engage in uncensored discussion such as Dissenter or Zero Hedge, have been partially or completely blocked in both New Zealand and Australia for the sake of “protecting consumers,” according to the CEOs of three New Zealand telcos.
