The NSA is Coming to Town

Uncomfortably funny seasonal music video from the ACLU, The NSA is Coming to Town

Note to Virgin Media Web Safe team re APPG website block

On the advice of Virgin Media Twitter responder LB, I've written to their Websafe people at websafefeedback@virginmedia.co.uk

Hi folks,

Just to let you know Virgin Media WebSafe seems to be blocking my access to the website of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition. One of your folk on Twitter suggested I email you about it.

Twitter, if it's any help, is also blocking me posting tweets including the url of the site, 

http://www.extraordinaryrendition.org/

Both your bots and Twitter's seem to think the site is compromised with malware. If so it would be appropriate to alert them. If not, given the publication of the US Senate report on torture yesterday, it is an inopportune time to be blocking a parliamentary site connected with such subject matter.

Regards,

Ray Corrigan


-- 
Ray Corrigan, Senior Lecturer in Maths, Computing and Technology, Open University

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Note to chair of APPG on extraordinary rendition

I've written to the chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, Andrew Tyrie MP, explaining Virgin Media and Twitter appear to be still blocking access to their website.

Dear Mr Tyrie,

Just a short note to let you know that my efforts to access the website of your All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition last night proved futile, since my communications service provider, Virgin Media, were blocking access to it. I basically got re-directed to a page saying:

"Sorry, Web Safe has blocked this site

This site has been blocked by Web Safe because it's listed as having malicious content. It could put your personal and financial information at risk or cause damage to your files.

Find out more about Web Safe Sign in to My Virgin Media to change your Web Safe settings If you don’t think this page should have been blocked, let us know.”

Additionally when I attempted to post a couple of notes about this on Twitter, Twitter blocked those too with the following message:

"This request looks like it might be automated. To protect our users from spam and other malicious activity, we can't complete this action right now. Please try again later."

I then noted on Twitter what had happened without using your website address and it accepted that.

Virgin Media have informed me via Twitter today that they are not blocking your website. I nipped home from the office at lunchtime to check that and found my home computer still being redirected to their warning about malicious content when I attempted to access the APPG site. Twitter also appears to be continuing to block posts containing the web address of your site http://www.extraordinaryrendition.org/

I suspect the problem is automated filtering software rather than any deliberate attempt by these companies to deny access to the APPG materials. Nevertheless, I would suggest asking your technical experts to look into the problem and perhaps follow up with Virgin Media and Twitter.  The irony of the APPG being censored, accidentally or otherwise, on the day the Senate Intelligence committee released the executive summary of their report into CIA interrogation and detention programmes will not be lost on you. The work you are doing in the APPG is extraordinarily important and it would be unfortunate if public access to it is inappropriately curtailed.

Regards,

Ray Corrigan

Virgin Media blocking website of Parliamentary group on rendition

Virgin Media appear to be blocking the website of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Extraordinary Rendition. As Chair of the group, Andrew Tyrie says, the

"APPG is a Parliamentary body with over sixty members, both Members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

You can visit the APPG’s website here"

Except you can't as a Virgin Media customer since you get re-directed to a page saying

Sorry, Web Safe has blocked this site

This site has been blocked by Web Safe because it's listed as having malicious content. It could put your personal and financial information at risk or cause damage to your files.
Find out more about Web Safe Sign in to My Virgin Media to change your Web Safe settings If you don’t think this page should have been blocked, let us know.

For information, Virgin Media, your web labyrinth is too tortuous for sentient human beings so I'm letting you know from here.

Interestingly, when I attempted to post two separate messages on Twitter about this, Twitter blocked me too:

"This request looks like it might be automated. To protect our users from spam and other malicious activity, we can't complete this action right now. Please try again later."

 My messages:

"@virginmedia blocking website of All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition http://www.extraordinaryrendition.org/ Tell Andrew Tyrie MP?"

and

"Twitter blocked me posting @virginmedia blocking website of All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition http://www.extraordinaryrendition.org/"

I've made several later attempts to post the message all resulting in the same blocking message - the Twitter bot accusing me of spamming or engaging in malicious activity.

Is it possible the APPG website has been compromised and Twitter and Virgin Media are right?

Either way Mr Tyrie, who I heard doing a valiant job of trying to educate some BBC broadcast journalists on extraordinary rendition this evening, should be informed.