NEW DELHI: It has been a sort of ping-pong of blames, even as users remain confused regarding what is working and what is not, in Yahoo! Groups. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) that was responsible for the directive for the ban has clarified that it was not Yahoo! Groups, but the particular group ‘Kynhun’, that it wanted the ISPs to ban. "We did not ask the entire IP address to be blocked, but only that particular page," said a senior official at CERT.

ISPs, it seems, could not do the selective blocking and instead went for the blanket block. "It is not possible to isolate a particular page and block it. We have to block access to the entire IP address," said a spokesperson from Sify, one of the biggest ISPs in India. Many other ISPs put the blame on Yahoo! saying only Yahoo! would be able to take off the particular e-group off its site and should do it in the larger interest of users.

However, a few ISPs have said they have been able to block the single group. Gujarat-based ISP Icenet, has been able to isolate the particular URL of Kynhun and block it separately. Said CEO of IceNet, Chirag Mehta, "we have been able to isolate that URL because of our caching equipment and have taken care not to block access to the entire IP address."

Some smaller ISPs had a totally different story to say. Instead of blaming the government or Yahoo!, they said they could do little because bandwidth providers have blocked access to that IP address.
CEO of Net4 India Jasjit Sawhney, says, "big bandwidth providers like VSNL and Bharti have blocked access to the IP address because of the government directive, so there is not much we can do about it. However, we do have the technical capability to isolate a particular page if the need be."

Meanwhile, Yahoo! India refused to comment on the issue. CEO of Yahoo India, Naval Tapoorewala said, "At this point we shall not comment on the issue except request you to refer to a notice on our site." The notice says " India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT), recently issued an order directing India's ISPs to block access from India to the Yahoo! Groups service operated by Yahoo! Inc. in Sunnyvale, California. Although the order apparently was intended to block access to only one particular U.S.-based group, the practical effect has been to block access from India to all of Yahoo!'s U.S-based Groups. Yahoo! Inc. has requested that the DoT narrow the scope and impact of its order and hopes the DoT will restore your access to this service shortly."

The senior official at CERT said that the government is aware of the confusion and the inconvenience amongst users. He added that the technical issues regarding the order will be examined in consultation with ISPs very soon.

For the time being, it is clear that the inconvenience that the users faced with( or still facing), is not due to the government directive per se, but due to the constraints in technical implementation. CERT-In, that was formed to fight large scale security threats and attacks on the government sites, could never have wished to start the way it has.

(CNS)

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