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Saudis find MobileMe website blocked

updated 09:40 am EST, Tue January 4, 2011

Censorship may be unintentional


Some MobileMe users in Saudi Arabia are finding me.com blocked, reports say. Affected people are instead greeted with a splash screen in English and Arabic informing them that the government has restricted access. The issue is not universal however; some people may still be unrestricted, while others can gain access via https:// or by navigating to a specific page like me.com/mail.

It's speculated that the Saudi government is not trying to block MobileMe as a whole, but perhaps only a particular page that was flagged as insecure. The Saudi government has become notorious for imposing censorship on the Internet, nominally with the goal of fighting terrorism. At one point it threatened to block RIM's BlackBerry Messenger service in the country unless it could get access to normally encrypted data. Eventually RIM conceded to Saudi demands.




by MacNN Staff

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Comments

  1. mr100percent

    Junior Member

    Joined: Dec 1999

    +3

    not insecurity

    It's not insecurity they are worried about, it's just part of censoring anything they don't agree with. Saudi is a dictatorship, they ban whole news organizations etc. This probably got added to the block list haphazardly by someone

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +3

    Re: not insecurity

    No, it is NOT censorship. It's all about the insecurity. The insecurity of not being able to read the emails of all peoples in their countries. The insecurity of seeing web content that offers an opposing view to your own. That kind of thing.

  1. testudo

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    -4

    Oh

    It's also the same as the insecurity felt by the denizens of MacNN who keep voting down unpopular talk because they don't like what is being said.

  1. Jeronimo2000

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +2

    Sure. Block it!

    MobileMe is full of p*rn, anyway. Nothing but s*** on that website...



    ... oh wait, that's just my inbox.

  1. jarod

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Apr 2005

    -1

    Ignorance is bliss

    What do you expect from fools that became rich overnight? Nothing but trouble comes from that part of the world as far as I read.

  1. CarlRJ

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2010

    +1

    Subtitle is wrong

    It says, "Censorship may be unintentional" -- I think it's pretty clear that the censorship was entirely intentional, they just hit the wrong target, or perhaps hit some innocent bystanders as well as their intended target.

    If somebody shoots into a crowd trying to hit a particular person, you don't excuse their hitting of bystanders as "unintentional".

    Not a big fan of censorship.

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