Getting around brainless IP site blocking

[Tannin]

My brother lives in Bahrain. There is only one ISP in Bahrain, and they have a half-brained censorship system that comprehensively fails to filter out pr0n sites - it blocks some but not others - but does really dumb things like blocking perfectly innocuous sites at semi-random.

For a while, he use a service called Silent Surf at www.silentsurf.com which gave him access to anywhere. I gather it works by some quite simple scheme, possibly as low-tech as putting the blocked site in a container frame, so that the stupid blocking program only sees the outer frame.

But now they have started charging for it - and it ain't no nominal fee, it's $250 US a year! Is there a simple, sensible alternative?

 

[P5-133XL]

Try http://inetprivacy.com/dl.htm#a4proxy It might work, hard to tell from their marketing.

The above service is a one shot fee. The question I have is how long will they be in business after they get your money.

I found another service which is highly likely to work ( A VPN to their server which then gives you a different IP address sourced from them to access the internet from) but it costs even more than silentsurf. Do note that there will always be a performance/latency loss with services like this.

 

[James]

It's not a great source of pride, but Batelco is actually a Cable & Wireless company. The rules under which they block sites are imposed on them by the government, and they must comply.

If you think the situation in Bahrain is bad, I can tell you some stories about Saudi Arabia and China that would make your hair curl (if you had any hair left of decent length, obviously...). Well, okay, it would make Tea's fur curl.

 

[Cliptin]

It's not a great source of pride, but Batelco is actually a Cable & Wireless company. The rules under which they block sites are imposed on them by the government, and they must comply.

If you think the situation in Bahrain is bad, I can tell you some stories about Saudi Arabia and China that would make your hair curl (if you had any hair left of decent length, obviously...). Well, okay, it would make Tea's fur curl.

Try a google search for anonymizer or internet proxy.

 

[Tannin]

Thanks guys. I'll see what I can organise for him. It's no big deal, it just bugs him to have random pages blocked.

 

[Sol]

Really I can't imagine why....