GitHub s Report Content Domain Blocked in India; May Restrict Access to Open Source Projects 6x70y More

Visiting a domain used to serve content on Github reveals that the URL has been blocked in compliance with a court order. 6q5

Written by David Delima | Updated: 2 January 2023 17:18 IST

GitHub s Report Content Domain Blocked in India; May Restrict Access to Open Source Projects, More

Photo Credit: Twitter/ GitHub 4u6t5f

The block is affecting some s on Jio Fiber broadband as well

Highlights

GitHub is home to multiple open-source projects
A URL serving content has been blocked for s on ACT internet
The block currently affects functionality of GitHub

ment

GitHub, a popular software development platform that hosts open-source projects is said to be blocked for some s in India. A domain used by the service to serve files and content from repositories to s all over the world, has seemingly been blocked in India. The block appears to be active for some s on ACT Fibernet broadband, while some Jio Fiber s are also facing issues with the URL as well. The block was spotted by s on Sunday, who tweeted about the website being inaccessible on the ACT Fibernet service. As a result of the blocked domain, affected s may have limited access to files used in open-source projects hosted on the platform for developers and GitHub s.

Twitter Arnav Gupta (Twitter: @championswimmer) first spotted the issue. In his tweet on Sunday, he enquired if http://raw.githubcontent.com was blocked on ACT internet in Bangalore. Responses to his tweet indicate that the domain has been blocked on certain ISPs in the country.

Gadgets 360 was able to confirm that the URL was not accessible on ACT broadband internet and Jio Fiber. Visiting the URL via a web browser displays the message, “This URL has been blocked under the instructions in compliance with the orders of a Hon'ble Court.” The domain appears to be working normally for Airtel s.Later on, security researcher Karan Saini (Twitter: @squeal) tweeted out more details about the block. “The ‘raw[.]githubcontent[.]com' host, which serves files for every single @github repository to s all over the world, has been blocked in India for s of @ACTFibernet , likely at the Govt.'s behest,” Saini tweeted. He added that blocking the URL would reduce the functionality of the platform.

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Meanwhile, Gupta also pointed out that previews of Visual Studio Code extensions, Ree files on the GitHub website have also been affected, as well as the functionality of tools like Obsidian and Homebrew which is used to simplify software installation on macOS and Linux. Gadgets 360 was able to confirm that "ree" files, used to display descriptions of projects such as the Linux kernel, were also inaccessible on the affected ISPs.

While the URL is not accessible via browsers on the affected ISPs, using the Command Prompt to send a Client URL (Curl) request also returns the same error, informing the that the host has been blocked in compliance with a court order.The blocking of Github's domain used to serve content to s is also surprising, as one of the objectives of the National Policy on Information Technology, 2012 is "To adopt Open standards and promote open source and open technologies". Restricting access to the platform could hamper the adoption and development of open source technology in the country.

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Gadgets 360 has reached out to ACT Fibernet, Jio Fiber, GitHub for comment. The story will be updated with their response. We have also requested the Department of Telecommunications and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for a statement on the blocking of the domain in the country.

5G is now available both on Android and iPhone in India. But is it any good? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Further reading: Jio Fiber

Manas Mitul

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In his time as a journalist, Manas Mitul has written on a wide spectrum of beats including politics, culture and sports. He enjoys reading, walking around in museums and rewatching films. Talk to Manas about football and tennis, but maybe don’t bring up his video game backlog. More