Bush Website Blocked Outside N. America

acey72 writes "The BBC News are reporting that George W Bush's re-election website (don't bother if you aren't in the USA) is blocked to people accessing it from outside the USA. Netcraft spotted the change on Monday, and have a report on the matter. Oh well, at least John Kerry's site still works for us outlanders." At least some Canadians can access the Bush campaign site, but Europeans cannot (without going through a U.S. proxy).

At least the .org's still accessible!

though it's a little off-message [georgewbush.org].

Perfectly demonstrates

How much of a solid foreign policy this guy has.

Re:Perfectly demonstrates

How much of a solid foreign policy this guy has.

You got modded troll, but I think it's a fair comment. The man's invaded Iraq, invaded Afghanistan, and at length talked about the importance of alliance support.

Why shouldn't the rest of the world see what's on his website? If Iraq's important enough for him to invade, it's important enough for him to spend a few extra $$$ for the people of Iraq (and the RoW) to see what his re-election policies are.

The other thing that shits me about this is that it is setting a nasty precedent for the web - and this is a high profile site. I'd hate to see a whole lot of other sites all around the world taking this approach to blocking foreign access. It would ruin the 'net.

Works from Canada...

Works from Montreal, Canada... Are we considered the 51st state? Can we vote? :)

Re:Works from Canada...

Are we considered the 51st state?

I believe the official term is "America Junior" (credit to H.S.)

Non-US Simulation

Not in the US? Here's what you're missing!

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.georgewbush.com/" on this server.

Re:Non-US Simulation

Anyone know why? I don't know I'm asking. I bet it's a preemptive action to prevent DDOS attacks from outside.

Re:Non-US Simulation

So its not a routing table thing then, they are actually doing it from the web server. Crazy.

It makes me wonder, how are they doing it and if they got all the IP blocks for non-us countries, or if they just went by "blocking APNIC and RIPE blocks"

At last

Now he can safely discuss security issues!

Forum abuse perhaps?

Does it have a forum, or a feedback system? It could be that they were getting a lot of, ahem, abusive messages from non-US citizens and decided this was the best way to curb them. Has anyone actually asked the admins?

Either way BFD. Political websites are almost entirely content or truth free. Why bother reading them?

Not Surprised

Given the previous attacks by Cyber-Terroists (eg: those few odd groups protesting the RNC) I'm not surprised. If they limit the connections to US only it'll be alot easier to track them down.

Proxy

For those of us with non-US IPs, and who still have some hankering to actually visit the site, then Proxify [proxify.com] will let you view. Be warned though, it shows NSFW text ads as well.

Fine.

Then he's going to get blocked on my site in reply.

What's George W. Bush's IP? Anyone know?

"You are not authorized..."

Geez, at least put up a sensible message like "To reduce traffic load non-US visitors will see blah blah blah". Despite the fact that non-Americans aren't voting you should at least have some half decent PR.

Diplomatic Oversight

But how will Tony Blair know what to do next?

I bet

I bet that the Saudis still have access to the site. I mean, he has to get campaign contributions somehow, right?

nyud.net:8090 works

Though I've never felt the need to visit Bush's re-election website, it seems to be quite available through Coral [nyud.net] even for us europeans. Dog slow, though.

I'm blocked too, and I live in the US..

I live in Guam, and I can't access the site either. It's a US territory, so the citizens aren't allowed to vote in presidential elections, but it's still part of the US and, as it happens, I'm from VA so I'm eligible to vote. Although by absentee ballot wouldn't be counted until after the results are tallied anyway, so what's the point.

Not that I'd vote for Bush. Or Kerry. May they both Rot in Peace.

This one works

Well, the hackers will never think of using this one https://georgewbush.com/ [georgewbush.com]

Not blocking IP, only DNS name

They're actually only blocking georgewbush.com, not the IP 65.172.163.222 which the domainname points to.

So http://65.172.163.222 works fine abroad.

Silly ISP.

Re:Someone explain to me how this is news

This change of permission is very literal, almost comical example of not caring what the rest of the world thinks, and siding with the interests of business.

Blaming this on the capabilities of the provider is not an excuse.

Re:Someone explain to me how this is news

This is a political campaign site with political campaign propaganda. And since there are still an extremely wide variety of ways to get at its content and information from outside the US, it's obviously not some kind of "international censorship".

While I agree that there is nothing "wrong" with this (other than the collateral overseas abenstee voter damage), it does point out something about this presidents beliefs:

What the rest of the world thinks does not matter.

Re:Someone explain to me how this is news

While you're at it, explain to me how it's right for the Guardian to encourage its UK readers, i.e., not US citizens, to start a letter writing and email campaign to Ohioans encouraging them to vote for John Kerry

I thought Americans were pretty keen on a concept called "free speech"?

Oh - hang on... What year is it again?

Re:Someone explain to me how this is news

Um...this is a POLITICAL CAMPAIGN SITE. The people not voting next week should have NO IMPACT here. The official policies of the United States, whoever is in office, are not disseminated by political campaign sites, but by myriad other means.

Re:a few questions...

In some way it makes financial sense, by cutting bandwidth costs. They're mostly excluding people that can't vote for you anyway. On the other hand, they're excluding American voters overseas, maybe not such a smart thing. And it's bound to generate bad publicity. Maybe not such a bright idea as they originally thought.