Pro LTTE web site http://www.tamilnet.com which has been blocked by all major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Sri Lanka since June 2007, is now once again freely accessible.
Users from Sri Lanka who were trying to view the site on the 17th of June were presented with server timeouts. It was initially suspected that the error was a technical fault with Tamilnet's hosting provider. However,later it was evident that Tamilnet was blocked on government orders. It is doubtful whether the ban had any effect as majority of the users seemed to have found a workaround to in the form of 3rd party proxy servers.
Tamilnet, which has been online since 1997, acts as a major propaganda machine of the the Tamil Tigers. Earlier, it was hosted in Norway but the site has now moved to the United Kingdom. UK based ISP "Rackspace Managed Hosting" acts as its current hosting provider.
yes. Tamilnet now can acess from Sri Lanka. I think it is good to give access to this site. I am following this site for more than 3 years now. From last June, I surfed it using proxy server. We need to have every corner of information to get or reach the near reality.
ReplyDeleteIn thid technological era it is not possible ban or stop enimy propaganda. What we need is to build up more effective, efficient, reliable our own propaganda and counter propaganda. Ofcourse this is hard work and not as easy as blocking a web site.
ReplyDeleteWhat is more important is to have good governance and allow the dogs to bark.
ReplyDeleteIn the meanwhile, the coincidental Indian - Russian military delegations and security discussion may be a prelude to India taking a pro-active stance to step into the big brother role without giving the T'nadu nattamis an excuse to create a scene. It is possible that the Indians will underwrite SL arms purchases from Russia to re-induct her influence over SL and edge out the Pak-China competition. Good thinking on their part if so.
well yes. Banning Tamilnet was not a wise decision. it gave the site needless credibility and might have even made the site popular. If you tell ppl not to do something, they'll at least give it a shot, just out of curiosity.
ReplyDelete"What we need is to build up more effective, efficient, reliable our own propaganda and counter propaganda."
Exactly.
Giving access to the T'net (or is it T'nut?) is actually a good idea. It shows the outrageous LTTE propaganda and it provides some good entertainment usually - at least it does to me - and it seldom fails to bring in a chuckle!
ReplyDeleteI still can laugh at the denials and cover ups this trashy site did during the "sudda keriila" our boys did of the East! Certainly had some good chuckles then!
OaO Asithri
Defencenet,
ReplyDelete100% with you sir. instead of blocking these things we should have proper counter propaganda that will simple ridicule these fake propaganda and kill it without making them heroes.
Though our side has improved a lot when compared where they were few years ago...defence.lk still needs a lot of work. there writers are not good at writing things to move people. we have the talent beyond a doubt but for some reason it's not happening.
TS
what good governance machang. look at the way politicos run riot in SL and take law to their hands. There are literally millions of examples and most of us have been victimised at some point in our life due to these things.
The excuse is that the previous governments also did it so why not us... it's like winning a lottery for our politicos. they make the best outfit it while their terms lasts.
Sad.
I am sorry, I have to disagree with you on this defencenet.
ReplyDeleteTamilnet has always been a tool to boast tiger moral overseas but the majority of their visitor were coming from Sri Lanka prior to the ban.(I must say that the majority of SL visitors are singhalese)
The credibility and strenghth of any web site depends on the number of visitors it get.It doesn't matter as much from where those visitors come from.
Go to this link and see how Tamilnet traffic has come down subsequent to the government blocking of this site.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/tamilnet.com
If you select 1 year you would see a clear dip in traffic after June/July this year.
I don't believe the war against terror should only be fought in the battlefront.Even cyberwarfare is an important part of the overall strategy.
Also this third party access to tamilnet is not popular among masses.So most of them kept away from tamilnet and started visiting sites like defence.lk to get information.
Since late I have seen a complete reversal of government tactics.(removing of check points,unblocking tamilnet,etc)
I think we are going to pay for these blunders in the near future.
First of all, we do not believe that tamilnet.com is a credible information source.
ReplyDeletedulith,
"The credibility and strength of any web site depends on the number of visitors it get.It doesn't matter as much from where those visitors come from."
Have to disagree on this. There are sites which post much more credible information than Defence.lk or tamilnet.com but are accessed by lesser number of people.
"Go to this link and see how Tamilnet traffic has come down subsequent to the government blocking of this site.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/tamilnet.com
If you select 1 year you would see a clear dip in traffic after June/July this year."
This does not prove anything. If you view traffic details for defence.lk in the same graph using "compare sites" option, you will see that the curve for defence.lk is identical to that of tamilnet.
"I don't believe the war against terror should only be fought in the battlefront.Even cyberwarfare is an important part of the overall strategy."
Agreed. The question is how we do that. If we try to do this by preventing the flow of information, then we are heading for failure.
By restricting access to Tamilnet, we are insulting the intelligence or the readers
(assume that the readers are not intelligent enough to detect the bogus propaganda).
Instead of blocking such sites, what we should do is to present out side of the story with well argued conclusions and accurate details.
As major gen Dencil Kobbekaduwa once said, to win the war you need to first win the people.
please see following link
ReplyDeletehttp://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=tamilnet.com
it seems Tamilnet is also operating from OSLO as well.
sorry, earlier address was trimmed for some reason
ReplyDeletehttp://www.networksolutions.com/whois
/results.jsp?domain=tamilnet.com
Gen Dencil Kobbekaduwa..what a gentle soul..May he and those good men rest in peace..but i forget some effing traitor betrayed him and a lot of good men..because this traitor Ba**ar* wanted to buy a M&S tee shirt.
ReplyDelete"The credibility and strenghth of any web site depends on the number of visitors it get"
ReplyDeletenot true. just because people visit the site doesn't make the content any accurate... TamilNet is very populat amongst sri lankans and they go there to see what the enemy is saying...
sometimes even for a good laugh :)
This Blog is more accurate than both those sites combined but i doubt it get similar hits... no where close cos people either don't know about it or they want the "entertainment" value in false claims :)
DefNet
winning people is bloody tough. All it takes is one moron or one mistake to ruin everything.
Both tamilnet & defence.lk are generally propaganda sites-each have their pluses & minuses.we have to take the best out of these 2 sites & form a judgement to evaluate their crediibility..
ReplyDeleteOut of topic,
ReplyDeleteIf these guys killed him, then it is a shame..
http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/12/20/news23.asp
Ninja Bandara,
ReplyDeleteWell said man,
"In thid technological era it is not possible ban or stop enimy propaganda. What we need is to build up more effective, efficient, reliable our own propaganda and counter propaganda."