Deepest internet censorship on earth: How does it look like?
Tags: internet, devops, network, linux
Published: 2023-02-09 07:46:55

First of all, I express my deepest gratitude to all kind people in the free world, especially those who write open-source code and keep their services accessible for everyone, and it doesn't matter for them if their users are black, female, or Iranian.

---

Imagine you are a Linux systems administrator, and you want to install an open-source personal CRM for your own stuff, but when you try any `apt` command, this will print on your terminal:

```
E: Failed to fetch http://▮▮.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/t/▮▮▮/▮▮▮-1_amd64.deb  503  Service Unavailable
```

Same for grabbing a Docker image,

```
🦮 $ docker run mysql
Unable to find image 'mysql:latest' locally
docker: Error response from daemon: error parsing HTTP 408 response body: invalid character '<' looking for beginning of value: "<html><body><h1>408 Request Time-out</h1>\nYour browser didn't send a complete request in time.\n</body></html>\n".
See 'docker run --help'
```

Same for `npm`, `yarn`, `pip`, etc.

Is that a problem with your network? Let's figure out through `traceroute` to Google, there are 30+ nodes on this unstable always-changing network, that are applying different levels of censorship, and your ping time is `>300ms` on average, but that "`408 Request Time-out`" was not from your side definitely:

```
traceroute to google.com (142.251.163.100), 64 hops max
  1   192.168.1.1  2.003ms  1.752ms  1.527ms 
  2   1▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮  43.129ms  42.336ms  44.380ms 
  3   1▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮  147.223ms  52.188ms  43.277ms 
  4   ▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮  51.598ms  51.720ms  53.908ms 
  5   ▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮  60.701ms  51.035ms  50.648ms 
  6   ▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮  52.848ms  58.920ms  50.796ms 
  7   *  *  *
same
 29   *  *  * 
 30   ▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮.▮▮▮  284.808ms  244.162ms  267.002ms 
```

Meanwhile, if you are upset by the slow network (`<2MBps`), TLS warnings, SSH drops, timeouts, and chronic anxiety of leaking your IP with WebRTC, or [getting blocked from accessing your business profile on GitHub](https://medium.com/@hamed/github-blocked-my-account-and-they-think-im-developing-nuclear-weapons-e7e1fe62cb74), you can't even play music to chill down, because YouTube is banned from inside of the country and iTunes is not allowed to give you services from outside (:

A simple installation of a WordPress instance on a fresh server, which may take uttermost 10 mins in Germany, will take you 9+ hours! If you are done with the installation of your website, now it's time to share your business on Google Maps, but still, you are not allowed! _That's all we know!_

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/7qvdpc7eyhwuowm7pnse.png)

"_Ok, at least I know a lot, I can get certified for my skills on edX, Coursera, Udemy, or LinkedIn_", you may think to yourself; but no, You can't! Because you can't pay for it. Even if you could, a simple certificate would cost you $50 which is a quarter of your income, if you are a lucky highly-paid nerd. FYI, official inflation rate is 60% in a single year.

This country with 636,296 sq mi coverage, even does not exist on earth!

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/60ms7rsj335m6blz49lk.png)

---

This is our life and youth which is wasting behind "Loading..."s, CAPTCHAs, 503s, 403s, 408s, "Not available in your area"s. Thinking about what if life doesn't go that way, scratches my mind. Being obsessive will make it even worse. I take my tension pills every day and get back to work. I write books, I build software, and I try to live. And I take other pills again to sleep without nightmares.

I remind myself: "No matter, do good. That's all you know."