YNOT – In what Pakistani media are calling “a brave move,” the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority has ordered internet service providers operating within the country to prohibit access to pornographic websites. According to published reports, a list of 1,000 websites was presented to ISPs last week, and the agency expects to add as many as 170,000 more sites “in the near future.”
Instead of displaying adult content, when users attempt to log on to one of the banned sites, their browsers present a message stating “This page is blocked due to restrictions enforced by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA).”
In addition to representing a step toward state-enforced morality in the primarily Muslim country, the blockade also may be an attempt to salvage Pakistan’s international reputation following a 2010 Fox News report placing the country among the top 10 locations from which users search for porn on the web.
The PTA gives partial credit for the dictate to a hacker known as Zombie_Ksa, whom they believe is PAKBUGS founder Jawad Ehsan, also known as Hamza. PAKBUGS is a loosely organized group of hackers who claim Pakistan as home base. Zombie_Ksa and his associates hacked the Pakistani Supreme Court’s website in September, defacing the homepage with a message calling the justices “untalented” and castigating Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad for the perception he lives in luxury instead of using his office to assist the country’s underprivileged.
Also during September, Zombie_Ksa defaced the PTA website with a call to block pornographic websites, but the message went unheeded.
In October, Zombie-Ksa took credit for an even more forceful assault on the PTA’s homepage:
[QUOTE] Ask yourself why Pakistan Telecommunication Authority is victim of ZombiE_KsA ? Baby I’m here to tell this **** world that we are Pakistan, not Pornistan…and Sir I need your help. Since you have powerful balls and I request you to take action to ban porn sites in Pakistan. Read it again I request you to BAN Pornographic sites in Pakistan.[/QUOTE]
The ban on pornographic websites follows a similar effort to curtail what the PTA called “obscenity” in cell phone text messages. In November, the agency ordered cellular service providers to screen all text messages sent and received by users and block any that contained “indecent language, expletives, swear words, slang, etc.” in Pakistan’s native Urdu or English. The list of 1,600 words and phrases circulated at the time ranged from the obvious to the odd: athletes foot, defecate, deposit, do me, G unit, God damned motha fucka, sexwhore, Jesus, Satan, hobo, hoser, idiot, Kmart, Kotex, lotion, Neon Deon and Rae Carruth. Reportedly, the list has grown since then.
Service providers that neglect to comply with the edict may face legal action, though the ban has yet to be enforced.
