A couple of days ago i noticed something off with blahaj.zone. I couldn’t see images posted by users on blahaj, so i thought it was a problem on their side.

Well guess fucking what? After 3 days, it was STILL broken, so i opened it and…

Blocked. They fucking blocked blahaj.zone. Actually beyond parody🤦‍♂️ Why? What was the point? there’s trans content literally everywhere on lemmy. what’s next, block them all? So now if i want to see a post by a user on blahaj, i have to turn on my VPN (protonvpn.com is also blocked in saudi, jfc) just to see it. Fuck this place. 🙄

I swear a couple of days ago it worked. This is a mild annoyance (hence the community) but still.

It’s so over guys, MBS said no more 196 😔

  • viking@infosec.pubEnglish
    0·
    3 days ago

    Proton works in China if you set the protocol to “stealth” in the setting, maybe that works for Saudi as well?

          • viking@infosec.pubEnglish
            0·
            3 days ago

            They don’t blacklist IP addresses generally, though some are certainly blocked. But normally they run deep packet inspections and block traffic that is identified as VPN traffic based on certain header data. That’s what makes the firewall “great” in the first place; many other countries simply block a range of IP addresses, and all it takes is for the VPN provider to switch the IP in their data warehouse. That’s trivial and takes seconds, and many providers rotate their IPs on a regular basis to prevent blocks in the first place.

            Because of the deep packet inspection, OpenVPN and wireguard as protocols are entirely useless in China whatsoever, for example. Stealth mode AFAIK is using a modified wireguard protocol that obfuscates certain headers and thereby avoids detection (for now).

    • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      3 days ago

      It works without stealth here, too. It’s a little slow, tho. granted, i am using the free version.

  • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    4 days ago

    I quickly threw together a script to check which other Fediverse instances are blocked in Saudi Arabia by using Globalping. I know it’s horrible, but it works so far. Will share the results once it’s finished running. I’ll probably also rewrite the script later.

    I got the list of instances from lemmy.world: curl -s https://lemmy.world/instances | rg -o 'href="([^"]+)"' | rg -o 'https?://[^"]+' > instances.txt

    #!/usr/bin/env fish

set INSTANCES "./instances.txt"
set OUTPUT_FILE "./output.txt"
set COUNTRY "saudi arabia"

for instance in (cat $INSTANCES)
  if globalping http $instance from $COUNTRY --method GET --limit 3 | rg 'Blocked URL' 2&>1
    echo "Blocked: $instance" >> blocked.txt
  end
end

    I’m running tail -f blocked.txt in another terminal to monitor the results in real time.

    (Yeah I know the script sucks. Don’t judge me, I use fish and prefer its syntax over bash. I also use ripgrep, because I like it.)

    • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      3 days ago

      I can run it for you if you want. I’ll post the results here

      It’ll be faster for me since I’m in the country itself

      • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        0·
        3 days ago

        EDIT: This won’t work. You can “ping” blahaj successfully, but only because it redirects to a gov page, and not an error. I’ll have to revise the script because of that.

        Globalping has an HTTP method, which I use in the script:

        globalping http $instance from $COUNTRY

        I then use ripgrep to check if the HTTP response contains the string “Blocked URL”, as you can see in the script:

        | rg 'Blocked URL'

        The if condition uses the exit code from ripgrep to add $instance from the for loop to the blocked.txt file.

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          3 days ago

          Ah, it works for me now. I just ran it with ping instead of globalping, since i had no need to run it with that. And the script didn’t work after i did that, i’m not great at shell-scripting.

          I made a modification that prints the status, but it’s painfully slow to check each site.

  • Rhoeri@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 days ago

    They must have thought that admin defending a troll was the last straw as well.

  • Doorbook@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 days ago

    It is not realistic to think the saudi government cared that much about this. The way it works is someone send a request to block the site. If there are banned words including “sex” then it will be block. You can request for it to be unblock and say it’s a social media site. They have different rules. Remember reddit is not blocked.

  • Mwa@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    4 days ago

    I didn’t know Saudi can block fediverse instances

    • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      A lot of websites are blocked here.

      Porn (60,000 BLOCKED PORN SITES!), alcohol/drug stores, Gay sites (from blogs to forums, anything), anti islam websites like wikiislam, and just non-muslim religious shit in general. we have a lot of banned christian sites. And news sites like middleeasteye.net

      VPNs + tor is also banned too.

      For some reason, israel.com + idf.il are also blocked. weird considering saudi-israel’s relationship.

      • Mwa@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        Thats even worse then i Live(Which most of the stuff are blocked are Vpns,Porn sites and some lgbtq sites i am pretty sure btw am not in saudi am living in a country bordering it)
        Tor isnt blocked here

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          Oh, are you in the UAE or Qatar? Saudi arabia has the most strict censorship in the middle east, i think.

          And يا هلا, دحين متأكد في على أقل 4 عرب على ليمي :)

          • Mwa@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            4 days ago

            Am living in qatar yeah am from Syria so it counts am Arab (am literate at the language tho)

    • dan@upvote.auEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      Why would someone use an Afghanistan TLD for that, given it’s illegal to be LGBTQ there? If course the domain is going to be removed.

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          It’s not like they really care about it anyway.

          Yeah, i hate gay people just as god intended, but i literally break every single law in the quran beyond that.

          • Every Saudi royal

          I also don’t remember a verse in the quran mentioning hacking a man then dissolving his corpse in acid, must be in surat al-baqarah…

    • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      man that page is so fucking annoying, everything i try to open anything it’s just blocked. All sites critical of islam/saudi/sauds, and alcohol/porn/and anything that they hate. Even tor and vpns are blocked, i need to use a mirror to get them, which may not always be safe (atleast for the VPN, tor has trusted mirrors)

      ngl i think of running a vpn on my router, literally just not to see that fucking page anymore (and security too, ofc :) )

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
        0·
        3 days ago

        Use Tor snowflakes. They are very resistant to censorship and many of us in the western world run the extension so that you can get access to accurate information.

      • lukewarm_ozone@lemmy.todayEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        I’m not aware of how exactly blocking works there, but if it’s similar to China and Russia, consider subscribing to a VPN provider that supports stealth proxies (e.g. Shadowsocks or VLESS); that’s harder to block.

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          dw, proton works just fine for me :) though i have to jump through hoops to get it installed, since they blocked the official website too, but i just use a package manager to get it for me as a proxy

          I’ll have to check out stealth proxies out though, thank you! :D

      • superkret@feddit.orgEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        Just as a heads-up: What you just wrote is an admission of a crime in SA. Everything you post on the fediverse is public. And you now know they’re aware of Lemmy.
        I hope you are absolutely sure whatever you’re using to hide your identity is bomb-proof, and that you’ve never posted any identifying info under this account or any other one with the same username.

        • OmegaLemmy@discuss.onlineEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          In turkey, you don’t even need to bein the government to have access! They give out their private databases for confidential citizen data out like it’s Christmas and they’re a charity for orphaned kids with leukemia!

          Simply put, never reveal anything if you’re a Turk, I can be doxxed from revealing where I even lived or which day my birthday is

          So, I actually lie! I lie about my real name, where I’m born and my age and birth date

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          I know :/ I’ve said some things that’d get me beheaded publicly (not joking) but now the feds are here on lemmy i gotta clean my account.

          PS: i’ll delete this comment in an hour, jic

    • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
      0·
      5 days ago

      domains don’t really block for me. I find I have to do each community individually. Annoying really since usually its a domain where for some reason the language preference is not working. anyway I get it was a joke but it made me want to comment as I wish domain blocking did work.

      • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        he doesn’t want citizens of the Kingdom to see how few upvotes his memes were getting

        • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          what if innocent Saudis Arabians had no choice but to turn transgay on Lemmy??

          • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
            0·
            4 days ago

            When I was on blahaj zone, a pair of thigh highs and HRT appeared in front of me. The woke mind virus almost made me trans…

            Thankfully, our benefactor, Lord and savior MBS protected us from 196, and those woke, non binary, trans, gay he-she-theys 🤮🤮🤮. God bless MBS and Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 🇸🇦 🇸🇦 🦅 🦅 🦅

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          5 days ago

          Ngl, I can actually imagine saying that. Not doing that of course, because he already did so 😂

  • Revan343@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    5 days ago

    If I were in Saudi Arabia I’d be using a VPN anyways.

    Also, if I were in Saudi Arabia, I’d be trying to leave Saudi Arabia

    • Artemis_Mystique@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      • Also, if I were in Saudi Arabia, I’d be trying to leave Saudi Arabia

      Probably not, as long as you are not openly queer, you wont see any reason to leave co sidering the ridiculous amounts of perks you get, its not a 3rd world country or a backwater nation, it is a rich monarchial regime.

      • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        Would those perks be extended to most people, or only to a certain subset of people (ie straight, male, religious)? Like, would a bisexual, atheist woman receive the same perks? I get the impression that a lot of people still wouldn’t feel accepted there.

        I’m genuinely curious. Your comment prompted me to do a little research. I found that Saudi Arabia has been making strides toward women’s equality in the past few years. It’s doing a lot better than it had been even just six years ago! At the same time, this thread exists, so… I’m skeptical that Saudi Arabia would have enough benefits to outweigh the restrictions that someone like myself would have to live with.

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          Faux-liberalisation, don’t believe MBS’s lies. It’s better under him, but he’s still a dog.

          Even straight arab males don’t get the best treatment here, but it is the highest amount of priviledge a citizen can get (better than being a lesbian, atheist pakistani woman. Basically guaranteed death). You’d need to be a millionaire or a saudi royal to get the stereotypical gulf priviledge.

          • Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            4 days ago

            Thank you. As I said, I was skeptical. I’m pretty sure I’d hate living there.

            I mean, tonight I’ll be going out to dinner with both my boyfriend and my girlfriend, as well as all my coworkers. Everybody knows my lifestyle - I can be open in public, with my two favorite people, and know I’m safe and accepted.

            I can’t imagine a single perk the Saudi government can give me that would be better than that.

            • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
              0·
              4 days ago

              You can’t imagine, because there isn’t :/ Only healthcare is probably better than most countries here for free, but i’d rather be in debt than lose my life or at best, live like a slave.

              Have a good date, btw :D

      • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        Rich… But only to the royals/businessmen.

        Most of us live normally if not a little worse off than the average westerners.

        The only perk I have at all is healthcare. The west is basically better at everything other than that.

        • Artemis_Mystique@lemmy.mlEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          If you are a native regardless of royalty, dont you still get a lots of benefits and stuff like welfare? This all based on hearsay, the few whom i personally know that immigrated to work there have said so

          • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
            0·
            4 days ago

            Welfare such as healthcare, education, and shelter? Besides shelter (they claim they provide for the homeless, they lie) healthcare & education is free. I can’t complain about the healthcare, but i definitely can about the education: It’s so bad, it doesn’t even matter. Beatings are still practiced in schools, the textbooks are filled with propaganda of all kind, they are completely unsanitary and unfit for a healthy environment. They don’t even get school-paid lunches for the children.

            And for shelter, i’ve seen homeless people completely naked, only covered by a blanket, sitting in the blistering heat, starved to the bone. It’s BS like everything else.

            If i have to give away good healthcare for just not living in Saudi, i’d pay it twosome.

            • Artemis_Mystique@lemmy.mlEnglish
              0·
              2 days ago

              but i definitely can about the education: It’s so bad, it doesn’t even matter. Beatings are still practiced in schools, the textbooks are filled with propaganda of all kind, they are completely unsanitary and unfit for a healthy environment.

              So basically like every other south asian school prior to 2015

              And for shelter, i’ve seen homeless people completely naked, only covered by a blanket, sitting in the blistering heat, starved to the bone. It’s BS like everything else.

              I know most countries try to hide their homeless population(even the goody-two-shoes countries like japan) butThis is the first time i have heard of this, how exactly do you become homeless in a welfare state? Its an easy process in a capitalist society but barring political dissenters (who are likely to be executed outright) what must go wrong that you find yourself on the streets.

              Also i dont know if its okay to ask but are you a native or there due to circumstances (like a child of first generation immigrants or your parents are working in the country and you just happened to be there)

            • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
              0·
              4 days ago

              If I may ask, how was their experience applying for asylum? And what do they think of the US as a place to live?

              • robocall@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0·
                3 days ago

                I think they chose to request asylum in the US. They are part of the gay community here. They only provided a short, funny version of their asylum experience, claiming they told whoever that they are very gay, and we’re granted asylum.

                • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
                  0·
                  3 days ago

                  Thanks, it seemed easy for them being a discriminated minority, hopefully I will have the same experience. Not gay, but other undisclosed stuff that makes me a minority in danger.

          • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
            0·
            5 days ago

            Believe it or not, it’s possible. If you’re gay, atheist or a whistleblower you are eligible for asylum. But you’re right that just being born in Saudi isn’t a free ticket to Berlin.

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          5 days ago

          Getting citizenship is hard, (even asylum is turned down often). You need a stable job in that country, and above average skills to prove your worth. If not, you’ll be deported back.

          You also need to stay in that country for [upto] 10 years.

          And you have to leave everything behind, your culture, your family, and your friends. It would be too dangerous to go back. And they might not even accept you, immigration is brutal.

          Even after you become a citizen, many people will never truly accept you as your own, and see you as an immigrant, never as a citizen.

          And Saudi Arabia is well known to harass, spy on, and even kill dissidents. There was a scandal with twitter, where the Sauds bought up large amounts of stocks, then ordered 3,000 Saudi dissident’s private info. Even in other countries you aren’t safe.

          And money. You need money. A shit ton of it.

          • Forester@pawb.socialEnglish
            0·
            4 days ago

            Just my 2 cents but it’s better to be seen as an immigrant in the wide world than to be seen as a threat to the kingdom in SA. Most middle eastern immigrants in the US do very well as long as they respect the social fabric they integrate into.

            • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
              0·
              4 days ago

              True, but it’s still annoying how it’s a lose lose situation for me anyway. I’d rather be seen as abnormal than killed.

    • dan@upvote.auEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      The good thing about Lemmy is that due to its distributed and federated nature, it can’t be fully blocked. You can just use a different instance and see all the same content (assuming instancea that don’t block the other instances).

      • Poplar?@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        Couldnt you just copy the list of instances lemmy.world or a similarly large instance federates with (its in the footer), or grab a the list of Lemmy instances from e.g fedidb.org to block?

        I feel that would block most of the network, and doubt there would be much value left in joining whatever unconnected instances left.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
      0·
      5 days ago

      KSA and China are like low hanging fruit, it doesn’t take much to get blocked there…

      Wake me up when OECD countries start blocking us

  • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 days ago

    Lol I’d tread a bit carefully.

    KSA likes to chase people and have them “disappeared” for their opinions.

    I know a guy they picked up for 3 months and when he finally showed up, his poor mouth was zippered shut.

    And he was an international too.

    I’d look around for a solid VPN solution anyway. Useful to have in any country.

    • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      5 days ago

      That’s what i’m afraid of, too. Doing such risky things in the middle of the den of snakes. There isn’t much they can do to a visitor, but they can do what they please to “threats” and dissidents.

    • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      5 days ago

      That shit’ll get me on a watchlist, trying to access a website for trans people 😂

      But if i ask nicely…

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          5 days ago

          You underestimate how bigoted the average Gulf Arab is, I’d need to do it to everyone 😅

          If old white US southerners are casually racist, than the average gulf Arab is a competitive racist. Especially with Jews 😂

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    5 days ago

    Well its Saudi Arabia after all. It isn’t exactly known for being all that high on the freedom index.

    • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      5 days ago

      Yeah, but it’s a little weird how they’d go out of their way to ban such a small and obscure website. I didn’t even know the feds knew about lemmy. Besides, it’s been fine for a long time for me.

      But this was bound to happen eventually, i guess :/

      • Jarix@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 days ago

        I didn’t even know the feds knew about lemmy.

        Probably just an automated list of blocking then. At least I would assume theres block lists floating around at those levels

      • Harvey656@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        5 days ago

        Stay safe friend.

        Without giving away potentially anything dangerous to yourself, in case they are watching. Any idea what place you intend on disappearing too?

        • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
          0·
          5 days ago

          I plan on trying to play for asylum somewhere. There’s a lot of useful information for saudi dissidents on a forum that i won’t mention the name of, but from it my choices are: Canada, Australia, UK, America, France, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Ireland.

          All of these, i’d give a kidney to be in anyway. But if i’ll make this once in a lifetime choice, i might as well choose what’s best for me. A big problem is finance and racism. The western world isn’t friendly to Arabs from what i’ve seen, so i’d probably need to lay low.

          I used to want to go to Germany, but this ominous message on the forum made me think twice. They leave it at that, but it’s unsettling to me.

          • Harvey656@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            4 days ago

            I cant speak for anywhere else, but my home country. There definitely are bad places in the US, there are, however some friendly areas here.

            That being said, I hear Sweden is great.

          • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
            0·
            5 days ago

            Do you have any technical skills? If you can sell yourself as an asset you are going to do considerably better.

            • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
              0·
              5 days ago

              Yes, it’s a WIP for me, but i’m improving my rust and OCaml skills, but they have a struggling job market.

              • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
                0·
                5 days ago

                You could also look into trade school. In the US at least there are a lot of people desperate for electricians plumbers and other related jobs.

                • fxomt@lemm.eeOPEnglish
                  0·
                  5 days ago

                  Haven’t heard of them till now, not necessarily my hobby but i’ll think of it as a backup, thank you.