GitHub URL Serving Content, Files for Users Blocked in India: Full Details

GitHub, a popular software development platform that hosts open-source projects, is said to be blocked for some users in India. A domain used by the service to serve files and content from repositories to users around the world has apparently been blocked in India. The blocking seems to be active for some ACT fibernet broadband users while some jio fiber users are also having problems with the URL. The blockage was discovered Sunday by users who tweeted about the site being inaccessible on the ACT Fibernet service. Due to the blocked domain, affected users may have limited access to files used in open source projects hosted on the platform for developers and GitHub users.

Twitter user Arnav Gupta (Twitter: @championswimmer) first noticed the problem. In his tweet on Sunday he inquired whether http://raw.githubusercontent.com was blocked on ACT internet in Bangalore. Responses to his tweet suggest the domain has been banned from certain ISPs in the country.

Gadgets 360 was able to confirm that the URL was not accessible via ACT broadband internet and Jio Fiber. When accessing the URL from a web browser, the message is displayed: “This URL has been blocked according to the instructions in accordance with the orders of an honorable court.” The domain appears to be working normally for Airtel users.Later, security researcher Karan Saini (Twitter: @squeal) tweeted more details about the block. “The raw[.]githubusercontent[.]com, which provides users around the world with files for every single @github repository, has been banned for @ACTFibernet users in India, likely at the behest of the government,” Saini said tweeted. He added that blocking the URL would limit the functionality of the platform.

It’s worth noting that GitHub hosts numerous valuable open source projects. Blocking the raw.githubusercontent.com domain used to serve files stored in GitHub repositories would restrict access to notable projects including React Native, Linuxand Google’s TensorFlow.

Meanwhile also Gupta pointed that previews of Visual Studio Code extensions, readme files on the GitHub site, and the functionality of tools such as obsidian and Self-made which is used to simplify software installation on macOS and Linux. Gadgets 360 has confirmed that “readme” files are used to display descriptions of projects like the Linux kernelwere also not available on the affected ISPs.

While the URL is not accessible via browsers on the affected ISPs, using the command prompt to send a client URL request (curl) also returns the same error, informing the user that the host has been blocked per a court order.The suspension of the Github domain used to serve content to users is also surprising given that one of the goals of the 2012 National Policy on Information Technology is to “adopt open standards and encourage open source and open technologies.” . Restricting access to the platform could hamper the adoption and development of open-source technology in the country.

Gadgets 360 has approached ACT Fibernet, jio fiber, GitHub for comments. The story will be updated with her reply. We have also asked the Ministry of Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for their opinion on the domain blocking in the country.