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Is Rogers Blocking Access to RuinediPhone.com? – UPDATED – No Block, DNS Problems

Several readers have written today indicating that they believe that Rogers is blocking subscribers from accessing RuinediPhone.com, the petition site that is complaining about Rogers' data plans for the iPhone.  While the initial reports over the weekend indicated that the problem lay with the site host, I must admit that I am experiencing the same problem.  When I try to access RuinediPhone.com using Rogers Internet service, it yields a 403 error. Yet when I use a proxy service to access the site, it resolves without difficulty.  While Rogers can't like the negative publicity associated with its iPhone launch, it is hard to imagine that the company would block the site.  Are others experiencing the same problem? Does anyone know what is happening?

Update:  The site now appears to be resolving on Rogers. Seemingly a technical or DNS problem, rather than an effort to actually block the site. 

28 Comments

  1. I’ve not been able to access the site for 3 days. Fortunately I signed up when it first appeared under it’s earlier unprintable name. I’ll confess to wondering if it was being blocked since the request comes back with the 403 error instantly, which has caused me to check back occasionally.

  2. North of 49 says:

    No probs via Shaw
    I got through at 1:45 pm PDT Wednesday July 2, 4:45 pm Toronto time, with no trouble at all. In fact it was a very fast load. I’m on Shaw Cable in Vancouver, for what it’s worth.

  3. Works fine for me
    Tried from one of our offices on Rogers and it worked fine. *shrug*

  4. Also Sympatico
    Can’t get there with Sympatico. Error 403 whatever that is

  5. Same here
    It wasn’t working for me for the longest time and then when I VPNed into a server in the states and tried it – it worked. But I am able to access it from Rogers in Canada every once and a while.

  6. Vishal Malik says:

    Works since this morning
    I have been able to access it since this morning using an ISP called Montreal DSL (working over the Bell network).

  7. justanexer says:

    work for me
    I just checked 5:32 EST and it works for me using rogers service.

  8. Mbr
    That’s a typical Apache misconfiguration error –at his end. Either he’s messed up his .htaccess file in the root directory, or does not know how to set his basic permissions properly. Or.. Does not have his DirectoryIndex set properly in httpd.conf. Could also be an issue with the php script he’s using. Again, I’d bet it to be something misconfigured at the web server end.

    Could Roger’s spoof an error message like this? Possibly, but not likely. It’d be easier filter it at their routers.

  9. Anonymous says:

    It wasn’t working for the past 3 days. I just now checked it and its working. Shaw-vancouver

    fighting.ca

  10. Rogerscustomer says:

    Works for me on Bell at home, but not Ro
    It seems very odd to me. It works fine at home with Sympatico, but at work with Rogers I can’t get through at all. I tried logging in with an anonymous proxy and it works very quickly. That seems awfully suspicious to me that the vast majority of the problems people are having is accessing it through Rogers.

  11. Todd Sieling says:

    If indeed they are blocking access to subscribers, it\’s a small wonder after Telus pulled this very stunt with their union\’s website during a labour dispute. In doing so, they also blocked some 700 other sites, but the CRTC didn\’t see fit to respond, and so Rogers got a clear signal that this is acceptable.

    That aside, I believe the petition site changed hosts over the weekend, which could be causing differential access as the DNS updates and the odd glitch associated with moving hosts comes up.

  12. Maynard G. Krebs says:

    Out of bandwidth
    The person who created the site ran out of bandwidth because the web hosting package didn’t include enough bandwidth to accommodate the number of hits he had on his site. When the site exceeded its bandwidth allotment, his web hosting provider shut the site down.

    Try here instead [ link ]

  13. Anonymous says:

    Down Again
    I’m getting that 403 error again. It’s a problem with the webmaster or hosting server. I ran a trace route to the site and pinged the IP the page resolves to. If rogers was blocking access it would show up in those reports. Both the trace route and ping were sucessful and are not being blocked by Rogers.

  14. Maynard G. Krebs says:

    Forgot to mention
    Forgot to add to my previous post…..

    When he changed to a different hosting provider who donated more bandwidth, his DNS record had to change. DNS records are propagated over a period of about 48 hours to DNS servers around the world and that can explain why many people could not access the site from time-to-time and from different ISP’s in different locations (it would depend on when and which DNS server your request for his site was translated by).

    Also, it’s possible that some ISP’s kept a copy of the site in a somewhat local cache due to the site’s popularity and that many people may have seen the site from the cached image.

  15. We’ll never know…
    Anyone else find it telling how our ISP’s actions have changed the way we troubleshoot connectivity?

    2 years ago would it have been as likely that we would have jumped to the conclusion that it was our ISP’s blocking a damning website?

    When our internet feels slow is the problem on the other end or is it our provider?

    We’ll never know. Not anymore.

  16. Anonymous says:

    Rogers is greedy, but I\’d never believe they are this stupid. They know what Net Neutrality means and what people are alert for. They\’ll happily strangle something slowly in the hopes that the general public won\’t notice or understand the problem, but cutting off access outright is exactly the kind of thing the average person does understand. Like the Telus debacle when they blocked access to a pro-union site during a strike. No isp will make that mistake again.

    I almost wish they would.

  17. Anonymous says:

    Yeah, as discussed on the site’s Blog, apparently they were cut of by their own site host due to excess traffic and someone new ponied up free space on their own commercial servers. But propogation took a while, and Rogers is apparently slow about that on a usual basis. So it’s taking Rogers a while longer to resolve. So not a conspiracy – just a side example of another way that Rogers’ service is sub-par.

  18. Blocked in Toronto
    I tried accessing RuinediPhone.com from Rogers in Toronto only to get the 403 error.
    Concidering they started metering the use of their High Speed Internet preventing us from downloading movies they charge to view at Rogers Video or Rodgers Cable I’m not surprised.
    They found out I use Skype instead of Rogers Home Phone and went balistic but at 2.2 cents a minute why would I pay Rodgers inflated rates for a billing inquirery concidering how long I have to listen to Rogers ads when calling for service.
    I really want to see the GRTC take a look at their busness practices they are buying up stations,sports areas and controling content in a World According to Multi Billionaire Ted Rodgers.
    I thought we had Protection.

  19. This is common
    When Telus had labour disputes, they blocked access to their own union’s website.

    They also blocked their wholesale customers too.

    I was on a third-party ISP that used TELUS lines and when my ISP was notified they wnt rabid! Telus had it unblocked within 6 hours.

    Content blocking has happened, is happening and always, always will happen in Canada, legal or not.

  20. Still can’t access
    As of this morning (Thursday, 7:48 Eastern) I still get a 403.

  21. Anonymous says:

    What an irresponsible blog post… you lose credibility with crap like this one.

  22. Anonymous says:

    Agreed. Without some evidence, this is a very irresponsible heading for the post. Bit like “Obama denies he’s a Muslim” crap you get from the Republicans

  23. To those two last posts
    Where did Michael accuse Rogers of doing so? The title of the post is clearly questionned marked. As for “evidence” I believe the evidence that lead to this question was this one: “When I try to access RuinediPhone.com using Rogers Internet service, it yields a 403 error. Yet when I use a proxy service to access the site, it resolves without difficulty.”

    While it has been disproved (was definately a problem with DNS updating from the move that Rogers hadn’t refreshed), Michael adjusted his post. “Update: The site now appears to be resolving on Rogers. Seemingly a technical or DNS problem, rather than an effort to actually block the site. ”

    So please, enough with this.. “irresponsible post” flaming..

  24. Not sure
    Hmmm, I’m not so sure about this one. I don’t think slow DNS propagation should be subject to service providers. There may also be cases of the web host being slow. A recent domain transfer that I made was up in a matter of hours; that is, a good web host and Rogers’ DNS being very responsive.

    I know it’s subjective, but I wouldn’t be too fast jumping the gun and blaming Rogers for this one.

    Also. It seems the entire Internet has a bottleneck somewhere as of late. The most alarming aspects are that it’s not only affecting Canada, but the U.S. and the U.K., but no one has come forth with any information.

  25. Chris Hutcheson says:

    Maybe the host?
    Not sure who there ISP was, but if it was the same as their registrar – godaddy.com – that could explain the problem. They seem to have some reputation on the domain side, and as a relatively cheap hosting service, might have some restrictions on the traffic side as well. Working fine as of this AM as far as I can tell.

  26. matt roberts says:

    These comment are just plain silly.

    Prorogation is not a Rogers related issue. It shows a lack of web background on TLD information from the webmaster.

  27. Black Hat says:

    Slowness
    MCE wrote: “It seems the entire Internet has a bottleneck somewhere as of late. The most alarming aspects are that it’s not only affecting Canada, but the U.S. and the U.K., but no one has come forth with any information.”

    NSA, GCHQ, CSE, etc…. all doing their thing of spying on internet traffic. Makes one long for the good old days when they suspected individuals rather than everybody.

  28. Works from Atlantic CDa
    Just clicked on the link and it works from Aliant equipment.