In an effort to ramp up the monitoring of internet security, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has directed all ISPs to prevent internet users from using technology that would allow them to privately browse the internet.

A PTA spokesman said that the directive was intended only to stop militants from using secure internet connections to communicate with each other, but admitted that this could only be done by preventing all internet users in Pakistan from using VPNs.

The source said that ISPs are unable to block specific URLs on websites and have to block the whole domain.

The operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway system temporarily shut down cell service last night in four downtown San Francisco stations to interfere with a protest over a shooting by a BART police officer, a spokesman for the system said today.

Activists had planned to protest the fatal shooting of Charles Blair Hill, who BART police said went after them with a knife before an officer shot him on July 3.

The music industry will waste no time in demanding ISPs immediately block illegal music websites following last week's landmark court decision requiring BT to prevent its customers accessing pirate website Newzbin2.

If ISPs do not block these sites voluntarily, the BPI will ratchet up the pressure and will seek court orders - citing 97A and the MPA case - requiring them to do so.

Israel had tracked the activists on social media sites like Facebook, compiled a blacklist of about 300 names and asked airlines to keep those on the list off flights to Israel.

"Lufthansa called me last night and said I would not be allowed to board their plane because Israel denied me entry," Beatt said.

An EasyJet spokesman in Geneva, Adrian Fuhrer, said 40 people were prevented from boarding the plane at the request of Israeli authorities.

The group is attempting to influence public policy with a desperate-sounding and confused in places confidential submission to minister for the internets Ed Vaizey, who discussed the proposal at a meeting of stakeholders (including ISPs) last Wednesday.

The eight-page memo makes copious yet unsubstantiated reference to rights and freedoms, yet calls for a court-overseen blocking scheme "speedy enough to deal with urgent time sensitive material (such as live events)".

Does a "focus" on infringement actually include providing copyright-infringing content, or does this also include sites that link to copyrighted content? Techdirt recently reported archive.org and Vimeo were on Universal Music's list of "sites that support piracy".

Under the new controls, more than 700 pornographic and copyright infringing websites have been shut down. Individuals have also been banned from registering domain names ending in .cn, which is now now limited to registered businesses in China.

"Not just film and video sites are affected. All websites owned by individuals will gradually exit the arena. All paths leading to a future have been blocked."

"They are basically improving their censorship mechanisms," she said.

The censorship comes after protests erupted in the region when an ethnic Mongolian shepherd was run over by an ethnic Han truck driver, according to human rights groups. Ethnic Mongolians in the region have taken to the streets, prompting authorities to declare martial law in some of the cities.

The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center said on its website that China's most popular instant messenger service QQ, which helped organize the mass protests, has been shutdown in the region.

Among the new targets are two sites that linked to copyrighted films hosted on third party streaming sites such as megavideo.com and veoh.com.

The authorities are also aware of the fact that the domain seizures themselves are not really an effective tool. As pointed out before, more than half of the piracy-related domains that were seized by Operation In Our Sites simply continued under a different name.

Morton replied to this critique by emphasizing that the seizures also act as "public education about pirating."

The U.S. Department of Justice would receive the power to seek a court order against an allegedly infringing Web site, and then serve that order on search engines, certain Domain Name System providers, and Internet advertising firms--which would in turn be required to "expeditiously" make the target Web site invisible.

Any copyright holder also could file a lawsuit and seek to levy a less dramatic form of Internet punishment, blocking only "financial transactions" and "Internet advertising services" from doing business with the suspected infringer.

The request came from officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency under the Department of Homeland Security that in February took the unprecedented step of seizing domain names accused of streaming live pay-per-view sporting events.

According to a blog post published on Thursday by Mozilla General Counsel Harvey Anderson, ICE officials alleged MafiaaFire circumvented their seizure order and asked Mozilla to remove it.