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Turkish courts upheld the state ordered ban of Wikipediaon Friday, according to Voice of America. The crowdsourced encyclopedia has been inaccessible in Turkey since the end of April, asThe Washington Post reported, since the administration of Recep Tayyip Erdoandeclared it a threat to national security.

In response, hacktivists have made a copy of Turkish Wikipedia and posted it online using a new way of addressing web content called the InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS. The Turkish government cant block this copy of Wikipedia because the format uses a slew of open source technology to change the way our browsers retrieve data. Its a decentralized system, which allows the same set of data to live in multiple places while still enabling browsers to find any one of them with only a single address.

Turkey was able to block Wikipedia because the site has an address that goes to a real place (that place is a server), so if they block the wires that lead to that place, they can block the site. IPFS doesnt address data with a location, it addresses it by identifying the content itself. The system goes out and finds the nearest copy of that content. Block access to one copy, and it will just find another copy.

In a talk at TEDxSan Francisco, Juan Benet, the originator of IPFS, explains the shortcomings of the current way we address content on the web using the example of a physical library.

Imagine we could only reference books by the physical location of one copy, he says. So, in other words, you want to readTo Kill a Mockingbird. You go to look it up and the file catalog tells you that the only place you can find the book is in one library, in one room, against one wall and at the end of one shelf. When you go there and its not there, youre out of luck.

Of course, you didnt care about reading that exact copy ofTo Kill a Mockingbird.Youd be happy to read any copy. Thats what the IPFS does online. It encourages copies to live on lots of servers, and the internet works better when data doesnt have to retrieved from far away. It also knows how to verify that each copy is exactly the same, that not one bit of data has been changed.

We previously reported on a recent Spotify acquisition, Mediachain, that used similar technology to track the attribution of online content.

Pages change online all the time, but thats fine too. IPFS also knows how to keep track of versions of a file. It can show you the latest updateof a page, but it can also find prior versions. Version control is a critical aspect of how Wikipedia works as well, and it was key when we dug into the whitewashing of the entry concerning a noted 80s banking crook.

It isnt just state actors that can block our access to content. The current addressing system is vulnerable to large scale denial-of-service attacks. Even though most of these attacks arent able to take down sites or cant do it for long, they still end up costing service providers money, costs that they then forward on to us.

In a decentralized system, it would be very complicated to pull off a DDoS attack against every copy of a site, and even if an attacker found every copy, the publisher could just make more. It gives the good guys a way to go on the offensive.

The internet is the planets most important technology, Benet says in his talk, and he believes it can work better. This demonstration with a cached copy of a recent version of Turkish Wikipedia is a good early test.

Find the first copy the IPFS teamposted here. If updated versions are saved, the latest copy can always be found here. There are lots of other ways to find these files right now, though most of the others require some help from technical friends, but software to enhance the systems usability should be in the field very soon.

Moving forward, the IPFS developers hope to create a read/write version of Wikipedia, so the encyclopedia can function on IPFS the same way it does on HTTP now, permitting anyone who finds it to edit its content.

Which would also mean that no one could stop users from editing the site either, making its information nearly impossible to hide.

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Turkey Can't Block This Copy of Wikipedia - Observer

Wikipedia, which was blocked in Turkey two weeks ago, has been warned that its content gives the impression that Ankara supports terrorist organisations.

Turkey was accused of censorship after the move. Its telecommunications watchdog justified the decision under a law allowing websites to be banned if they are deemed obscene or a threat to national security.

On Thursday Turkeys transport minister elaborated on the decision as he spoke to broadcaster NTV.

There are many issues that disturb us but most importantly, we are very disturbed by the fact that Turkey is mentioned together with terrorist organisations and the fact that their publications include partial content on the perception that Turkey supports terrorist organisations, Ahmet Arslan said.

Local media have said the blocking was prompted by entries accusing Turkey of links to Islamist militant groups. After saying that Wikipedia had then refused to correct the wrong information with accurate information supplied by the government, the minister then appeared to offer the online encyclopaedia a way out: beginning by changing its content.

We want to have an interlocutor here and we want to them to pay the appropriate tax to Turkey within our tax legislation by opening an office. They make an income from their publications in Turkey so we want them to be eligible to pay tax by opening an office here. This is another part of the problem, Arslan went on.

Earlier this week broadcaster it was reported that Wikipedia had appealed to Turkeys Constitutional Court.

This came after a Turkish court rejected last Friday an appeal against the blocking by the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia. The court said that while freedom of speech was a fundamental right, it can be limited in cases where there is a necessity for regulation.

In the wake of the move against Wikipedia last month the countrys Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Ministry accused it of running a smear campaign, in a statement to the Andalou news agency.

On the same day, the Turkish government sacked nearly 4,000 more public officials in what appeared to be the latest purge related to a failed coup last July.

It was the second such move since President Erdogan narrowly won a controversial referendum increasing his powers.

Dozens of media outlets have been closed down and tens of thousands of officials, journalists and academics have been suspended or jailed on suspicion of having links to the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Erdogan of being behind the coup attempt a charge he denies.

The presidents critics fear that Turkey under his rule is becoming increasingly authoritarian and could even be sliding into dictatorship.

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Turkey spells out conditions to blocked site Wikipedia - euronews

It was all set up for John Guidetti to be Celta Vigo's hero on Thursday night against Manchester United in the Europa League semi-finals.

With the score at 1-1 and Celta needing another away goal to go through, the Swedish forward - a former Manchester City player who failed to make a Premier League appearance for the club - was presented with a golden opportunity to break United hearts deep into stoppage time at Old Trafford, but he fluffed his lines with the last kick of the game.

It would have been a particularly galling miss for Guidetti, especially as he had talked a good game in the build-up to the tie. And it seems as though revenge was sweet for United fans.

Because within seconds of his missed chance, Guidetti's Wikipedia page was altered to riff on his pain.

In the intro the description of the 25-year-old forward, it soon read: "he absolutely bottled it in the europa league semi final after giving it the Billy big b******* before the match."

Talk about kicking someone when they're down...

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Celta Vigo striker John Guidetti has Wikipedia page altered after last gasp Manchester United miss - Mirror.co.uk

ANKARA Online encyclopedia Wikipedia has appealed to Turkey's constitutional court against a government decision to block access to its website, broadcaster CNN Turk said on Tuesday, a case that has heightened concerns about censorship in Turkey.

Turkey's telecommunications watchdog said two weeks ago that access to Wikipedia had been blocked, citing a law allowing it to ban access to websites deemed a threat to national security.

The block on the site was prompted by two Wikipedia entries accusing Turkey of links to Islamist militant groups, local media have reported. The communications ministry has said Wikipedia was attempting to run a "smear campaign" against the country, saying some articles purported that Ankara was coordinating with militant groups.

A Turkish court on Friday rejected an appeal by the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, against the blocking, saying that while freedom of speech was a fundamental right, it can be limited in cases where there is a "necessity for regulation".

The Wikimedia Foundation has called for the Turkish government to restore full access to the site.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan)

SEOUL North Korea sent a rare letter of protest to the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday warning that a new package of tougher sanctions would only spur its development of nuclear weapons, North Korea's state media reported.

SEOUL Russia's President Vladimir Putin told his newly elected South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, in a phone call on Friday that he is ready to play a "constructive role" in resolving North Korea's nuclear threat, the South's presidential office said.

ERBIL, Iraq Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries launched an offensive on Friday to drive Islamic State from a desert region near the border with Syria as security forces fought the militants in the city of Mosul.

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Wikipedia appeals to Turkish constitutional court over website's blocking: CNN Turk - Reuters

Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia is appealing to a top Turkish court to overturn a government order that blocks access to its website for users in Turkey, broadcaster CNN Turk reported Tuesday.

The website appealed to Turkeys constitutional court, the countrys highest legal body. The ban on access to Wikipedia, which came down from the Turkeys telecommunications watchdog on April 29, followed two entries on the site that linked the Turkish government to Islamist militant groups.

The watchdog justified the decision by using a law that allows it to ban sites it deems to be a threat to national security. The communications ministry has accused the site of a smear campaign against the government, Reuters reported.

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The appeal to the top Turkish court comes after an Ankara court rejected an earlier appeal by the Wikimedia Foundation against the decision on Friday. The site, in its petition to the court, referred to freedom of expression clauses in the European Court of Human Rights and Turkeys constitutional court.

It said banning the entire site because of several pieces of content was not a legal basis for the decision. But, in rejecting the appeal, the local court said such sites could be restricted in some cases, referring to the countrys state of emergency, which remains in place since the failed military coup attempt last July.

Read more: Turkey lifts brief ban on Twitter as site takes down hostage pictures

Wikipedias block has resurfaced concerns about internet censorship in the country. The government has previously banned social media platforms including Twitter and YouTube because of content on those sites.

A laptop computer displays Wikipedia's front page showing a darkened logo on January 18, 2012 in London, England. Turkey has blocked access to the internet encyclopedia. Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also previously censured the constitutional courts decisions, pressuring the institution to tow the governments line on censorship and national security.

In March 2016, he slammed the court for freeing two newspaper editors critical of his leadership as a move against the country. Turkish authorities detained Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, then editor-in-chief and Ankara bureau chief of opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, in November 2015 for allegedly publishing state secrets. They held the pair for three months, until the court ruled that their jailing was unlawful because it violated their freedoms.

It subsequently ordered their release in February 2016. Erdogan said further actions by the court that opposed the governments position would bring into question the need for the courts existence.

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Wikipedia Appeals to Top Turkish Court Over Access Ban - Newsweek - Newsweek