What's Changed?

[nahkit]

In the past, when I tried to access a website that was blocked in Thailand, I would get a message telling me that it was against the law to view that particular site.

Now, when I attempt to access a blocked site, I get a message saying "service unavailable" and "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later."

Underneath the message it then shows "Mara Systems".

So does this mean that Thailand has now moved to the single gateway?

[Lannig]

That's a possibility. I guess that the real check for this would be whether people using a different ISP from yours get the same message or not.

If they do, this is not necessarily a proof either. In the past, Thai ISPs were required to do a redirect from the banned IPs to that "green page" hosted on a government site (which was chronically overloaded BTW). It could just be that they moved that page to another hoster, possibily a contractor.

On the other hand, Mara Systems is a German company that provides caching proxy appliances and corporate internet access control solutions. It could be used by your ISP to do plain caching, in this case the message you're seeing could just be the result of the target site being blocked uplink. It could possibly also be used by your ISP to implement the blacklisting required by the government but in that case you'd see a more explicit message I think (well, if the thing has been properly set up, something that's not obvious in Thailand). Or it could possibly be indeed part of a "global" solution implemented by the government . It's hard to know at this point but if people get this same "Mara Systems" signature when trying to browse naughty pages from different ISPs, it's a hint towards a global solution being rolled out IMHO.

What ISP are you using? TOT? True? 3BB? CSLoxinfo? other?

Edited June 13, 2016 by Lannig

[ukrules]

I saw this over the weekend on 3BB, also Mara systems

[Digitalbanana]

Seeing it now with True.

[KhunBENQ]

Good observation, same here (ToT fibre).

"MARA Systems", a German network security company.

http://www.marasystems.com/

"Securing your Freedom"

The site comes from http://203.113.26.210 which belongs to ToT.

Can someone tell what he sees in the address line?

Edited June 14, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[johng]

I get the Mara systems page on TOT now too.

[Lannig]

Hmm.... seems to be either a really global thing or a "mandatory" filtering appliance that has been dispatched to all ISPs, each one their own box (or set of boxes).

The latter sounds more likely to me.

I'd bet on something that is "remotely administered" if you see what I mean. In the past Thai ISPs have been notoriously unreliable when it came to enforcing the blacklisting of sites as required.

Seems that they're getting serious on this.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Lannig

[ThaidDown]

Good observation, same here (ToT fibre).

"MARA Systems", a German network security company.

http://www.marasystems.com/

"Securing your Freedom"

The site comes from http://203.113.26.210 which belongs to ToT.

Can someone tell what he sees in the address line?

See the same 203.113.26.210 on True .

[Lannig]

Ah... we're back to the single, centralized thing hypothesis then...

TOT being government-owned, it makes sense.

[petedk]

Yes I seem to getting this now.

Just tried Daily Mail. No more green screen.... just the "service unavailable" and Mara Systems

But... one piece of good news.

I wrote in a previous thread about a website I couldn't access through True and got the same message - "service unavailable", but was able to access through AIS Wifi. I decided to call True and the girl was very friendly. She tried from her computer and couldn't access the website. She then told me that her private phone was an AIS phone and that she could open the website .

I can now open the website through True Internet.

Sometimes it does pay to complain.

[KhunBENQ]

Just tried Daily Mail. No more green screen.... just the "service unavailable" and Mara Systems

That's "funny".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

is and was (for quite a while) accessible via ToT.

Just tried it.

Still inconsistent.

Edited June 14, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[Lannig]

No surprise, despite being a government company, ToT has always been notoriously lax at enforcing the "mandatory" blacklists.

I remember comparing with a friend who was using True and I could get to many more "naughty" web sites than him.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Lannig

[nahkit]

That's a possibility. I guess that the real check for this would be whether people using a different ISP from yours get the same message or not.

If they do, this is not necessarily a proof either. In the past, Thai ISPs were required to do a redirect from the banned IPs to that "green page" hosted on a government site (which was chronically overloaded BTW). It could just be that they moved that page to another hoster, possibily a contractor.

On the other hand, Mara Systems is a German company that provides caching proxy appliances and corporate internet access control solutions. It could be used by your ISP to do plain caching, in this case the message you're seeing could just be the result of the target site being blocked uplink. It could possibly also be used by your ISP to implement the blacklisting required by the government but in that case you'd see a more explicit message I think (well, if the thing has been properly set up, something that's not obvious in Thailand). Or it could possibly be indeed part of a "global" solution implemented by the government . It's hard to know at this point but if people get this same "Mara Systems" signature when trying to browse naughty pages from different ISPs, it's a hint towards a global solution being rolled out IMHO.

What ISP are you using? TOT? True? 3BB? CSLoxinfo? other?

Sorry for the late reply.

I'm using TOT fibre.

Address line is http://203.113.26.210/?v0.42p1 same as others.

Edited June 15, 2016 by nahkit

[Aussie69]

"Securing your Freedom" hahahahahahahaha