Is NTHU Telegram blocked?
The illegal hidden camera forum “Creative Private Room” contains a large number of illegal images of minors and engages in transactions through a membership system, which has attracted public attention. The Digital Department quickly “shut down” the forum after the incident, requesting internet service providers to stop resolving the domain of “Creative Private Room” to prevent the public from accessing the illegal website.
However, the forum operators are suspected of moving to Telegram groups, so the Ministry of Health and Welfare had previously stated that Telegram may be completely blocked in Taiwan under two circumstances.
Further reading:
Creative Private Room moves to Telegram? Ministry of Health and Welfare: “In these 2 situations” Taiwan will be banned.
Since Telegram is a communication software highly relied upon by the cryptocurrency community, the release of this news has also caused many users to feel anxious and think that it seems to be an excessive response.
On May 17th, on the NTHU section of the Taiwanese social platform Dcard, a student posted a discussion article titled “Telegram has been blocked???”. The student stated that when they opened Telegram on campus, they encountered a warning message saying “The connected domain has stopped resolving due to involvement in criminal cases.” The article also provided a Domain Name System (DNS) screen, which seems to indicate that the domain was blocked through the “DNS Response Policy Zone” (DNS RPZ).
The DNS Response Policy Zone (DNS RPZ) is a policy established by the Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC), a non-profit organization that integrates domestic network critical infrastructure providers, to restrict the access of inappropriate or malicious domain names or IP addresses both domestically and internationally.
The reason Telegram was blocked at NTHU this time is mainly because the Hsinchu City Government bypassed TWNIC and directly sent letters to schools and telecommunication service providers at all levels. The NTHU Computer and Communication Center did not receive notification and approval from TWNIC after receiving the letter from the Hsinchu City Government, so they directly blocked access to Telegram.
Therefore, only students using the NTHU campus network encountered the situation of Telegram being blocked.
According to the normal process published by TWNIC, after the applicant submits an application, it should be reviewed by TWNIC before the RPZ members are notified. However, in recent years, more and more city and county governments have directly sent letters to school network units and network centers, and the government officials in charge also stated that “if the connections that should be connected are not working, they will only be criticized by users, but if the connections that should not be connected are working, they will be scolded by their superiors or face legal consequences.” Therefore, they directly stopped resolving without formally receiving the notification and approval from TWNIC.
Why did NTHU stop resolving Telegram?
Taiwanese information security engineer Yu Li-Heng also shared this incident on his personal Facebook page and commented, “The receiving unit (NTHU Computing Center) did not judge whether the relevant request was reasonable or simply executed the request, which resulted in the website using the NTHU network being unable to connect to Telegram.”
Yu Li-Heng explained that the advantage of TWNIC RPZ is that it can filter whether the requests from law enforcement agencies are reasonable or not before stopping the resolution. Therefore, TWNIC should have responded to the original unit, withdraw this unreasonable request, and inform all internet service providers to make corrections.
In the comments of the PTT discussion board, some netizens posted the leaked official document from the Hsinchu City Government, stating that the overseas platforms “oursogo, japaninporn, and Telegram” were requested to stop resolving the domains because they published images of underage children and did not restrict access or remove them, violating Article 8 of the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act. The request included many domestic universities, the Ministry of Education, the NCC, and major telecom operators such as FarEasTone and Chunghwa Telecom.
Some netizens shared that the main reason these specific units were listed is that they have their own DNS and have previously reported to TWNIC RPZ to apply for inclusion in the regional cooperative defense unit.
DNS RPZ has mandatory constraints on preventing domestic users from accessing inappropriate or malicious domain names, but this mandatory measure must be established on a legal and legitimate procedure.
According to TWNIC’s official statement, there are two situations covered by TWNIC DNS RPZ policy model regulations:
1. Based on court judgments/orders or administrative agency orders
2. Domain names that have security concerns and significantly impact cybersecurity
The nature of removal is mainly based on legal actions and the recognition that critical infrastructure has an obligation to maintain cybersecurity.
This incident has sparked a lot of discussion among netizens, and many feel that the approach of blocking the network seems excessive and somewhat like “finding loopholes”. Many netizens commented, “Line and Facebook scams will never disappear”, “NTHU blocked it themselves, they shouldn’t use the DNS RPZ page.” Yu Li-Heng also commented on May 19, saying that TWNIC has already notified these network access units not to stop resolving without reason.