Turkey: How to circumvent Turkey’s social media block

Access to several social media sites was blocked for over an hour in Turkey today during a reported military coup. Although internet traffic appears to be flowing normally again, Turkey’s government frequently responds to political events by blocking certain websites or throttling traffic. 

“We saw the throttling of connections from Turkey to Twitter and Facebook just after the reports of the coup in Turkey,” Doug Madory, the director of internet analysis at Dyn Research, told TechCrunch. “We did not see any problems with YouTube, but I have also seen others report problems accessing that website.” Livestreaming services like Twitter’s Periscope and Facebook Live appeared unaffected by the block. 

Overall, internet traffic in Turkey may have dropped by half, according to CloudFlare data. CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince tweeted, “From CloudFlare data, appears there’s about a 50% drop in Internet traffic coming out of Turkey.”

Turkish censorship of social media has been relatively easy to circumvent in the past — users could use DNS services like Google Public DNS to evade the blocks. But Turkey has become more sophisticated in how it blocks its citizens from accessing social media, according to Madory.

“This time Turkey appears to be restricting bandwidth when accessing social media. This represents a more sophisticated censorship technique that is harder to detect,” Madory said. “Users should still be able to circumvent it using a VPN, but the average user in Turkey may still not have that technology readily available.”

Click on the link below for the completer report and techniques for getting around internet blocks during times of turmoil:

Read more: How to circumvent Turkey’s social media block | TechCrunch

Terrorism: Terrorist groups need to be infiltrated and destroyed - cheaper than bombing and more effective

It is time to infiltrate terrorist organizations and destroy them

After the most recent terrorist attack in France, it seems their might also be an urgent need for a far more effective strategy than just the involvement of costly military operations.

First of all we should not label terrorists as good and bad ones - Daesh - Boko Haram, -PKK - Haqqani Network - Kataib Hezbolla - AL-Qaeda. They are all terrorist groups and should be labelled and treated as such.

Also for starters. Since just about every government in  the world is facing similar terrorist problems, cooperation and exchange of information between governments, in this respect, is not only important, but essential.

A "hot-line" for local citizens to call in every country, where they can confidentially report suspicious activities in their neighborhood certainly could be another effective tool to get a grip on these terrorist cells

In this context there should also be a financial reward system for people who can provide valuable information to the local authorities which leads to the arrest or elimination of terrorists.

Local government and the military should also develop training programs for individuals who can be used to infiltrate terrorist organizations via their recruitment programs and other means, to create internal chaos within terrorist organizations or destroy their chains of command.

Stopping terrorism can only happen when we are able to outsmart them.

© EU-Digest Editorial 

Britain: New PM in a confused, divided and troubled nation

Theresa May becomes Britain's prime minister http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/13/theresa-may-becomes-britains-prime-minister?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

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The Netherlands: Nine weird things to do in the Netherlands

And you thought the Netherlands was just about tulips, windmills and clogs. Don’t you believe it. There are some very strange places to check out indeed.

Visit the mummies of Wiewerd Wiewerd is a tiny hamlet built on terps – raised mounds – in deepest Friesland. The story goes that in 1765, carpenters working in the church found a crypt with 11 coffins containing bodies that had become mummified. They are thought to have been members of an obscure Christian sect called the Labadists who lived nearby. Four bodies and several mummified birds are in the crypt today – the missing bodies are thought to have been stolen by medical students at long gone Franeker university. To visit ring a bell on the church and someone from the village will come and open the door to let you in.

Get weighed to see if you are a witch The village of Oudewater near Utrecht features on most lists of the Netherlands’ prettiest villages but we consider it to be seriously strange. Forget the cobbled streets and canals – if you go to the town’s weigh house, they will find out if you are witch.

Visit 22 bits of Belgium, completely surrounded by the Netherlands Baarle Nassau is a town of some 6,000 people in Noord Brabant which contains rather large chunks of Belgium. In fact there are 22 little bits of Belgium in the locality, the smallest of which is named H22 and measures just 2,632 square metres.

Visit 22 bits of Belgium, completely surrounded by the Netherlands Baarle Nassau is a town of some 6,000 people in Noord Brabant which contains rather large chunks of Belgium. In fact there are 22 little bits of Belgium in the locality, the smallest of which is named H22 and measures just 2,632 square metres.

Go underground in Limburg The St Pietersburg caves in Limburg are not caves at all but mines – the result of 2,000 years of digging for marl – the mud stone used in building and agriculture. The digging, which began with the Romans, led to the creation of a labyrinth of 20,000 tunnels and passageways, many of which are covered in graffiti dating back centuries.The caves are also home to what the local tourist board says is the ‘largest and oldest underground Christmas market in Europe’. We cannot imagine there are any others….

Spend time in a village devoted to prisons In the depths of darkest Drenthe is the prison village of Veenhuizen which was developed in the early 19th century as a place where anti-social families, the jobless and the poor of Amsterdam were sent to be reformed.

Check out human and animal deformities Not for the fainthearted – the Vrolik Museum in the heart of the AMC medical centre in Amsterdam Zuidoost is devoted to pathological specimens – from jars containing club feet or Siamese twins to framed pieces of skin covered in tattoos.

Go as low as you can It is somewhat disconcerting to stand next to a lorry park not far from Rotterdam and imagine that you are nearly seven metres beneath the sea. The Zuidplas polder near Rotterdam is 6.76 below sea level, making it the lowest point in the Netherlands.

Have a drink in Sexbierum Okay, school boy humour we know, but Sexbierum must be one of the wackiest names for a Dutch village – perhaps even beating the charmingly named Muggenbeet (mosquito bite) in Overijssel. Unfortunately, the name of this Frisian village of under 2,000 souls does not derive from various vices but from a combination of the name of the pope Sixtus II and the Old Frisian word for house or barra.

Read more: Nine weird things to do in the Netherlands - DutchNews.nl

Cycling: Tour de France 2016, stage nine: Chris Froome retains yellow jersey as Dutchman Tom Dumoulin grabs brilliant win

It was not the greatest British sporting achievement of the day given events back in SW19, but it was another important step towards what would be a landmark moment to rival even a Wimbledon crown.

Chris Froome survived four seasons in one day on Sunday, battling through searing 35C heat in Spain, wind, rain, and later on, huge lumps of hail at the finish in Andorra, to keep hold of his yellow leader’s jersey at the Tour de France.

Dumoulin’s win, the first Tour stage win of the Dutchman’s career, was well deserved. The time trial specialist, who will be a key rival to Froome in that event in Rio next month, was part of the day’s main breakaway, and when that split up at the foot of the final climb, he attacked a small lead group, quickly opening up a 30-second lead. Rui Costa [Lampre-Merida] and Rafal Majka [Tinkoff] led the counter-attack but finished 38 seconds back.



 Read more: Tour de France 2016, stage nine: Chris Froome retains yellow jersey as Tom Dumoulin grabs brilliant win

Migrants - the Netherlands: Doubled numbers of migrants leave the Netherlands

 Twice as many migrants chose to leave the Netherlands in the first half of 2016 compared to the same period last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Its ‘assisted voluntary return and reintegration program’ has helped 2,500 migrants leave the Netherlands in 2016 – quite possibly for sunnier climes – compared with 1,288 in the same period last year. Most of these people came from Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, Mongolia, Serbia and Ukraine.

Last year the IOM’s international organisation helped 70,000 migrants leave the countries where they had taken refuge, and re-integrate on their return. ‘This was the largest number of voluntary returns registered in the past decades,’ says the organisation on its website.

‘The current migration trends seem to indicate that returns could increase in the years to come – not only in the number of migrants in need of assistance, but also in the complexity of the process.’


Read more: Doubled numbers of migrants leave the Netherlands - DutchNews.nl