AboveNet and TeleGlobe are backbone providers; they provide connectivity to ISP's, which then sell Internet access to the general public. Your Internet connection may go through AboveNet or TeleGlobe even if you don't know it, if your ISP uses AboveNet or TeleGlobe as their backbone provider.
Both AboveNet and TeleGlobe have been blocking their downstream users from accessing sites that are on their "boycott list"; Peacefire.org is one of the sites that has been blocked. AboveNet stopped filtering customers' Web access on December 12, 2000, on the same day that the story became public, but TeleGlobe is still blocking their users.
Peacefire.org is, of course, already blocked by most blocking software programs and "family friendly ISP's" because of our instructions for disabling censorware. Ironically, this time we were not filtered because of the content on our site, but because we were located in the same IP address block as some other sites, such as http://www.list-sorcerer.com/, that sell mass mailing list software.
However, most users downstream from AboveNet or TeleGlobe did not request filtered Internet access and have no idea that they are blocked from accessing any Web sites. If you were downstream from one of these providers and you tried to access a blocked site, you would get a "Site not responding" message from your browser, leading users to think that the site was down, and not that it was blocked by their ISP.
To find out if your Internet connection goes through AboveNet
or TeleGlobe, open a DOS prompt (if you have Windows) and type
tracert www.yahoo.com
If you don't see "above.net" or "teleglobe.net" in the output
anywhere, then your Internet access is not filtered by them.
To access a blocked site such as
http://www.peacefire.org/,
use a URL of the form:
http://a6.g.akamaitech.net/6/6/6/6/www.peacefire.org/
If you have questions about the information on this page, you can contact AboveNet at 888-298-5566 or by visiting http://www.abovenet.com/, or contact TeleGlobe at 800-318-3005 or by visiting http://www.teleglobe.com/.