Why everyone blocked orkut access?
It appears that Orkut is a victim of its own success! There are lot people who wants a complete ban on Orkut access. Already many countries have blocked Orkut access completely. Here are some examples,
1. Orkut is banned in UAE following allegations that it promotes “immorality”. Many in gulf countries believe that Orkut has a “corrupting influence on youth”.
2. Religious fanatics in India (Siva Sena and the like) is calling for a ban on Orkut. They want a ban because some of their heros are not very respected in some communities. In fact they went on to vandalize cybercafes in Mumbai.
3. Most of the companies already ban Orkut. They feel that “employee productivity” is seriously affected due to Orkut access.
The most funny thing is that there are millions of sites worse than Orkut in all the above cases. There are a lot of shocking “immoral” sites out there on the internet. There are dedicated hate sites against everyone. Every day sites are popping up which can be hardly called “productivity boosting”. Why is that only Orkut is targetted?
The reason is obvious. Orkut is an internet phenomenon. Many people use it to connect to friends, organize birthday parties and because of its “social factor”. The only thing is, not everyone is happy to see smiling faces all around! 
Another funny thing is people who are smart enough will find ways to circumvent the ban. There are millions of proxy sites out there and every day you have thousand new ones popping up!
How to access Myspace or meebo – Help! it is blocked at work / school
One of the frequent mails I get these days are from people asking how to access Myspace when it is blocked by firewall at office or school.
Here is the big disclaimer: If it is blocked, it means that you are not supposed to access the Website. Especially at work, if you use one of the methods listed here and get caught, you might loose your job!
Now admins employ two types for firewall blocks.
The first type actually blocks a fixed set of sites. In this case you can use any proxy sites available on the net and surf. Or you can setup your own proxy by getting a hosting account.
The second type actually blocks sites based on the content it has. Things are pretty hard in such a case since even when you go through the proxy, the content still gets filtered.
Now if you are really desperate, you can checkout my Top 10 ways to access banned Websites. Some recent proxy servers are given in the comments section.
Google censors Indian installations on Google earth
Finally it happened. Google has agreed to blur sensitive military and goverment buildings in India from Google earth. This follows discussions between Google executives and Indian beaurocrats. Surprisingly, simple blurring of images was acceptable to the Indian side.
BBC report says,
In a statement the search giant said: “Google has been talking and will continue to talk to the Indian government about any security concerns it may have regarding Google Earth.
“We are pleased to have initiated dialogue with the Indian government, the discussions have been substantive and constructive, but no agreements have been made.”
It added: “We have committed to continue the dialogue”.
In fact Google had no other option. They will have to continue with the censorship. Indians are too happy to ban Websites which are considered harmful to national integrity. Last year major blog sites such as blogspot and free hosting providers such as geocities were completely blocked by Indian ISPs on government order. It took sometime before the ban was revoked.
Indian president Abdul Kalam (who considers himself a geek) expressed his displeasure with Google earth many times before. He was of the opinion that Google earth may be used by terrorists to plan and execute attacks on Indian installations!