questions about whitelisted internet for jammu and kashmir
TRANSCRIPT
Questions about Whitelisted Internet for Jammu and Kashmir
Submission prepared by Rohini Lakshané (The Bachchao Project) and Prateek Waghre (The Takshashila Institution) 1
February 3, 2020
Executive summary 1
Background 3
Summary of results 5
Supporting information for questions 6
Addendum - 1 12
Addendum - 2 25
Addendum - 3 75
1 https://thebachchaoproject.org and https://takshashila.org.in
Executive summary This document contains questions for the Ministry of Home Affairs based on the outcome of a usability testing exercise conducted by the submitters on the 301 entries whitelisted for Internet access in Jammu and Kashmir . 2
The websites were tested in a simulated environment in which only the domain names explicitly listed could be accessed. The analysis focused on whether these 301 entries/ websites would be practically usable under these conditions. Results of the analysis
● 58 websites were practically usable. 3
● 68 websites were partially usable. 4
● 144 websites were not usable in any meaningful way. 5
● 31 websites could not be analysed as the information provided was inadequate/incorrect.
The analysis demonstrated that this whitelisting approach is not technically feasible, especially for a large population, nor is it practically workable. It also simultaneously raised questions about the whitelisting exercise as a whole, which need to be urgently addressed by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
1. What were the process and criteria applied to select these specific URLs/ services/ websites to be on the whitelist?
2. What were the process and criteria applied to reject some services provided by the government from the whitelist?
3. What were the process and criteria, if any, to reject websites and services that are similar to those whitelisted and those that provide the same or comparable services?
4. How were the residents of Jammu and Kashmir informed about this whitelist, that these specific services/ websites had become accessible?
5. Were recommendations sought from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) with regard to the violation of Net Neutrality? If so, what recommendations did TRAI put forward?
6. What were the criteria for blocking VPN services? 7. What, if any, technical testing was conducted to ensure smooth operation of the
whitelisted websites?
2 Lakshané, Rohini and Waghre, Prateek. Even the 301 whitelisted sites in Jammu and Kashmir are not entirely accessible: An analysis, Medianama, January 28, 2020. https://www.medianama.com/2020/01/223-analysis-of-whitelisted-urls-in-jammu-and-kashmir-how-usable-are-they Last accessed February 1, 2020. 3 Practically Usable: Main features were not affected OR the website offered limited functionality to begin with that wasn’t impacted. 4 Partially Usable: Some features (mainly display of textual information) were still functional 5 Practically Not Usable: Website is unusable as some key features are not functional OR visual elements were missing/ broken to such an extent that it could not be used.
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8. What, if any, was the review process put in place for the list? 9. In view of all the above questions, how will the authorised government officers
“ensure implementation of these directions in letter and spirit,'' as stated in paragraph 7 of the order dated January 14?
The document also includes three addenda.
● Addendum 1: This section contains a detailed write-up about the method of testing, its limitations, our observations based on our findings, and questions and comments about the role of ISPs in implementing the whitelist.
● Addendum 2: This section includes the test results and observations for each of the 301 entries in the whitelist contained in the order dated 24 January.
● Addendum 3: This section contains the test results and observations for new entries made to the whitelist specified by the order dated January 31. Since this version of the list removed the “Field” column present in the previous ones, the new entries it contains have been analysed separately, so that categories used for the analysis of 301 entries are not affected.
About the submitting organisations The Bachchao Project is a techno-feminist collective that undertakes community-centric efforts to develop and support open source technologies and technical frameworks with the goals of mitigating gender-based violence and working towards equal rights for women, LGBTQIA people, and gender non-conforming groups. TBP conduct research and advocacy in all the above areas and guide communities in determining appropriate technological interventions for themselves. The Takshashila Institution is an independent centre for research and education in public policy. It is a non-partisan, non-profit organisation that advocates the values of freedom, openness, tolerance, pluralism and responsible citizenship. It seeks to transform India through better public policies, bridging the governance gap by developing better public servants, civil society leaders, professionals and informed citizens.
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Background Under three orders (dated January 14 , 18 and 24 ) issued by the government of Jammu 6 7 8
and Kashmir: 1. Internet connectivity at 2G speeds would be reinstated on postpaid mobile
connections in 10 districts of Jammu Division and 2 of Kashmir Division. 2. “The internet speed shall be restricted to 2G only.” 3. 400 additional Internet kiosks are to be installed in Kashmir. 4. Social media websites, peer-to-peer (P2P) communication apps, and Virtual Private
Networks (VPNs) services have been explicitly prohibited. 5. ISPs are to provide wired broadband to companies engaged in “Software (IT/ ITES)
Services”. 6. For wired connections, Paragraph II of the order dated January 24 states, “For fixed
line Internet connectivity: Internet connectivity shall be [made] available only after Mac-binding. [sic]”
7. Voice and SMS functionality would be restored on prepaid mobile connections across all districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
8. For providing internet access on locally-registered pre-paid mobile connections, telecom service providers or “TSPs shall initiate a process of verification of credentials of these subscribers as per the norms applicable for postpaid connections”.
9. “The ISPs shall be responsible for ensuring that access is allowed to whitelisted sites only.”
10. The order dated January 14 states that it “may be subject to further revision” after which the department would conduct “a review of the adverse impact, if any, of this relaxation on the security situation.'' According to the order released on January 24, “the law enforcement agencies have reported no adverse impact so far. However, they have expressed apprehension of misuse of terror activities and incitement of general public…”
11. “Whitelisting of sites shall be a continuous process,'' which could be interpreted to mean that the government would periodically update the list.
Thus, an ordinary Internet user in Jammu and Kashmir accessing the Internet under this whitelist arrangement would be doing so via 2G mobile connections or Internet kiosks placed inside government offices.
6 Order number Home - 03-[TSTS] of 2020, Home Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Issued on January 14, 2020, http://www.jkhome.nic.in/03(TSTS)%202020.pdf [PDF]. Last accessed February 1, 2020. 7 Order number Home - 04-[TSTS] of 2020, Home Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Issued on January 18, 2020, http://www.jkhome.nic.in/Temporary%20suspension%20of%20Telecom%20services_0001.pdf [PDF]. Last accessed February 1, 2020. 8 Order number Home - 05-[TSTS] of 2020, Home Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, January 24, 2020, http://jkhome.nic.in/Home-05(tsts)%20of%202020_0001.pdf [PDF]. Last accessed February 1, 2020.
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Summary of results
Number of entries in the whitelist 301
Number of duplicate entries 13
Number of invalid URLs 4
Number of entries with no specified URL and no qualifying information about the website/ service
8
Number of inconclusive/ indeterminate entries
6
Number of URLs after validation and deduplication
270
Number of websites that are practically usable
58 Most of these websites are largely comprised of textual information.
Number of websites that are practically partially usable
68 Some important features are adversely impacted.
Total number of websites usable to some degree
126
Total number of websites not practically usable.
144
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Supporting information for questions 1. What were the process and criteria applied to select these specific URLs/
services/ websites to be on the whitelist? In the orders dated January 14, 18 and 24, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir cites the use of the Internet for the following activities/ purposes as some of the reasons for implementing the total Internet blackout in Kashmir: “terrorism/terror activities”, activities of “anti-national elements”, “rumour-mongering”, “spread of propoganda/ ideologies”, “targeted messaging to propagate terrorism”, “fallacious proxy wars”, “causing disaffection and discontent” among people, and the “spread of fake news”. In light of this explanation, what were the process and criteria applied to select these specific URLs/ services/ websites to be on the whitelist?
2. What were the process and criteria applied to reject some services provided by the government from the whitelist? For the purpose of providing context, we would like to cite some examples. It is to be noted that these examples are illustrative, not exhaustive.
a. The whitelist comprising 301 entries, which was issued on January 24 covers the gov.in, nic.in, and ac.in eTLDs . Thus, one of the websites of NIMHANS 9
(http://nimhans.ac.in) becomes accessible but not another (https://nimhans.co.in).
b. The websites of the different AIIMS in the country remain inaccessible. (https://www.aiims.edu; https://www.aiimsjodhpur.edu.in; http://aiimsrishikesh.edu.in; and so on.)
c. Web searches conducted with the string “government college site:edu.in” and “institute site:edu.in” reveal that several public educational institutions and autonomously-run government institutions have been left out of the list, including those located with Jammu and Kashmir (such as http://www.cusrinagar.edu.in and http://clujammu.in)
d. As for other eTLDs in the .in registry, there is no res.in domain on the whitelist. These domains are registered to publicly-funded Indian research institutes.
e. There is no ernet.in domain on the list. ERNET (Education and Research NETwork) is an autonomous scientific society of MeITy.
f. No internationalised domain names owned by public entities in India , such 10
�व�या.भारत (Transliteration: vidya.bharat) and सरकार.भारत (Transliteration: sarkar.bharat) are on the list.
9 “eTLD” or “effective top-level domain” is a term used for domain names that are TLDs, not actually but in effect, because they are the branching points for domain names. Source: https://github.com/golang/net/blob/master/publicsuffix/list.go. Nic.in is not an official eTLD but is used like one by government institutions (Source: Public Suffix List https://publicsuffix.org/list/public_suffix_list.dat). Other example of eTLDs: com.au and co.uk 10 Source: https://www.registry.in/print/877 Last accessed February 1, 2020
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3. What were the process and criteria applied, if any, to reject websites and
services that are similar to those whitelisted and those that provide the same or comparable services? For context
a. Travel: Travel websites such as EasyMyTrip, Cleartrip, Trivago, MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, Ixigo, Yatra, Redbus, Oyo Rooms, etc. have been included. However, others such as Agoda, Expedia, Kayak, Hotels.com, Booking.com etc. have not been included.
b. Online shopping/e-commerce: Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, Jabong, Indiamart, Quikr, Olx feature on the whitelist, but not Snapdeal, Ebay and others.
c. Education: The list includes private coaching centres such as Byju’s, Akash and Resonance but not semi-public or private colleges and universities in India located outside Jammu and Kashmir.
4. How were the residents of Jammu and Kashmir informed about this whitelist,
that these specific services/ websites had become accessible? All social media websites continue to be blocked. Only 60 websites categorised as “News” were added to the whitelist as per the January 24 order. The orders will appear in an issue of the gazette, which is just one source of information and not accessible by everybody. Since the orders include effective dates, it is evident that the whitelist is being updated periodically through a series of orders. A news report states that the Home Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir is adding websites on an “informal”, ad-hoc basis before issuing the corresponding orders or public notifications . Therefore, how will the residents of Jammu and Kashmir be informed 11
that additional websites have been made accessible?
5. Were recommendations sought from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) with regard to the violation of Net Neutrality? If so, what recommendations did the TRAI put forward? Only specific websites under the following categories are allowed.
● Automobiles ● Banking ● Education ● Employment
11 “After it was brought to our attention that some news websites were missing from the list, like Indian Express, we white-listed all the news portals. Even the local news portals of Jammu and Kashmir, despite them not being on the list in the official order can be accessed on 2G internet,” Shaleen Kabra, Principal Secretary to the government home department said. Source: https://thewire.in/rights/kashmir-internet-white-list-net-neutrality
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● Entertainment ● Mail ● News ● Ngo’s [sic] ● Search Engines ● Technology updates ● Travel ● Utilities ● Weather ● Web service
This selection has the potential to create an uneven playing field in favour of the websites included in the whitelist, and thereby may be considered to be a violation of the principle of Net Neutrality put forward by TRAI in February 2016. For example, 12
the inclusion of Amazon and Flipkart while excluding other similar services such as Snapdeal and Ebay as well as restricting the ability of local sellers who transact by communication over messaging platforms such as Whatsapp puts the latter at a huge disadvantage. This extends to excluded websites across all categories.
6. What were the criteria for blocking VPN services?
Does the Ministry of Home Affairs hold the position that an internet shutdown constitutes a legitimate basis for blocking virtual private network (VPN) services as indicated in paragraph 2, section I of Order number Home - 05-[TSTS] of 2020, Home Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir, January 24, 2020?
i. Access shall be limited only to the whitelisted sites and not to any social media applications allowing peer to peer communications and Virtual Private Network applications;
Consequently, is the Ministry of the view that the enforcement of the whitelist is a continuation of the internet shutdown in place since August 5, 2019 as per the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, 2017.
7. What, if any, technical testing was conducted to ensure smooth operation of the whitelisted websites?
Modern websites perform many operations that are invisible to ordinary users. This ranges from simple tasks such as loading images and style elements of a page to the use of content delivery networks, payment services (gateways) and analytics services. Typically, these utilise domain names which are different from the website address that a user would enter in their browser. Thus, in an environment where these additional domains are blocked, it is very likely that the normal functioning of a
12 Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20160209062517/http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Regulation_Data_Service.pdf
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website will be affected. In the course of this analysis, it was observed that websites were visually affected to varying degrees:
a. Minimal visible impact. b. Some images did not load c. None of the images loaded. d. Critical functions became unresponsive, such as, search in the case of some
OTAs (online travel agents) e. The entire layout scheme was broken. f. While the analysis did not test payment transactions, it is reasonable to
expect that they would fail as they rely on domains maintained by the operator of the payment gateway.
Since the analysis was conducted from a user’s perspective, it did not consider the impact on analytics and monitoring tools used by website owners as a point of failure. However, it must be noted that this poses a significant business challenge to website owners and operators.
Screenshot of www.amazon.in
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Screenshot indicating broken page layout
Considering the number of technical issues raised by this exercise, it is important to seek information regarding the full list of measures that were taken to ensure smooth operation of websites.
8. What, if any, review process has been put in place for the list?
A quick manual scan of the whitelist revealed the following issues:
● Duplicate entries: 13 ● Invalid URLs: 4 ● No URLs provided: 8 (7 streaming services and Jio Chat) ● Inconclusive/Indeterminate entries: 6 ● Banking websites: For security reasons, banking websites usually redirect to
a different domain to enable a user to log in and access personal banking services. If these domains are not on the whitelist, they will be inaccessible and a user will not be able to log in. Of the 15 websites categorised under “Banking” in the whitelist, only 2 (www.jkbankonline.com and www.westernunion.com) had accessible log-in pages/sections and all 15
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had at least one identifiable issue when they were tested with the whitelist restrictions in place.
● Search engines: ○ The whitelist did not include Indian subdomains (google.co.in,
in.search.yahoo.com) which means that users may not be able to access them, whether they type it manually or get redirected to the Indian domain of the search engine based on language or browser settings.
○ The list included Canadian and UK subdomains for Google. It also included the Canadian and French-Canadian versions of Yahoo Search. There was also no justification provided for the exclusion of Indian locales while including non-Indian locales.
○ While conducting a search was possible, a user could only successfully navigate to results from websites that were on the whitelist (subject to how they worked as determined by our testing). For websites not on the whitelist, the information contained in the snippets was readable on the search results page, but not beyond it.
Thus, it is necessary to seek information regarding:
1. What kinds of checks and balances were put in place to review the list before its release?
2. What measures will be introduced for any future updates to the list?
9. In view of all the above questions, how do the authorised government officers “ensure implementation of these directions in letter and spirit'', as stated in paragraph 7 of the order dated January 14?
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Addendum - 1 This section contains a detailed write-up about:
● The role of ISPs ● Observations ● Method ● Limitations
The role of ISPs The whitelist and its accompanying orders raise some concerns about ISPs’ implementation of the whitelist.
1. In the case of the entries that contain neither URLs nor qualifying information about including subdomains or about permitting mobile applications, it should not be left to the discretion of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to determine the appropriate URLs or the appropriate mode of access (mobile or desktop application, mobile or desktop version) of a whitelisted service or website. ISPs are intermediaries and are not authorised to take a judgement call on the orders they receive from the government. Moreover, the whitelist orders explicitly state that the onus of ensuring that sites outside the whitelist remain inaccessible is on the ISPs (“The ISPs shall be responsible for ensuring that access is allowed to whitelisted sites only.”)
2. In the case of invalid or indeterminate URLs, how are whitelisted entries to be implemented? What are the options for an ISP to seek clarifications about these from the government?
3. ISPs have been directed to provide wired broadband to companies in Jammu and Kashmir engaged in “Software (IT/ ITES) Services”. In view of the fact that the terms IT (information technology) and ITES (information technology enabled services) cover a broad range of commercial activities, how is this directive going to be operationalised?
4. In a recently published paper analysing how ISPs in India block websites, researchers at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) found that ISPs and governments were not willing to disclose the URLs that were blocked. The study also found that less than 30% blocked URLs were common across the ISPs included in the study, and different ISPs used different techniques to implement blocklists. This is indicative of arbitrary action on the part of individual ISPs. It is also likely that Internet users have limited recourse owing to the lack of transparency in censoring websites. When combined with the need for ISPs to exercise their own discretion/ judgement in implementing these orders (as argued in 1), there is plenty of potential for inconsistent enforcement by ISPs.
5. It is unclear how ISPs will actually implement this whitelist. If the filtering is done at the DNS layer, then the number of practically unusable websites will likely be higher than what we encountered, since the DNS resolution process itself is likely to be broken for any website that returns anything other than an A record/ IP Address.
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Observations
1. Entries with no URL 1. Media-services providers/Streaming services
There are 7 streaming services on the list: Amazon Prime, Netflix, Sony Liv, Zee 5, Hotstar, Voot, and Airtel TV. They support viewing on desktop browsers and mobile apps. This may be a reason why the whitelist only states their names and not the corresponding URLs. Assuming that these services are enabled for use on both desktop and mobile applications, they will still be practically unusable because:
1. Only 2G speeds are currently permitted in Jammu and Kashmir. 2G speeds are too slow for streaming audio-video and multimedia content.
2. Streamed content is delivered over CDN (content delivery network) URLs, none of which are present on the current whitelist.
2. JioChat JioChat is an iOS and Android instant messaging app that supports voice 13
and video calling. It is the only service on this whitelist that supports these functionalities. It is unlikely that this app would be practically usable for video/voice calls because 2G speeds are too slow for it.
2. Government-owned eTLDs The whitelist includes three entries for government-owned eTLDs (effective top-level domains, also known as “public suffixes”): “Gov.in”, “Nic.in” and “Ac.in”. The entries do not contain URLs or qualifying information about including subdomains. It should be explicitly stated if ISPs are expected to allow gov.in, nic.in, ac.in and all their subdomains. For example, gov.in houses four levels of subdomains. Currently, it is unclear how the general public and the ISPs will interpret such entries on the whitelist since these entries do not contain adequate information. (The directory of Indian government websites is available at http://goidirectory.nic.in.)
3. Banking and finance services Log-in pages are on domains or subdomains different from those listed in the whitelist, which is why these services are not practically usable regardless of whether the actual whitelisted URL is accessible/usable. For example,
a. The website of ICICI Bank https://www.icicibank.com is whitelisted. However, the URL to log-in to personal banking at ICICI is on a subdomain of the website, https://infinity.icicibank.com, which is not whitelisted. So, individuals with an account at ICICI Bank, will not be able to access their accounts online.
13 JioChat https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jiochat.jiochatapp&hl=en
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b. While https://www.hdfc.com has been whitelisted, HDFC Bank’s personal banking services are on a different domain, https://www.hdfcbank.com, which will remain inaccessible.
Since VPNs and proxy services are prohibited, hence an ordinary user would be unable to circumvent restrictions imposed by the whitelist. Of the 15 websites categorised under “Banking” in the whitelist, only 2 (www.jkbankonline.com and www.westernunion.com) had accessible log-in pages/sections and all 15 had at least one identifiable issue when they were tested with the whitelist restrictions in place.
4. CDN, sub-domains and third-party content The State of the Web maintained by HTTP Archive indicates that the median number of requests on a webpage for mobile devices is approximately 70. These requests are spread across subdomains of the website, domains owned by content delivery networks (CDNs) such as akamaized.net, cloudfront.net, cloudflare.net, etc. and third-party domains such as Google Analytics, tag managers, real user monitoring tools, advertisers and so on. The whitelist approach interferes with these requests and more often than not, results in an adverse impact on the functioning of the website itself. In our analysis, we observed that this affected websites to varying degrees:
1. Minimal visible impact 2. Some images do not load 3. None of the images load. 4. Critical functions become unresponsive, such as, search in the case of some
OTAs (online travel agents) 5. The entire layout scheme breaks
Example 1: Consider www.amazon.in. The request map shows that a significant number of requests are made to domains other than www.amazon.in. Since these requests will be blocked, the website will barely function for the user accessing behind the whitelist. This is evident from the screenshot of the landing-page.
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Request Map for www.amazon.in
Screenshot of www.amazon.in
Example 2: In case of the website of the Indian Railways, www.irctc.co.in, once again, the request map indicates a large number of requests to other domains. This results in breaking the layout of the page (as is evident in the screenshot), as well as the operation of the website.
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Example 3: The website of the Public Works Department of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, www.jkpwdrb.nic.in, sends no requests to other domains as indicated by the request map. Thus, the whitelist restrictions have no visible impact. It should be noted that this kind of website setup is uncommon.
Request map for www.jkpwdrb.nic.in
Screenshot of www.jkpwdrb.nic.in
5. Search Engines The updated list in the January 24 order contains 10 hostnames classified as search engines and www.bing.com classified under utilities.
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a. The whitelist did not include Indian subdomains (google.co.in, in.search.yahoo.com) which means that users may not be able to access them, whether they type it manually or get redirected to the Indian domain of the search engine based on language or browser settings.
b. The list included Canadian and UK subdomains for Google. It also included the Canadian and French-Canadian versions of Yahoo Search. There was also no justification provided for the exclusion of Indian locales while including non-Indian locales.
c. We also found that while conducting a search was possible, a user could only successfully navigate to results from websites that were on the whitelist (subject to how they worked as determined by our testing). For websites not on the whitelist, the information contained in the snippets was readable on the search results page, but not beyond it.
So we have categorised search engines as ‘partially usable’.
6. News/Technology Updates The updated list in the January 24 order also contains 74 websites categorised as “News” (60) and “Technology Updates” (14).
a. There was a mix of regional, national and international websites. b. Audio/podcast and video content for all of these sites was either delivered
from subdomains/CDN domains or YouTube. Hence, it did not work. c. International publications such as The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal
and The New York Times allow limited views before enforcing a paywall. However, their sign-in pages were not accessible. In such cases, even if the websites were minimally visually affected, they were categorised as ‘practically not usable’.
d. For the rest, we observed that the impact to page layout varied in degrees: i. All pages and UI elements were broken. ii. Only Home page was broken. iii. Only subsection pages were affected. iv. Only article pages were not affected.
The categorisation between usable, partially usable and not usable was done on the basis of how easy or difficult it was to consume content and navigate within each website.
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Screenshot indicating broken page layout
7. Additional Observations a. Mail: The whitelist included 4 webmail services. However, none were usable
since the sign-in pages required navigating to domains that were not on the whitelist. They have been categorised as ‘practically not usable’.
b. Entertainment: The updated list from the January 24 order also included 7 entertainment sites along with URLs which made testing them possible (this is
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in contrast to the 6 listed in the January 18 order that did not include URLs and only named the services). Only one (https://wynk.in) of these was able to stream content successfully. It was categorised as ‘practically usable’ even though it may be difficult to stream content on a 2G network. 6 out of 7 have been categorised as ‘practically not usable’. It should be noted that such content is typically consumed on apps which were not tested as a part of this exercise. Apps generally use different hostnames to request for resources.
c. Official websites of apps: The whitelist includes Gingerlabs.com, the official website for the note-taking mobile app Notability. Another entry, Kinemaster.com is the official website of the eponymous video-editing app for Android and iOS. The website enables users to get user support and interact with the community of users. For the purpose of this analysis, the websites were tested and categorised as per their usability. It should be noted that new downloads would not be possible since the Apple App Store and Google Play Store are not included in the whitelist. It is also unclear if users who already have these apps installed will be able to use them since the apps may not use the same domain(s) to make requests.
d. URLs that contain paths: Two URLs on the whitelist contain specific paths (www.marutisuzuki.com/MarutiSuzuki/Car and https://www.heromotocorp.com/en-in/). It is unclear how ISPs could whitelist these two entries without whitelisting the domains Marutisuzuki.com and Heromotocorp.com.
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Method
Part 1: Testing URLs on an unrestricted Internet connection To test if all entries in the list were functioning, we first accessed them using an India IP address on an unrestricted 4G connection. The ones that were not functional were categorised as:
a. Invalid URL: 4 URLs are invalid. One (www.hajcommitee.gov.in) contains a typographical error. 3 others are badly formed (https://www.google.com > gmail; https://oppo-in; www.google.com > chrome [sic]).
b. Duplicate URL: 13 URLs were found to be duplicates of other entries. 3 URLs are present on the list along with their respective redirected versions. For instance, www.trivago.com redirects to https://www.trivago.in, both of which are present on the whitelist. We excluded the former from our analysis, and considered the redirected version. The other two instances are Airtel.in and Cleartrip.com.
c. Entries with no URL specified: We have excluded 8 entries that are names of services and not URLs. 7 of these are media services providers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
d. Inconclusive entry/indeterminate URL: 6 URLs returned an error message and were excluded. 3 of those -- Gov.in, Nic.in and Ac.in -- did not include a protocol (http:// or https://) or the www prefix. The DNS registration for Gov.in and Nic.in had also expired as indicated by WHOIS at the time of writing this analysis.
The results have been logged and categorised according to this schema in the detailed analysis:
Is the URL accessible? This column logs the results of a preliminary check for URLs that lead to error messages, such as broken links and websites/ webpages that are misconfigured. The results are categorised as: Yes: The URL is accessible Invalid URL; Duplicate URL; No URL specified; Inconclusive entry/ Indeterminate URL: The URL or whitelist entry are not accessible for reasons described above.
Does the URL redirect to another?
The column indicates whether a URL redirects to another URL by default. Categorised as: Yes/ No
Redirects to This column specifies the redirect target URL, if it exists. Categorised as: No redirect https: The initial URL on the whitelist either contains http or no protocol is specified. It redirects by default to its https version, with the rest of the URL being identical. For example,
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www.moneycontrol.com on the whitelist redirects by default to https://www.moneycontrol.com. <URL>: The initial URL on the whitelist redirects by default to a URL with a different path or prefix. In such cases, the redirect target URL is specified here. Example, https://www.icicidirect.com redirects to https://www.icicidirect.com/idirectcontent/Home/Home.aspx
Remark/observation Observations based on the testing so far.
Part 2: Whitelist Testing The 270 URLs that remained were put through whitelist testing via a Chrome browser extension called Whitelist Manager, via a 10 Mbps connection. This extension can be configured to restrict users from accessing any URLs except whitelisted ones. The results have been logged and categorised according to this schema:
Page Layout This column logs how the page appears visually to the viewer. Classified as either Intact or Broken.
a) Intact - The website was visually identical with and without the whitelist restriction in place.
b) Broken - Its appearance was significantly altered when accessed with the whitelist restrictions.
c) Inaccessible due to redirects - The website automatically redirected to another domain which was not on the whitelist. No further analysis was possible in such cases.
Images Loading?
Categorised as Yes/ No/ Partial. a) Yes - All Images appeared on the website even with the
whitelist restrictions. b) No - No images appeared on the website with the whitelist
restrictions. c) Partial - Some images on the website loaded with the
restrictions.
Has sign-in? This column logs whether the website provides its users with an option to sign-in for its services or for personalised content. Categorised as Yes/ No.
Sign-in Section Visible?
This records if the sign-in page accessible or the sign-in section on the website is functional with the whitelist restrictions in place.
a) Yes - Sign-in page was under the whitelisted domain OR sign-in section of the website was responsive even if the page layout was broken
b) No - Sign-in required accessing a non-whitelisted domain OR sign-in section of the website was non-responsive.
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c) Partial - The website also provided 3rd Party authentication options via Facebook/Google etc. which were not accessible.
Note: The actual sign-in process was not tested for every website. There is potential for additional website failures if this relies on calls to non-whitelisted domains.
Other Functions Affected?
A subjective assessment of whether other parts of the website were impacted by the whitelisting restrictions. If any were found, these were listed in the ‘Specify’ column. This assessment should be considered indicative and not exhaustive.
Practically Usable?
A subjective assessment of whether the website could still be used or not.
a) Yes - Main features were not affected OR the website offered limited functionality to begin with that wasn’t impacted.
b) No - Website is unusable as some key features are not functional OR visual elements were missing/ broken to such an extent that it could not be used in any meaningful way.
c) Partial - Some features (mainly textual information) were still functional.
Limitations of the method 1. We tested the whitelisted entries for usability via a whitelist management extension
for the Chrome browser. Results may differ if another whitelist management software were used on a different browser. However, the difference will not be large and significant enough to change our final assessment of whether the website was usable or not.
2. We conducted the tests on a 10 Mbps connection. We did not use the bandwidth throttling feature on Chrome since the primary intent was to determine whether the sites were accessible or not. In the actual use case, people will visit the whitelisted entries via 2G connections with which the websites that we were able to access may not be reachable in a reasonable amount of time.
3. We did not sign-in to any of the websites, try to write and send an email, carry out a financial transaction or upload a document such as a tax filing. Doing these activities may significantly alter the final assessment regarding their usability.
4. 94 URLs (http or no protocol specified) redirect by default on an unrestricted connection to their https version. We have thus tested the https versions only. This was done due to a limitation of the Chrome browser extension we used for the testing. (Refer to Column E entitled “Does the URL redirect to another?” in the spreadsheet containing detailed analysis.) However, these 94 URLs may not function in the actual use case in Kashmir depending on the ISPs’ implementation of the whitelist.
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5. We focused on visual elements and usability only. We ignored the impact on analytics, monitoring tools as long as it did not impact the ability of an end-user to navigate the website. This is, however, bound to be a matter of concern for website operators.
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Addendum - 2 This section includes the test results and observations for each of the 301 entries in the whitelist contained in the order dated 24 January. Legend
Duplicate entry
Invalid URL/ Inconclusive entry/ Indeterminate URL
No URL specified/ No qualifying information about the whitelisted entry
NA Not applicable
The results have been logged and categorised according to this schema:
Testing on an unrestricted connection
Is the URL accessible?
This column logs the results of a preliminary check for URLs that lead to error messages, such as broken links and websites/ webpages that are misconfigured. The results are categorised as: Yes: The URL is accessible Invalid URL; Duplicate URL; No URL specified; Inconclusive entry/ Indeterminate URL: The URL or whitelist entry are not accessible for reasons described above.
Does the URL redirect to another? The column indicates whether a URL redirects to another URL by default. Categorised as: Yes/ No
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Redirects to
This column specifies the redirect target URL, if it exists. Categorised as: No redirect https: The initial URL on the whitelist either contains http or no protocol is specified. It redirects by default to its https version, with the rest of the URL being identical. E.g., www.moneycontrol.com on the whitelist redirects by default to https://www.moneycontrol.com. <URL>: The initial URL on the whitelist redirects by default to a URL with a different path or prefix. In such cases, the redirect target URL is specified here. E.g., https://www.icicidirect.com redirects to https://www.icicidirect.com/idirectcontent/Home/Home.aspx
Remark/ observation Observations based on the testing so far.
Whitelist testing
Page Layout
This column logs how the page appears visually to the viewer. Classified as either Intact or Broken. Intact - The website was visually identical with and without the whitelist restriction in place. Broken - Its appearance was significantly altered when accessed with the whitelist restrictions. Inaccessible due to redirects - The website automatically redirected to another domain which was not on the whitelist. No further analysis was possible in such cases.
Images Loading?
Categorised as Yes/ No/ Partial. Yes - All Images appeared on the website even with the whitelist restrictions. No - No images appeared on the website with the whitelist restrictions. Partial - Some images on the website loaded with the restrictions.
Has sign-in? This column logs whether the website provides its users with an option to sign-in for its services or for personalised content. Categorised as Yes/ No.
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Sign-in Section Visible?
Is the sign-in page accessible or is the sign-in section on the website functional with the whitelist restrictions in place? Yes - Sign-in page was under the whitelisted domain OR Sign-in section of the website was responsive even if the page layout was broken No - Sign-in required accessing a non-whitelisted domain OR Sign-in section of the website was non-responsive. Partial - The website provided 3rd Party Authentication options via Facebook/Google etc which were not accessible. Note: The actual sign-in process was not tested for every website. There is potential for additional website failures if this process relies on calls to non-whitelisted domains.
Other Functions Affected? A subjective assessment of whether other parts of the website were impacted by the whitelisting restrictions. If any were found, these were listed in the ‘Specify’ column. This assessment should be considered indicative and not exhaustive.
Practically Usable?
A subjective assessment of whether the website could still be used or not. Yes - Main features were not affected OR The website offered limited functionality that wasn’t impacted. No - Website is unusable as main features are not functional OR Visual elements were missing/broken such that it could not be used in any meaningful way. Partial - Some features (mainly informational) were still functional
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Testing on an unrestricted connection
Whitelist testing
Website Appearance Functionality
Entries/ URLs from the whitelist
Field (as specified in whitelist)
Is the URL accessible?
Does the URL redirect to another? Redirects to
Remark/ observation Page Layout
Images Loading? (Y/N/Partial)
Has Sign-in? (Y/N)
Sign-in section accessible? (Y/N/Partial)
Other functions affected? (Y/N/Partial) Specify
Practically Usable?
www.marutisuzuki.com/MarutiSuzuki/Car
Automobiles
Inconclusive entry/ indeterminate URL
https://www.tata.com
Automobiles Yes No https Intact Yes No NA NA Yes
https://www.suzukimotorcycle.co.in
Automobiles Yes No https Broken No No NA NA
Book now option redirects to another domain not on the whitelist No
https://www.hyundai.com
Automobiles Yes Yes
https://www.hyundai.com/in/en Intact Yes Yes Partial Yes
"Book a car" option redirects to another domain not on the whitelist Partially
www.paypal.com Banking Yes Yes
https://www.paypal.com/in/home Broken No Yes No
Captcha images blocked No
www.moneycontrol.com Banking Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Sign up not possible. Portfolio's inaccessible News content is partially readable. Partially
www.policybazaar.com Banking Yes Yes https Intact Yes No NA Yes
Most links on homepage fail. No
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www.westernunion.com Banking Yes Yes
https://www.westernunion.com/in/en/home.html Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
About, Corporate, Investor Relations pages etc not working. Unable to verify if transactions are working. Partially
www.paisabazaar.com Banking Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Partially
www.bankbazaar.com Banking Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes Partially Partially
www.rbi.org.in Banking Yes Yes https Intact Yes No NA Yes
Document downloads not working Partially
https://www.Hdfc.com Banking Yes No No redirect
URL of HDFC Personal banking: https://www.hdfcbank.com. This is not whitelisted and will not work. Intact Yes Yes No Partially
https://www.Jkbankonline.com Banking Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
Support, Feedback, Bill Pay, Tax Pay sections inaccessible. Partially
https://www.onlinesbi.com Banking Yes No No redirect
SBI Personal banking login URL: https://retail.onlinesbi.com. This is not whitelisted and will not work. Intact Yes Yes No No
https://www.icicibank.com Banking Yes No No redirect
ICICI Bank Personal banking login URL: https://infinity.icici Intact Yes Yes No No
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bank.com which will not work.
https://www.axisbank.com Banking Yes No No redirect
Axis Bank Personal banking login URL: axmob.axisbank.co.in which will not work Intact Yes Yes No No
https://www.pnbindia.in Banking Yes No No redirect
Personal banking login page inaccesible (www.netpnb.com) Intact Yes Yes No No
https://www.hdfcsec.com Banking Yes No No redirect
Login page inaccesible: https://ntrade.hdfcsec.com Yes Yes No No
https://www.icicidirect.com Banking Yes Yes
https://www.icicidirect.com/idirectcontent/Home/Home.aspx
Login page inaccesible (secure.icicidirect.com) Intact Yes Yes No No
www.unacademy.com
Education Yes Yes https
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.byjus.com Education Yes Yes
https://byjus.com/
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.indiaresults.com
Education Yes Yes
https://www.indiaresults.com/select-state.htm Intact Yes No NA Yes
State selection redirects to domain that is not whitelisted, therefore pretty much inoperable. No
www.gktoday.in Education Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes Partially Yes
Some redirects to currentaffairs.gktoday.in which is inaccessible Partially
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www.wikipedia.org Education Yes Yes https
Kashmiri Wikipedia: https://ks.wikipedia.org. English Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org. Items uploaded to the media repository and interlinked in the wiki may not work -- commons.wikimedia.org Intact NA NA NA NA NA No
www.udemy.com Education Yes Yes https Intact No Yes Yes Yes
Video content not loading No
www.github.com Education Yes Yes
https://github.com/
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.stackoverflow.com
Education Yes Yes
https://stackoverflow.com/
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.sciencedirect.com
Education Yes Yes https Broken No Yes Yes Yes
Support Section Inaccessible Partially
www.nature.com Education Yes Yes https
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.elsevier.com Education Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Transaction, Support pages inaccessible. No
www.springer.com Education Yes Yes
https://www.springer.com/gp Broken No Yes No No
www.damsdelhi.com
Education Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Most information is on other subdomains which are not whitelisted No
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www.pathfinderacademy.in
Education Yes Yes https Intact Yes No NA Yes
www.britannica.com
Education Yes Yes https Intact No Yes Partially Yes
Video content not loading Yes
www.mciindia.org Education Yes Yes
https://www.mciindia.org/CMS/
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.indiankanoon.org
Education Yes Yes
https://indiankanoon.org/
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.madeeasy.in Education Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Most links not functional No
www.aakash.ac.in Education Yes Yes https Broken No Yes Yes Partially
www.resonance.ac.in
Education Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
Live Chat option not functional Partially
http://www.cukashmir.ac.in
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA YES
Many pages are on cukashmir.ac.in and not www.cukashmir.ac.in Partially
http://kashmiruniversity.net
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
Many pages are on other domains eg alumni, library, hostels, research, complaints committee No
https://www.iustlive.com
Education Yes Yes
https://www.iustlive.com/Index/Default.aspx Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Many pages are on other domains Partially
http://skuastkashmir.ac.in
Education Yes No No redirect Broken Partial No NA Yes
All pdf files are on cdn.skuastkashmir.ac.in Partially
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http://jammuuniversity.in
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
http://jkpsc.nic.in Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
http://jkssb.nic.in Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
Demo Trial link goes to an IP Address. Admit card link goes to a non-whitelisted domain Partially
www.islamicuniversity.edu.in
Education Yes No No redirect
Same university as #42; Different URLs. Included in the analysis because URLs are different. Broken NA NA NA NA
Page blocked, no further testing was possible No
www.ssmengg.edu.in
Education Yes Yes https Broken NA NA NA NA
Blocked jquery library broke the entire page No
www.burnhallschool.ac.in
Education Yes No No redirect
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.dpssrinagar.com
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
www.gdgoenkasrinagar.com
Education Yes Yes
http://gdgoenkasrinagar.com/
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.pchssrinagar.com
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes No Partially
www.foundationworldschool.com
Education Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes No Partially
www.nitsri.ac.in Education Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Helpdesk function is linked to an IP Address Partially
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www.ignou.ac.in Education Yes No No redirect Broken Partial Yes No Yes
Many links redirect to other domains that are not whitelisted No
www.siu.edu.in Education Yes Yes
https://siu.edu.in/
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.lpu.in Education Yes Yes https Broken NA NA NA NA
Blocked jquery library broke the entire page No
http://www.freejobalert.com/
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
https://mahendras.org/
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Partial Yes
New Registration / Student Portal / Product and all other options listed under 'Important Links' redirect to sub domains that are not on the whitelist and will not work. Live chat feature for support was also blocked. No
https://mrunal.org/ Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
https://www.bankersadda.com/
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Partial Yes Partial Yes
Store/Subscription feature uses another domain which is not the whitelist. Many of the application pages, question banks also navigated to other websites Partially
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which were not on the whitelist.
https://www.indianetzone.com/
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Partial No NA Yes
Most subsections (eg. Art and Cultute, Entertainement etc) redirect to subdomains that are not on the whitelist. Partially
https://www.insightsonindia.com/
Education Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
Various registration pages, course detail pages redirected to another domain which did not work. Start Quiz feature unresponsive. Slider on Hero Banner + What's new section did not show any information. Partially
https://www.tcyonline.com
Education Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Partial Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility Live Support feature relies on another domain which is not on the whitelist. No
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https://www.vedantu.com
Education Yes No No redirect Broken Partial Yes Partial Yes
Video content did not work. Results page, Olympiad Page (VOLT) redirected to another subdomain which was not on the whitelist. None of the sliders on the homepage worked Live Chat did not work No
www.jagranjosh.com
Employment Yes Yes https Broken Yes No NA NA Yes
www.sail.co.in Employment Yes Yes https Broken No No NA Yes
Careers and Tenders sections are inaccessible Partially
https://www.naukri.com
Employment Yes No No redirect
One needs to sign in to apply for or post a job at Naukri.com. It is unclear if the whitelist would permit redirects for sign-in and related functions. Broken No Yes No Yes
Registration, Recruiter, Tools are on different domains No
www.cricbuzz.com Entertainment Yes Yes https Intact Yes No NA Yes
www.espn.in Entertainment Yes Yes https Broken No No No No
Netflix Entertainment No URL specified
Amazon Prime Entertainment No URL specified
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Zee5 Entertainment No URL specified
Hotstar Entertainment No URL specified
Voot Entertainment No URL specified
Sony Liv Entertainment No URL specified
Airtel TV Entertainment No URL specified
https://tatasky.com Entertainment Yes Yes
https://www.tatasky.com/wps/portal Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Quick Recharge, Support are on different domains No
https://www.dishtv.in
Entertainment Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Partial Partially
https://gaana.com/ Entertainment Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes No Yes
None of the player functions were visible/worked. Music streaming did not work. No
https://tvfplay.com/ Entertainment Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Partial Yes
Video content did not work. No
https://www.altbalaji.com/
Entertainment Yes No No redirect Broken No NA NA Yes
Resulted in Blank page. No further testing was possible No
https://www.imdb.com/
Entertainment Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Partial Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Most information pages were unreadable. Video/Trailers did not work. No
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Charts/Tables had no structure.
https://www.jiosaavn.com/
Entertainment Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Audio streaming did not work No
https://www.spotify.com/
Entertainment Yes Yes
https://www.spotify.com/in/ Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Support, Player, various Community, Jobs, Pressroom pages redirected to a different subdomain which were not on the whitelist Audio streaming did not work No
https://wynk.in Entertainment Yes Yes
https://wynk.in/music Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
https://www.google.com > gmail Mail Invalid URL
Correct URL: https://www.google.com/gmail
https://in.mail.yahoo.com Mail Yes No No redirect
Webmail services can be used only if the user can sign in to their email accounts. It is unclear if the whitelist could permit redirects Broken No Yes No Yes All links fail No
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meant for account sign-in.
https://mail.rediff.com Mail Yes Yes
https://www.rediff.com
Correct Rediffmail URLs: https://mail.rediff.com/cgi-bin/login.cgi (free users); https://businessemail.rediff.com/?sc_cid=ushome (business users)
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
https://outlook.live.com Mail Yes Yes
https://outlook.live.com/owa/ Broken No Yes No Yes All links fail No
http://news.statetimes.in/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
ePaper redirects to different subdomain which was not on the whitelist. Video library relies on Youtube and did not work. Yes
http://prsindia.org/ News Yes Yes https Intact Yes No NA Yes
http://www.earlytimes.in/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
ePaper redirects to different subdomain which was not on the whitelist. Yes
http://www.kashmirtimes.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Partial No NA Yes
Image Gallery and Videos did not work. Yes
http://www.kashmiruzma.net/ News Yes No No redirect Intact No No NA Yes
ePaper redirects to different subdomain which was not on the whitelist. Yes
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http://www.risingkashmir.com/ News Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
ePaper redirects to different subdomain which was not on the whitelist. Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. None of the subsections displayed any meaningful content. No artciles were navigable No
http://www.thenorthlines.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Partial No NA Yes
https://aajtak.intoday.in/ News Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. No
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ News Yes No No Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. ePaper redirects to different subdomain which was not on the whitelist. No
https://edition.cnn.com News Yes No No Intact No No NA Yes
US Edition was on another domain which was not on the whitelist. Yes
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https://kashmirage.net/ News Yes No No Intact No No NA Yes
Video content relies on Youtube and did not work. Yes
https://kashmirobserver.net/ News Yes No No Intact No No NA Yes
Video content relies on Youtube and did not work. Yes
https://news.google.com News Yes No No
Could redirect automatically some users based on IP address and language settings: https://news.google.com/?hl=en-IN&gl=IN&ceid=IN:en Intact No Yes No Yes
No Personalised content since the sign-in page is not accessible. Links to articles/stories do not work and result in a blank page. No
https://scroll.in/ News Yes No No Intact No Yes No Yes Videos do not work Yes
https://thekashmirimages.com/ News Yes No No Intact Yes No NA Yes
Video content relies on Youtube and did not work. Yes
https://theprint.in News Yes No No Broken No No NA Yes
The lack of images + broken layout did reduce utility, however the articles were still readable. Video content did not work. Indian language editions redirect to subdomains that are not on the whitelist. Partially
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https://theprint.in/ News
Duplicate entry
https://thewire.in/ News Yes No No redirect
The Hindi and Urdu editions of The Wire are on different domains and will not work: thewirehindi.com, thewireurdu.com. It also has a Marathi edition. Intact Yes No NA Yes
Video content did not work. Indian language editions redirect to subdomains that are not on the whitelist. Partially
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com News Yes No No redirect
This site redirects to an interstitial advertisement (shown as an overlay on the homepage) before redirecting back. This may affect usability. Broken Partial Yes Partial Yes
Homepage layout was impacted to the extent that elements on the page kept shifting position. Photogallery, Tech, epaper redirected to another subdomain which was not on the whitelist. Video content did not work. Partially
https://www.aljazeera.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
Live stream, on demand video did not work. Yes
https://www.amarujala.com News Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes No Yes
ePaper, MyJyotish, MyResults Plus etc sections redirected to other domains that were not on the whitelist. Partially
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https://www.bbc.com/ News Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Many menu options redirect to another domain which are not on the whitelist. Article content not easily readable. Video content did not work No
https://www.business-standard.com/ News Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Partial Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Sections for Smart Investor, Hindi, Motoring, Books etc redirect to other domains which are not on the whitelist. Article content not easily readable. Audio/Podcast did not load. No
https://www.channelnewsasia.com News Yes Yes
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/international Intact No Yes Partial Yes
Audio and Video content did not work. Yes
https://www.dailyexcelsior.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Partial No NA Yes
ePaper, Videos section redirected to another subdomain which was not on the whitelist. Yes
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https://www.dailypioneer.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/ News Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. ePaper section redirects to a subdomain that is not on the whitelist No
https://www.epw.in/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes Comments not working Yes
https://www.financialexpress.com News Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes No Yes
Videos do not work. ePaper section redirects to a subdomain which is not on the whitelist Yes
https://www.financialexpress.com/ News
Duplicate entry
https://www.forbes.com/ News Yes Yes
https://www.forbes.com/#XXXXXXXXXXXX
Where XXXXXXXXXXXX is a 12-character string Intact No No NA Yes
Menu options for Lists, Featured, Breaking, More do not work at all/consistently. Popular and Editor's Picks panels do not display any content. Subsriber services redirect to another domain that is not on the whitelist. Partially
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https://www.greaterkashmir.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact No No NA Yes
ePaper section redirected to subdomain that was not on the whitelist. Video content did not work. Yes
https://www.hindustantimes.com News Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes No Yes
ePaper section redirected to subdomain that was not on the whitelist. Video content did not work. Yes
https://www.jagran.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact No No NA Yes
ePaper section, Language editions redirected to subdomain that was not on the whitelist. Video content did not work. Partially
https://www.livemint.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Subscription management pages inaccessible since log in is required. ePaper section redirected to subdomain that was not on the whitelist. Video content did not work. Partially
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https://www.mid-day.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes No Yes
ePaper, Language editions, subscription management, ad booking redirected to subdomain that was not on the whitelist. Video content did not work. Partially
https://www.moneycontrol.com News
Duplicate entry
https://www.moneycontrol.com/ News
Duplicate entry
https://www.ndtv.com News Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Sections for sports, language, movies, health, lifestyle etc redirected to subdomains that were not on the whitelist. Live/On demand video did not work. The Layout for Pages for sub-sections like India, Opinion, Latest, Budget etc was broken (this is the reason Page Layout has been categorised as broken) No
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https://www.newindianexpress.com News Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. ePaper section redirects to a subdomain that is not on the whitelist No
https://www.news18.com News Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Menu for selecting language editions was not responsive Live/On demand video did not work. The Layout for Pages for sub-sections was broken. Formatting of article pages was also affected. No
https://www.nytimes.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes No Yes
Content is behind a paywall after limited articles so the inability to sign -in makes a significant impact on the usability. Video content did not work. Comment sections were not visible. Partially
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https://www.outlookindia.com News Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes Yes Yes
Video content did not work. Sections for Subscription, Hindi, Business, Poshan, Responsible Traveller redirected to domains that were not on the whitelist. Partially
https://www.outlookindia.com/ News
Duplicate entry
https://www.presstv.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact No No NA Yes
Live/On demand video did not work. Language edition, Documentaries section redirected to a different subdomain which was not on the whitelist. Partially
https://www.presstv.com/ News
Duplicate entry
https://www.republicworld.com News Yes No No redirect Intact Partial No NA Yes
Live/On demand video did not work. Language edition redirected to differet subdomain which was not on the whitelist. Partially
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https://www.scoopwhoop.com/ News Yes No No redirect Broken Partial Yes No Yes
Sign in, Search and More options (Hamburger menu) unresponsive. Video content did not work. Meme section had no images. No
https://www.telegraphindia.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes No Yes
ePaper section redirects to a subdomain not on the whitelist. Hamburger menu non-responsive. Partially
https://www.theguardian.com News Yes Yes
https://www.theguardian.com/international Intact No Yes No Yes
Subscribe/Contribute redirected to another subdomain that was not on the whitelist. Video, Audio/Podcast content did not work. Partially
https://www.thehindu.com/ News Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. ePaper + subscription section redirects to a subdomain that is not on the whitelist No
https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Partial No NA Yes
Hamburger menu non-responsive. epaper redirects to a domain not on the whitelist Partially
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https://www.thekashmirmonitor.net/ News Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Hamburger menu non-responsive. epaper redirects to a domain not on the whitelist Partially
https://www.thelallantop.com/ News Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Video, Audio/Podcast content did not work. No
https://www.thequint.com News Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Video, Audio/Podcast content did not work. Language edition redirected to a subdomain that was not on the whitelist No
https://www.timesnownews.com News Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Video content did not work. Menu options were non-responsive. News Assistant (interactive feature) was unavailable. No
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https://www.tribuneindia.com/ News Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
ePaper section redirects to a subdomain not on the whitelist. Hamburger menu non-responsive. Partially
https://www.washingtonpost.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Partial
Content is behind a paywall after a very limited number of articles so the inability to sign -in makes a significant impact on the usability. Video content did not work. Support section (helpcenter) redirected to a different subdomain which is not on the whitelist. No
https://www.wionews.com News Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Live and on demand video content did not work. Menu options were non-responsive. No
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https://www.wsj.com/ News Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes No Yes
Content is behind a paywall after a very limited number of articles so the inability to sign -in makes a significant impact on the usability. Video content did not work. No
https://www.amnesty.org Ngo's Yes Yes
https://www.amnesty.org/en/ Intact No No NA
Unable to determine if donations will work. Yes
https://www.fordfoundation.org/ Ngo's Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
Multi option menus non-responsive. Home Page slider not functioning. Partially
https://www.helpageindia.org/ Ngo's Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA
Unable to determine if donations will work. Yes
https://www.savethechildren.in/ Ngo's Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA
Unable to determine if donations will work. Yes
https://www.smilefoundationindia.org/ Ngo's Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA
Unable to determine if donations will work. Yes
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https://www.google.com
Search engines Yes No No redirect
May redirect to google.in for some users based on IP address, browser settings and language settings on the device. Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Personalised search may be impacted without sign-in. Image search not accessible from the link on top-right of the page. Maps results are on a different URL and will not work. Even if search results are returned, only sites from the whitelist are accessible. Partially
www.google.com>chrome
Search engines Invalid URL
Correct URL: https://www.google.com/chrome/
www.google.ca Search engines Yes Yes https
Some users may be redirected to https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=ssl or to https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=cr. Novice/ inexperienced users may not know how to prevent the redirect. Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Personalised search may be impacted without sign-in. Image search not accessible from the link on top-right of the page. Maps results are on a different URL and will not work. Even if search results are returned, only sites from the whitelist are accessible. Partially
53
ca.search.yahoo.com
Search engines Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility Options such as Home, News, Mail etc redirect to links that are not on whitelist and will not work. No
search.yahoo.com Search engines Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility Options such as Home, News, Mail etc redirect to links that are not on whitelist and will not work. No
www.live.com Search engines Yes Yes
https://outlook.live.com/owa/
https://outlook.live.com is already an entry on the whitelist. Broken No Yes No Yes All links fail No
www.ask.com Search engines Yes Yes https Intact Yes No NA Yes
For search results returned, only those on the whitelist are accessible. Partially
search.msn.com Search engines Yes Yes
https://www.bing.com/
Bing.com is a separate entry on the whitelist. Intact Yes Yes No Yes
For search results returned, only those on the whitelist are accessible. Personalised search may be impacted without sign-in. Partially
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www.google.co.uk Search engines Yes Yes https
Some users may be redirected to https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl or to https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=cr. Novice/ inexperienced users may not know how to prevent the redirect. Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Personalised search may be impacted without sign-in. Image search not accessible from the link on top-right of the page. Maps results are on a different URL and will not work. Even if search results are returned, only sites from the whitelist are accessible. Partially
qc.search.yahoo.com
Search engines Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility Options such as Home, News, Mail etc redirect to links that are not on whitelist and will not work. This website is in French (Quebec). No
http://www.jkpolice.gov.in Services Yes No No redirect Intact Partial No NA Yes
Citizen Portal not functional Partially
http://www.passportindia.gov.in Services Yes Yes
https://portal2.passportindia.gov.in/AppOnlineProject/welcomeLink
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
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http://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in Services Yes Yes
http://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/home
Log in URL: https://portal.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/e-Filing/UserLogin/LoginHome.html?lang=eng; New user registration: https://www1.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/e-FilingGS/Registration/RegistrationHome.html Intact Yes Yes No Yes
New User Registration, Feedback are on different domains No
http://www.services.GST.GOV.IN Services
Inconclusive entry/ indeterminate URL
Correct URL: https://services.gst.gov.in, which redirects by default to https://services.gst.gov.in/services/login
Gov.in Services Inconclusive entry/ indeterminate URL
Probably meant to be *.gov.in. Also, gov.in has expired at the time of writing.
Nic.in Services Inconclusive entry/ indeterminate URL
https://www.nic.in/ is working. Probably meant to be *nic.in. Also, nic.in has expired at the time of writing.
Ac.in Services Inconclusive entry/ indeterminate URL
Probably meant to be *ac.in
56
https://uidai.gov.in Services Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
Update Aadhar, Check Status,Get Address Verification letter sections are on different domains and do not work No
https://enps.nsdl.com Services Yes Yes
https://enps.nsdl.com/eNPS/NationalPensionSystem.html Intact Yes Yes No Yes
FAQs, More information sections are on different domains and will not work No
www.skims.ac.in Services Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
JMS Section redirects to another domain which is not on the whitelist and will not work Yes
www.shifamedcenter.com Services Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
www.lalpathlabs.com Services Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
City selection does not work, Booking/transaction not possible due to completely broken page layout No
www.gmcs.edu.in Services Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Partial Yes
http://geekyranjit.com/
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Pages are completely non-responsive No
http://overdrive.in
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
https://beebom.com/
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
Hamburger menu and Search Yes
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feature do not work.
https://www.androidauthority.com
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility. Audio/Podcast content did not work. No
https://www.autocarindia.com
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Partial Yes
Hamburger menu non-responsive Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.carwale.com
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes No Yes
City selection does not work. Links for New Cars, Used Cards, Reviews do not respond. Search does not function. Lack of images severely impacts utility. No
https://www.cnet.com/
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Lack of images and broken layout severely impacts utility. Videos do not work. No
https://www.digit.in
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Intact No No NA Yes
Video does not work. Lack of images affects utility Partially
58
https://www.engadget.com/
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images and broken layout severely impacts utility. Video/Audio content does not work. Hamburger menu not visible. No
https://www.gsmarena.com/
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images and broken layout severely impacts utility. Video/Audio content does not work. No
https://www.pcmag.com
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Intact No No NA Yes
A number of menu options on the home page are missing. Videos do not work. Lack of images affects utility (esp. reviews) Partially
https://www.techradar.com
Technology updates Yes Yes
https://www.techradar.com/in Intact No No NA Yes
Videos do not work. Lack of images affects utility (esp. reviews) Partially
https://www.theverge.com
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes No Yes
Videos do not work. Lack of images affects utility (esp. reviews) Comments do not work. Partially
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https://www.zigwheels.com
Technology updates Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes No Yes
Search does not work. Lack of images affects utility (esp. reviews) A number of menu options on the home page are missing. Video section relies on Youtube so would not work. No
www.easemytrip.com Travel Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
Search does not work, Agent Login redirects to another domain which is not on the whitelist. No
www.cleartrip.com Travel
Duplicate entry Yes https
www.trivago.com Travel
Duplicate entry Yes
https://www.trivago.in
.com extension auto-redirects to .in based on IP address.
www.hajcommitee.gov.in Travel Invalid URL
Correct URL: http://hajcommittee.gov.in
www.redbus.in Travel Yes Yes https Intact No Yes No Yes Payment gateway does not work No
www.incredibleindia.org Travel Yes Yes
https://www.incredibleindia.org/content/incredible-india-v2/en.html
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
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www.oyorooms.com Travel Yes Yes https Intact Partial Yes Yes No
www.jktourism.org Travel Yes No No redirect Intact Partial No NA Yes
Registration page redirects to another domain that is not on the whitelist Yes
www.iismgulmarg.in Travel Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
www.shriamarnathjishrine.com Travel Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
www.pawanhans.co.in Travel Yes Yes https Broken Yes No NA Yes
Booking page is on another domain and will not work Partially
www.flightstats.com Travel Yes Yes
https://www.flightstats.com/v2 Broken Partial Yes Yes No
www.ixigo.com Travel Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes Search does not work No
www.trivago.in Travel Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes Search does not work No
https://www.yatra.com Travel Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Search redirects to a domain that is not whitelisted No
https://www.irctc.co.in Travel Yes Yes
https://www.irctc.co.in/nget/ Broken Partial Yes No Yes
Origin/Destination/Date selection does not work. Therefore Search will not work either PNR status/Hotel/Flights/Meal etc redirect to another domain which is No
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not on the whitelist and will not work.
https://www.makemytrip.com Travel Yes No No redirect Broken Partial Yes No Yes
Search, Booking etc does not work. Javascript files for the progressive web application do not load. No
https://www.Goibibo.com Travel Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Partial Yes
Search, Booking etc does not work. No
www.airindia.com Travel Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Most options redirect to other domains which are not on the whitelist and will not work. No
https://www.cleartrip.com Travel Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
City/Date selection not working, Search does not return results. No
www.olx.in Utilities Yes Yes https Intact No Yes Partial Yes
Lack of images severely impacts utility No
www.zomato.com Utilities Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes Search, Ordering etc does not work No
www.justdial.com Utilities Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images severely impacts utility Partially
www.firstflight.net Utilities Inconclusive entry/ indeterminate URL
https version exists but http version does not automatically redirect to it. The website seems to be
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misconfigured. It has a self-signed certificate, which is marked untrusted by different browsers.
www.dtdc.in Utilities Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes No Yes e-Tracker does not work Partially
www.bluedart.com Utilities Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
www.fedex.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://www.fedex.com/global/choose-location.html Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
www.gati.com Utilities Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
www.jio.com Utilities Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
www.airtel.in Utilities
Duplicate entry Yes
https://www.airtel.in/
www.vodafone.in Utilities Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Most additional services are on different domains that are not on the whitelist. Partially
www.freecharge.in Utilities Yes Yes https Broken NA NA NA NA NA No
www.sulekha.com Utilities Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes Most links non-responsive. No
www.magicbricks.com Utilities Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
www.99acres.com Utilities Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
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www.indiamart.com Utilities Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
www.gaadiwaadi.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://gaadiwaadi.com/
Miscategorised under utilities. It's an automotive news website
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.cardekho.com Utilities Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Search, Most links are non-responsive No
www.quikr.com Utilities Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
www.jkhandicrafts.com Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA NA NA Yes
www.bsnl.co.in Utilities Yes Yes https Intact Yes Yes
State-level pages do not work Most options on home-page redirect to other domains which are not on the whitelist No
www.myhpgas.in Utilities Yes Yes
https://myhpgas.in/myHPGas/Index.aspx
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.bharatpetroleum.com Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
Options for booking/tracking redirect to other domains which are not on the whitelist. Partially
www.indane.co.in Utilities Yes Yes
https://indane.co.in/Index.php
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
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www.ebharatgas.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://www.ebharatgas.com/ebharat/forHome/home.html Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Options for booking/tracking redirect to other domains which are not on the whitelist. No
www.pharmeasy.in Utilities Yes Yes https://pharmeasy.in/
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
https://www.airtel.in Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes Partial Yes
https://www.paytmbank.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://www.paytmbank.com/home
This website does not allow transactions. Even new the account opening process requires downloading the app which may not be possible. Intact Yes No NA Yes
This website does not allow transactions. Even new the account opening process requires downloading the app which may not be possible. No
https://www.bhimupi.org.in Utilities Yes No No redirect
This website does not allow transactions. It is only meant to provide information. Intact Yes No NA Yes
This website does not allow transactions. No
https://billsahuliyat.jkpdd.net Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
Online Application option redirects to a domain not on the whitelist. RTI page not accessible'. Partially
http://jakemp.nic.in Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
JIO chat Utilities No URL specified
https://www.amazon.in Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Yes Yes
Captcha images do not load Lack of images + broken layout No
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severely impacts utility
https://www.flipkart.com Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Yes Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.myntra.com Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://earth.google.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://www.google.com/earth/
Google Earth "renders a 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery". It has dependencies that are not whitelisted.
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
http://www.jabong.com/ Utilities Yes Yes https Broken No Yes Yes Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.netmeds.com Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
Unable to confirm if payments are being processed. Partially
https://www.healthkart.com Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No No
www.tbmes.org Utilities Yes Yes https Intact Yes No NA Yes
www.jkpdd.gov.in Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
www.jkpwdrb.nic.in Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
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https://cleartax.in Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Partial Yes
The website has 3 different sign in options, all of which redirect to subdomains that are not on the whitelist Lack of images and broken page layout severely impact utility. No
https://in.bookmyshow.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect
Relevant URLs for Jammu: https://in.bookmyshow.com/jammu; Srinagar: https://in.bookmyshow.com/srinagar Broken No Yes Partial Yes
Lack of images and broken page layout severely impact utility. Transactions will rely on payment gateway URLs which are not on the whitelist. No
https://keep.google.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://accounts.google.com/signin
Redirects to Google account login page. Google.com is present on this whitelist but it is unclear if accounts.google.com would be accessible.
Inaccessible due to redirect.
Redirects to accounts.google.com which is not on the whitelist. No further testing was possible No
https://lens.google.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact No No NA Yes
https://oppo-in Utilities Invalid URL
Correct URL: https://www.oppo.com/in/
https://support.google.com Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Partial Yes No Yes
Sign in not possible. Partially
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App selector does not function
https://support.microsoft.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb
The URL redirects by default based on the default language set in the browser or device. Broken No Yes No Yes All links fail No
https://translate.google.co.in/ Utilities Yes Yes
https://translate.google.co.in/#view=home&op=translate&sl=hi&tl=en
The URL changes after entering the source and target languages. The entry for Column E shows source language as Hindi and target language as English. Intact Partial Yes No Yes
Sign in not possible. App selector does not function Partially
https://vimeo.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No NA NA NA
Resulted in Blank page. No further testing was possible No
https://wikimapia.org Utilities Yes No No
Wikimapia is a web mapping service. It is unclear how a non-static page of a map would be displayed under the whitelist restrictions. The URL in this case would contain parameters for language, lat-long etc. For Broken No NA NA NA
Resulted in Blank page. No further testing was possible No
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example, https://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=13.144346&lon=80.365591&z=14&m=w
https://www.adidas.co.in/ Utilities Yes No No redirect
eCommerce website URL: shop.adidas.co.in is not whitelisted and will not work. Intact Yes Yes Yes No
https://www.ajio.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No NA NA NA
Resulted in Blank page. No further testing was possible No
https://www.aliexpress.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.bajajauto.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.bing.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect
This is a search engine and is perhaps better classified with the the other search engines on this list. Intact Yes Yes No Yes
For search results returned, only those on the whitelist are accessible. Personalised search may be impacted without sign-in. Partially
https://www.decathlon.in/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Partial Yes Yes Yes
Lack of product images significantly affects usability esp. from an No
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ecommerce perspective. Support option does not work.
https://www.dell.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://www.dell.com/en-in
Redirection based on IP address and language setting on browser/ device Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.dominos.co.in/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken Yes No NA Yes
Order online now feature redirects to another subdomain which is not on the whitelist. Partially
https://www.fabindia.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Yes
Unable to verify transactions Partially
https://www.gingerlabs.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect
This is the official website of an iOS app meant for notetakeing. It is unclear whether the whitelist permits the app itself. Intact Yes No NA Yes
https://www.heromotocorp.com/en-in/ Utilities Yes No No redirect
This URL contains a path. In terms of its implementation, it is unclear how an ISP would whitelist this entry without whitelisting https://www.heromotocorp.com Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
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https://www.houzz.in/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.indeed.co.in Utilities Yes No No redirect
Requires sign-in to apply for post a job. The URL to search for a job is https://www.indeed.co.in/jobs followed by paramaters. Broken No Yes No Yes
Multiple (not all) job listings navigate to other domains which are not on the whitelist. No
https://www.india.ford.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
Locate a Dealer function does not work. Partially
https://www.indiamart.com/ Utilities
Duplicate entry
https://www.jeep-india.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
https://www.kia.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://www.kia.com/in/home.html Yes Yes Yes Yes
Locate a Dealer function does not work. Partially
https://www.kinemaster.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect
This is the official website of the video-editing app Kinemaster available for Android and iOS. It is unclear if the app itself is whitelisted. Intact No Yes Yes Yes
Support, Community and Download links navigate to other domains which are not on the whitelist. No
https://www.lenovo.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://www.lenovo.com/in/en/ Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
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https://www.lenskart.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.office.com/ Utilities
Duplicate entry
https://www.pizzahut.co.in/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Yes Yes
Location selection feature does not accept inputs. Give Feedback option navigates back to the home page. No operation seems to be possible on the website No
https://www.pvrcinemas.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact No Yes Yes Yes
Page unresponsive. No testing was possible. No
https://www.quora.com Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Partial Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.reebok.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://shop4reebok.com/
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
https://www.shopclues.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.swiggy.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes No Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
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https://www.tatamotors.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes No NA Yes
Videos do not work Yes
https://www.toyotabharat.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No No NA Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.upwork.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Broken No Yes Partial Yes
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.upwork.com/ Utilities
Duplicate entry
https://www.wavecinemas.com/ Utilities Yes No No redirect Intact Yes Yes Yes
Unable to verify if transactions are working. Partially
https://www.zomato.com Utilities
Duplicate entry
https://www8.hp.com Utilities Yes Yes
https://www8.hp.com/in/en/home.html
Inaccessible due to redirects NA NA NA NA NA No
www.accuweather.com Weather Yes Yes https Intact No No NA Yes
www.office.com Web Service Yes Yes https Broken No Yes No Yes
Almost all options redirect to other domains that are not on the whitelist No
www.apple.com Web Service Yes Yes https Intact Yes No NA Yes
Shopping cart page layout is broken. Support/Store locater redirect to other domains Partially
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which are not on the whitelist
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Addendum - 3 This section contains the test results and observations for new entries to the whitelist specified by the order dated January 31. Note that the list excluded the ‘Field’ column included in the previous versions of the whitelist. There were also minor modifications to some existing entries. The extract below was the of a differential analysis with the whitelist specified by the order dated January 24 and may include some duplicates as a result. Legend
Duplicate entry
Invalid URL/ Inconclusive entry/ Indeterminate URL
No URL specified/ No qualifying information about the whitelisted entry
NA Not applicable
The results have been logged and categorised according to this schema:
Testing on an unrestricted connection
Is the URL accessible?
This column logs the results of a preliminary check for URLs that lead to error messages, such as broken links and websites/ webpages that are misconfigured. The results are categorised as: Yes: The URL is accessible Invalid URL; Duplicate URL; No URL specified; Inconclusive entry/ Indeterminate URL: The URL or whitelist entry are not accessible for reasons described above.
Does the URL redirect to another? The column indicates whether a URL redirects to another URL by default. Categorised as: Yes/ No
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Redirects to
This column specifies the redirect target URL, if it exists. Categorised as: No redirect https: The initial URL on the whitelist either contains http or no protocol is specified. It redirects by default to its https version, with the rest of the URL being identical. E.g., www.moneycontrol.com on the whitelist redirects by default to https://www.moneycontrol.com. <URL>: The initial URL on the whitelist redirects by default to a URL with a different path or prefix. In such cases, the redirect target URL is specified here. E.g., https://www.icicidirect.com redirects to https://www.icicidirect.com/idirectcontent/Home/Home.aspx
Remark/ observation Observations based on the testing so far.
Whitelist testing
Page Layout
This column logs how the page appears visually to the viewer. Classified as either Intact or Broken. Intact - The website was visually identical with and without the whitelist restriction in place. Broken - Its appearance was significantly altered when accessed with the whitelist restrictions. Inaccessible due to redirects - The website automatically redirected to another domain which was not on the whitelist. No further analysis was possible in such cases.
Images Loading?
Categorised as Yes/ No/ Partial. Yes - All Images appeared on the website even with the whitelist restrictions. No - No images appeared on the website with the whitelist restrictions. Partial - Some images on the website loaded with the restrictions.
Has sign-in? This column logs whether the website provides its users with an option to sign-in for its services or for personalised content. Categorised as Yes/ No.
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Sign-in Section Visible?
Is the sign-in page accessible or is the sign-in section on the website functional with the whitelist restrictions in place? Yes - Sign-in page was under the whitelisted domain OR Sign-in section of the website was responsive even if the page layout was broken No - Sign-in required accessing a non-whitelisted domain OR Sign-in section of the website was non-responsive. Partial - The website provided 3rd Party Authentication options via Facebook/Google etc which were not accessible. Note: The actual sign-in process was not tested for every website. There is potential for additional website failures if this process relies on calls to non-whitelisted domains.
Other Functions Affected? A subjective assessment of whether other parts of the website were impacted by the whitelisting restrictions. If any were found, these were listed in the ‘Specify’ column. This assessment should be considered indicative and not exhaustive.
Practically Usable?
A subjective assessment of whether the website could still be used or not. Yes - Main features were not affected OR The website offered limited functionality that wasn’t impacted. No - Website is unusable as main features are not functional OR Visual elements were missing/broken such that it could not be used in any meaningful way. Partial - Some features (mainly informational) were still functional
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New Entries: 31 Jan Order
Testing on an unrestricted connection Whitelist testing
Website Appearance Functionality
Entries/ URLs from the whitelist Field
(as specified in whitelist)
Is the URL accessible?
Does the URL redirect to another?
Redirects to Remark/ observation
Page Layout
Images Loading? (Y/N/Partial)
Has Sign-in? (Y/N)
Sign-in section accessible? (Y/N/Partial)
Other functions affected? (Y/N/Partial) Specify
Practically Usable?
https://straightlinene
ws.com/ - Yes No NA
Intact No No NA Yes LiveFeed feature not visible Yes
http://cbse.gov.in/
-
Yes No NA Redundant entry as the Gov.in eTLD is also on the whitelist. Intact Yes No NA No Yes
http://www.brilliant-
tutorials.com/
-
Yes No NA Another website run for the same purpose by the same entity (https://www.brilliant.ac.in) has not been included in the whitelist. Broken
http://www.etoosind
ia.com
-
Yes Yes https://www.etoosindia.com/index.do
Broken No Yes No Yes
Demo Videos rely on Youtube and will not work. Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
78
http://www.thenews
now.co.in/
-
Yes No NA
Intact Yes No NA Yes
Videos rely on Youtube and will not work. ePaper is on another domain which is not included on the whitelist. Yes
http://www.vidyama
ndir.com/
-
Yes Yes https
Intact Yes No NA Yes
Downloads, Results section are on other subdomains that are not included on the whitelist. Inaccessible login page means that no personal content for a student is accessible. No
https://in.reuters.co
m/
-
Yes No NA
Broken No No NA Yes
Video pages do not load. Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://indianexpress
.com/
-
Yes No NA
Intact No Yes Partial Yes
Videos do not work. Language editions are on other subdomains which are not included on the whitelist. ePaper is behind a paywall and will not be accessible for users relying on third party Partially
79
authentication (Google, Facebook etc.)
https://mypat.in/
-
Yes No NA
Intact Partial Yes Partial Yes
Checkout requires sign-in and will not be available to users relying on third party authentication (Google, Facebook etc.) Partially
https://thekashmirw
alla.com/
-
Yes No NA
Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Videos do not work. Subscription workflow redirects to a domain which is not in the whitelist. Yes
https://www.bhaskar
.com/
-
Yes No NA
Intact No No NA Yes
Videos do not work. ePaper is on another domain which is not included on the whitelist. Yes
https://www.embibe.
com/
-
Yes No https://www.embibe.com/landing
Broken NA NA NA Yes
Resulted in Blank page. No further testing was possible No
https://www.foxnew
s.com/
-
Yes No NA
Broken No No NA Yes
Audio/Video sections redirect to subdomains which are not on the whitelist. Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
80
https://www.google.
com›gmail -
Duplicate Entry
https://www.google.
com/ -
Duplicate Entry
https://www.khanaca
demy.org/math/in- - Invalid URL Error message:
Page not found
https://www.mathon
go.com/
-
Yes No NA
Intact Yes Yes No Yes
Videos do not work. 'Join now', 'View Schedule' and 'Download' rely on other domains which are not included on the whitelist No
https://www.outlook
business.com/ - Yes No NA
Intact Yes Yes Partial Yes Videos do not work. Yes
https://www.thequi
nt.com/ -
Duplicate Entry
Sony Live
-
Duplicate Entry
Sony Liv misspelt as Sony Live.
www.crosstownnews
.in - Yes No NA
Intact Yes No NA Yes
www.eraofkashmir.c
om
-
Inconclusive entry/ indeterminate URL
Error "403 -- Access forbidden" message displayed in Chinese.
www.indianexpress.c
om -
Duplicate Entry
81
www.kashmirscan.co
m
-
Duplicate Entry
Yes https://www.kashmirscan.net
Redirects to https://www.kashmirscan.net which is on the whitelist. Hence, it is categorised as a duplicate entry.
http://www.jammupr
abhat.com/
-
Yes Yes http://www.jammuprabhat.com/archives.aspx?date1=7/27/2018&page=1
Archive of a news website. Last updated in 2018.
Intact Yes No NA Yes
http://www.jammuli
nksnews.com/ - Yes No NA
Intact Partial No NA Yes Videos do not work Partially
https://gulistannews.
in/ - Yes No NA
Intact Yes No NA Yes Videos do not work Yes
https://www.kashmir
scan.net/ - Yes No NA
Intact No No NA Partially
https://www.firstpos
t.com/ - Yes No NA
Intact Partial No NA Yes Videos do not work. Partially
https://frontline.theh
indu.com/
-
Yes No NA
Broken No No NA
Lack of images + broken layout severely impacts utility No
https://www.newscli
ck.in/
-
Yes No NA
Intact Yes No NA Yes
Audio/Video content does not work. Hamburger menu on home-page is non-responsive. Partially
https://www.trtworld
.com/ - Yes No NA
Intact Partial No NA Yes Videos do not work. Partially
http://www.skuast.or
g/ - Yes No NA
Intact No No NA Lack of images + broken layout No
82
severely impacts utility
http://www.skoda.co
m
-
Yes Yes http://skoda.co
m This is a family blog. The website of the automobile manufacturer is at https://www.skoda-auto.com (Global) and https://www.skoda-auto.co.in (India). NA NA NA NA NA
Page issues a redirect to the 2nd Level Domain skoda.com, which is not included on the whitelist. Further testing was not possible No
83