New Web Code to Reveal When You’re Blocked by Censorship

Web status codes are sent by websites to give you a summary when you attempt to access them, from the classic 404 error telling you that there is no content found, to less subtle ones like 204, which means you found the site, but it contains no body, so doesn’t actually have any content to send back. A new code, however, has been created for a slightly more frightening situation.

The new status code of 451 was posted under a title of “an HTTP status code to report legal obstacles”. Submitted as a proposed standard, the status code would be returned by websites when you can’t access a site due to “legal obstacles” which could range from a firewalled website to a copyright issue with the site in question.

This means that your browser could soon be returning a message saying that you are unable to access a site because of the content it contains, rather than a technical reason. This could escalate and be used as a way of blocking sites altogether, with companies blocking the return of 451’s, so what would say it’s blocked due to legal reasons appears to return a 404, saying the site does not exist.

With new codes come new clarity as to why websites are inaccessible or what information we get from them, the problem is that for this new standard to work all the companies involved would have to pass it without intercepting the message, a task that recent security issues and legislation is more than likely to worry a few people.