PETALING JAYA: Sarawak Report’s website remains accessible in Malaysia because the block imposed by local Internet regulators is typically more effective on mobile networks, an IT expert with the Sinar Project non-governmental group said.

Despite the Malaysian Multimedia and Communications Commission (MCMC) blocking the whistleblower’s site on Sunday evening, many readers said they were able to access it, even without consciously tweaking settings to circumvent the censoring.

There is more difficulty, however, in accessing the website through mobile phone networks.

“Such blocks are not that effective if you are talking about laptops and desktops,” said Khairil Yusof, co-founder of Sinar Project, an Internet rights group that uses open-source technology to promote accountability and better governance.

Sarawak Report has been publishing exposés on alleged wrongdoings in 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), and implicated several individuals, including tycoon Low Taek Jho and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who is 1MDB’s founder and advisory board chairman.

The move to block it on Sunday was on grounds that the content was false and to “maintain national stability”.

“In a mobile phone, you can’t really change the settings to circumvent a block. It’s very difficult,” Khairil said.

But on laptops and desktops, these settings not only can be changed, but the Domain Names System assigned to devices on its own are not locally based, hence rendering the block ineffective.

Since Sunday, the site’s administrators have moved it to mirror sites such as www.sarawak-report.org, which is now also blocked. But its content can still be accessed on another mirror site with a different URL. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on July 23, 2015.