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The Pirate Bay Blocked In Italy
imhassan tips us to news that The Pirate Bay has been blocked in Italy. Other attempts to block the popular P2P site have been somewhat less than successful. From TorrentFreak:
"Pirate Bay's IPs and the domain name are inaccessible, as they are blocked by ISPs all over the country. Whether these blocks will be very effective, however, is doubtful, since The Pirate Bay has already announced several countermeasures. An insider working at an Internet provider in Italy told TorrentFreak that all the relevant large access ISPs in Italy have complied with the request to block the popular BitTorrent tracker, which was sent out yesterday. Italy is taking a stand against BitTorrent sites, so it seems. Two weeks ago, the largest Italian torrent site, Columbo-BT, was shut down by the same prosecutor who is responsible for the Pirate Bay block."
Was it the mafia? I heard that the mafia doesn't like pirates or fascists for that matter.
The only thing worse than blocking Pirate Bay is not blocking Pirate Bay.
Tor is the answer to everything.
Use Tor to access the trackers. Problem solved.
Unless and until every system connected to the Internet needs a unique key of some sort before it's allowed to exchange packets, blocking anything will be completely ineffective.
The current net neutrality debate is the first line of defense toward preventing such a system.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Our fine Italian friends can still access TPB at labaia.org. Here's to hoping for as little irritation as possible.
That useless : use tor or another proxy to connect to the search engine/tracker (doesn't need high trafic).
Once you got the *.torrent you want and the ip of the peer that share the file, you can connect directly to them without needing to pass by a proxy...
While this certainly has a lot of terrible implications, those people could just use other torrent sites. The only reason TPB is being blocked here is because of their notoriety. I honestly can find my trackers easier using other bit torrent sites anyway. And what will Italy do once people get their TPB trackers from other sites?
Of what relevance is US law to Italy?
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Say it isn't so!
You know that Mussolini's party is still active in Italy right?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I am in Italy and I can surf to Pirate Bay right now. My ISP is Tiscali.
And have they managed to block every proxy server that can connect to every other proxy server that can see and connect to TPB? It just sounds like more press grandstanding to this observer.
.tor files upon request? Got that blocked yet?
And how about an ICQ that serves up torrent files? The file you need to get from TPB just isn't that big.
And how about IMBF (Information Must Be Free) people offering to e-mail in
Strikes me that shutting down TPB countywide (unless you're China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or the like) isn't easy, or likely.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
They've already changed their IP address and bought the domain name labaia.org for Italians to access the site. Seems very different from "absolutely nothing"
Had you said, "Mussolini's *daughter* is in politics", you would have been correct.
When ideas fail, words become very handy.
They changed the name, but it was the same party, consisting of all the people who weren't hanging from lamp posts by the end of the war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Social_Movement%E2%80%93National_Right
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Local groups sharing between themselves. Able to physically meet and verify each other.
At the borders of that group, individuals physically moving material between groups. Very easy now with portable hard drives of a terabyte or more.
So instead of material being available instantly ... it will be available in 7 days to anyone, anywhere. Because we all know that there are only 7 degrees of separation between any two people.
I can confirm I can access the site (I'm in Italy, my ISP is Fastweb). Just in case it is blocked by some Italian ISP, it seems that labaia.org is a new alias. ;-)
...is what happens when you elect a media owner as your country's president.
Ciao free speech!
Oh right, they block websites that could threaten what props their system up.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I've used TPB for legal torrents as well as the "illegal" ones. I taste movies before buying them, and TPB is a great way to try before I buy. I actually spend MORE money on DVDs purchased legally because of this method.
So the Italian prosecutor would call me a criminal. Fine. He's using public funding against what would be a "crime" between private parties. He's using the taxpayer's dollars to do the work the "harmed" party should be doing.
In reality, Italy has far larger problems than issues between two private parties. There is RAMPANT corruption that is costing REAL dollars to the taxpayer. The Italian government should be seeking out bad seeds amongst themselves as a priority. There is also massive amounts of theft and loss within their own body; maybe they should focus on those problems?
While I don't wish to distract from what is, in many respects, a premier example of the genus 'angry rant', I feel I should point out that no-one in Italy (or anywhere else that I know of) is actually blocking bittorrent.
They are blocking a website which serves bittorrent files. There's rather a lot of difference.
Also, lets get real, most of thepiratebays content links users to content which is being provided contrary to the laws of their countries.
Is this wrong? Well, the debate goes on, but we get nowhere by pretending that everything's lovely with downloading 'unauthorised' content, and get with the real problem, that copyright itself is very broken.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I suspect he has a lucrative career ahead of him in the entertainment industry. Wouldn't be the first case of that happening.
From the webpage:
Fascist state censors Pirate Bay
We're quite used to fascist countries not allowing freedom of speech. A lot of smaller nations that have dictators decide to block our site since we can help spread information that could be harmful to the dictators.
This time it's Italy. They suffer from a really bad background as one of the IFPIs was formed in Italy during the fascist years and now they have a fascist leader in the country, Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi is also the most powerful person in Italian media owning a lot of companies that compete with The Pirate Bay and he would like to stay that way - so one of his lackeys, Giancarlo Mancusi, ordered a shutdown of our domain name and IP in Italy to make it hard to not support Berlusconis empire.
We have had fights previously in Italy, recently with our successful art installation where we had to storm Fortezza in order to get our art done. And as usual, we won. We will also win this time.
We have already changed IP for the website - that makes it work for half the ISPs again. And we want you all to inform your italian friends to switch their DNS to OpenDNS so they can bypass their ISPs filters. This will also let them bypass the other filters installed by the Italian government, as a bonus. And for the meanwhile - http://labaia.org/ works (La Baia means The Bay in Italian).
And please, everybody should also contact their ISP and tell them that this is not OK and that the ISPs should appeal. We don't want a censored internet! And the war starts here...
And how many seats do they currently hold in the parliament?
You're really beating the wrong cat. ;)
When ideas fail, words become very handy.
The Pirate Bay SSL proven ineffective: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=803927
I'm sure the owners of TBP don't want to step anywhere near a courtroom, even less for one not in their own country.
What a great country which provides again free advertisement for the Piratebay! After the pitfall of Denmark trying the same impossible thing ... will they ever learn?
http://thepiratebay.org/blog/123 or http://labaia.org/blog/123 for people in Italy
Copty and paste
(I sure hope they don't sue me for copyright infringement)
Fascist state censors Pirate Bay
We're quite used to fascist countries not allowing freedom of speech. A lot of smaller nations that have dictators decide to block our site since we can help spread information that could be harmful to the dictators.
This time it's Italy. They suffer from a really bad background as one of the IFPIs was formed in Italy during the fascist years and now they have a fascist leader in the country, Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi is also the most powerful person in Italian media owning a lot of companies that compete with The Pirate Bay and he would like to stay that way - so one of his lackeys, Giancarlo Mancusi, ordered a shutdown of our domain name and IP in Italy to make it hard to not support Berlusconis empire.
We have had fights previously in Italy, recently with our successful art installation where we had to storm Fortezza in order to get our art done. And as usual, we won. We will also win this time.
We have already changed IP for the website - that makes it work for half the ISPs again. And we want you all to inform your italian friends to switch their DNS to OpenDNS so they can bypass their ISPs filters. This will also let them bypass the other filters installed by the Italian government, as a bonus. And for the meanwhile - http://labaia.org works (La Baia means The Bay in Italian).
And please, everybody should also contact their ISP and tell them that this is not OK and that the ISPs should appeal. We don't want a censored internet! And the war starts here...
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I'm in the very heel of Italy, Puglia, and it's working swimmingly. Needless to say I am also on some random's open wifi connectiont too ;)
in the words of mario mario (yup... his last name's mario)
Knowledgeable people in Italy will just use Tor or whatever to bypass the block. Less knowledgeable people will just move to the next big thing (mininova, kazaa, etc...)
The "Goverment" will look like it has made as much as possible to protect the interests of the artist lobby groups that are pushing this
Make It Secret Protect your privacy
I use the biggest italian ISP, Telecom Italia, and TPB is still reachable!!! I'm using opendns, maybe italan ISP just removed TPB form their dns...
I think it's a little disingenuous to say that these are cases of the US exporting their IP laws.
It's not so much the US government that is "forcing their laws" on other countries, as it is international corporations forcing these fascistic, protectionist laws down the throats of sovereign countries, just as they have done here in the US.
Would you say that the behavior of Sony Music or EMI are the fault of the US?
Those of you who still see the world as a game of Risk don't seem to realize that these multinational corporations see borders, and liberty, as damage and route around them.
So you've got these incredibly wealthy and powerful multinational corporations vs. a group of nerds who can't even agree on Net Neutrality laws. Who the fuck do you think is going to win that one?
You are welcome on my lawn.
And, since the usual RIAA fanbois usually pop up once you mention Tor, casting FUD to scare people away from it, here's the EFF's legal FAQ, and here's the Tor FAQ.
Also note carefully what the parent said, namely, "Use Tor to access the trackers". Tor is, by default, set up to disable bittorrent transfers, since it heavily loads the Tor network. Here's one article which well explains Why you shouldn't run bittorrent over Tor.
And if you look at the default exit node policies (see section 4.16 of the Tor FAQ), the standard bittorrent ports are explicitly rejected. So you really don't want to run bittorrent over Tor.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
I love these wishful thinking posts.
Here's a newsflash for you: the authorities and big business have way, way more control over the Internet than you appear to realise. Companies like Google have the resources to index the entire web. Every major international pipe is controlled by one of a pretty small group of major telecomms companies. Despite the grand redundancy claims, there are plenty of single points of failure that will disconnect, or at least seriously inhibit, flow of data to or from entire countries.
You can make defiant noises about how impractical it would be for the authorities to police everything and how important net neutrality is, but TPB is the enemy here, because by its very existence and public position on openly breaking the law in most countries, it provides all the evidence that politicians and their major contributors need to justify not fighting for net neutrality and pushing for ever more surveillance and control.
A few years ago, there was all this talk about the Internet being some new, special place. Sorry, but it's neither above international agreements nor above individual countries enforcing their own laws and cutting off anyone who doesn't play nicely with their efforts to do so.
The world will be a better place for most people if the freedom that generally exists on the Internet is preserved, but if that freedom is abused by a vocal minority, the rest of us will all get shafted by the consequences.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I semms like that Telecom, wich is italian n.1 priver, is just gibbering the DNS replay: A query for thepiratebay.org returns 127.0.0.1 . /etc/hosts should do:
So just a static record in you
# echo -e "83.140.176.200 thepiratebay.org\n83.140.176.156 torrents.thepiratebay.org" >> /etc/hosts
Or you (gentle italian reader) can just use a different DNS. Http is fine, so appears to be the peer to peer thing.
You know: it's not like I fell the need to download some copyrighted materials, it's just that _I_'m used to be the one who blocks things in my net, and I go mad when someone tricks my DNS (they did some other trash on those DNS some time ago as a sort of forwarder for mispelled domains: some one in there found a new toy and since then each day they play a new trick...).
Someone really should to put a bullet through Berlusconi's fascisti face.
Advocating violence is hardly insightful. I do believe he did win an election. Maybe something more along the lines of not voting for him would be more appropriate, no?
What?
Less knowledgeable, or pragmatic?
Not being able to access PirateBay isn't really critical. People can get their less-than-legal software and porn elsewhere, it's the principle that's important.
For what it's worth, I'm somewhat doubtful to whether or not most of the piratebay users really give a crap about free speech, net neutrality and so on, as long as they can download stuff for free...
Just grow a small amount in the front garden everyone will assume no one will be stupid enough to grow it so openly and will think its another plant. Bonus points for growing it among ferns that look like it as a friend of mine did.
They have no right to strip away your capacity to consciously choose to break a law you feel is unjust.
They have a right to prosecute or litigate against you for it, but they don't have a right to impede your free will!
When you start doing this, it's called fascism. Information gets censored because it's "dangerous" and will "incite criminal actions". Butcher knives should be banned too! they are clearly designed with the express purpose of slicing flesh, and humans are made of flesh.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The "War on the greedy music biz" is failing. Or that is, it might be won, but at a high price. Running a small label I slowly started realizing that Im the one loosing the battle, not the major labels. The reason is simple. You wont find my music on TPB. And even when i put it there myself, people would still look around for Britney Schmears or whatever other brand the majors are launching at any given time through advertisements, media control and whatever. And even in the rare case they DO seek up my music, and even want to support my label by buying the record, they most likely wont be able to as most indies cannot distribute their records to all corners of the world until long after the air is out of the balloon.
It sounds more to me like the business model you have for your music is wrong.
1) I find it very hard to believe in this day and age that you couldn't sell world-wide through the Internet.
2) The fact that you don't even publish a link to your music here on Slashdot makes me believe that you're missing important business opportunities. Or is this connected with (1) (you would have no way to profit from Slashdotters being interested in your music)?
3) Your music may just be too "niche", in which case you'll just have to live with the reality that you're never going to be the next Brittney Spears, and will have to keep a day job also.
They were the largest party though. Their opponents like Schleicher planned to abolish parliament and form a grand coalition of all the non Nazi Parties (and the left wing of the Nazi party) to keep them out of power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Schleicher#Chancellorship
chleicher hoped to attain a majority in the Reichstag by forming a so-called Querfront, meaning "cross-front," whereby he would unify Germany's fractious special interests around a non-parliamentary, authoritarian but participatory regime. Thus, he reached out to the Social Democratic labour unions, the Christian labour unions and the more left-wing branch of the NSDAP or Nazis, led by Gregor Strasser. Strasser, however, was already losing the internal power struggle with Hitler.
Although Schleicher made some initial progress, he was rebuffed by both sides. Meanwhile, the ousted Papen now had Hindenburg's ear, because the latter was beginning to have misgivings about Schleicher's "cryptoparliamentarianism" and willingness to work with the SPD, which the old President despised. Papen was urging the aged President to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a coalition with the Nationalist DNVP, or Deutschenationale Volkspartei (German National People's Party) who, together with Papen, would supposedly be in a position to moderate Nazi excesses. Unbeknownst to Schleicher, Papen was holding secret meetings with both Hitler and Hindenburg, who then refused Schleicher's request for emergency powers and another dissolution of the Reichstag. The President dismissed Schleicher, calling Hitler into power on 30 January 1933.
In many ways it makes you wonder what would have happened if the CIA had been around. Presumably they would have backed anyone but the Nazis or Communists, even dubious types like Schleicher.
The fact of the matter was that the democracy was doomed - either it would be replaced by Schleicher's authoritarian grand coalition or by Hitler as dictator. And if the Nazis had crushed the Communists, they would have taken over and set up a Communist dictatorship.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Since stuff like P2P and spam takes alot of bandwith without any of the service and content providers making money
Excuse me, but how do the ISPs make money? from users subscription. And why do users care that their internet access have decent bandwidth (beyond the cheap basic service they need to read their mail on google or yahoo?) because of large, multimedia downloads, which are effectively distributed (legally or illegally) over P2P.
The ISPs have no natural economic incentive to block whatever the users want to do, unless either:
a) they have a flawed billing model, where they provide extremely high bandwidth at a flat rate and expect users not to use it
OR b) anticompetitive, vertical integration: the ISPs are also content providers, and want to hook you into whatever shit they are selling you
Of course, anti-P2P regulation can provide such incentive (by giving ISPs big fines if they don't block P2P, for instance).