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Belgian Court Order May Be Too Specific To Actually Block Pirate Bay Domain
bs0d3 writes "Recently, many people from Belgium have been joining The Pirate Bay's and Telecomix's IRC channels, asking for help with the Telecomix DNS, saying that it doesn't work to access www.thepiratebay.org. This is true. The court was very specific in its order, which was to block the domains www.thepiratebay.org, www.thepiratebay.net, www.thepiratebay.com, www.thepiratebay.nu, www.thepiratebay.se, www.piratebay.no, and www.ripthepiratebay.com, or else face a daily penalty of 1000 EUR for every day when defendants do not implement such 'DNS-blocking' in their DNS-servers'. So, obviously in defiance of that, people testing their DNS servers go to the domain www.thepiratebay.org — except, thepiratebay doesn't have the www domain turned on. At one point it redirected to the main page, at the URL thepiratebay.org; now it doesn't, probably because of negligence from the admins. What's interesting is that the court only ordered the block of the www subdomains, so if an ISP wants to make a fuss they should be able to avoid the penalties until a later ruling."
Don't bother clicking on TFA, it's the exact same thing that's in the summary, no more content, no less content.
Of course you could always change your DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and avoid DNS blocking entirely...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The people making the rules don't understand how to make them effective
One could make the case that judges don't generally understand technology, and it would be a valid one. Yet I think this points to a deeper and much older issue.
It's the difference between the "letter of the law" and the "spirit of the law". Obviously the intent was to make the Pirate Bay Web site unreachable. Obviously such an oversight was unintended. Yet the ISPs receive very specific instructions and are only looking after their own financial interests by following them to the letter.
You see the same thing everywhere in the USA, particularly with anything regarding the First and Fourth Amendments. To make up an example, when the pre-Industrial Founders talked about "papers and effects" should that mean "computers and cell phones"? Obviously. Who seriously thinks it wouldn't? They didn't want the government to screw around with private individuals without an evidence-backed good reason and due process. The intent is not difficult to discern. The Founders' notions about the proper role of government are not unknown. Free speech zones, you say? Does anyone really think the likes of Jefferson and Madison wanted the government to easily brush aside those who would speak against it? Why was this ever even a controversy?
The Constitution and most other basic laws are not so difficult to understand. The only reason one needs to be a "scholar" is to find clever ways to play word games so you can twist it around and do what was never intended. It's the same deal with this ruling. The intention is pretty damned clear (too bad one cannot say that about most tax codes). The effect is very much the opposite.
The US is becoming a nation of damned Pharisees. The entire system is run by lawyers whose interests include making law as incomprehensible and inaccessible to the average person as possible. That's how they make themselves indisposable and advance their diabolical profession. I think most nations have gone down this road. I don't live in Belgium but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they were also this way. So we can laugh at this judge who probably looks pretty stupid right now, making rules for what he so clearly does not understand, but the deeper problems it brings up are neither easy to solve nor limited to Belgium.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The Pirate Bay has also already registered a domain specifically for those in Belgium, to work around the censorship order. http://depiraatbaai.be/ (Flemish Dutch for "The Pirate Bay")
This is not listed in the domains the court ordered to be blocked. TorrentFreak has the full story.
I find that kind of funny that it was so specific as to overlook something so blatantly obvious. It just shows that these judges, and the ISPs for that matter, don't know what they are doing at all. For now, that means TPB is still around, and this court order hasn't done a single thing. What's more, people will just keep finding a way around these orders.
But it serves 2 purposes - it placates those who wanted the judge to do something, and it's both simple to implement and simple to get around - so it's a win-win. The judge gets this case off his docket, the entity bringing the suit can say "we won", etc.
I might disagree.
In the US we're getting so many blatant Constitution-demolishing new politics/cases that they're not even trying to follow the law anymore. Yet the 1960's age of Civil Disobedience is/almost over.
So the only form of protest left is to use the Letter/Spirit of the law. Because the Spirit of the law is "Let's let a measly 10-Billion Industry completely dominate all of world politics!" So when the smart users find a loophole, it's the only way they can't be slammed with the Terrorist label.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You misunderstand. What's "negligent" is the fact that www.thepiratebay.org serves up a blank page, rather than a redirect or a copy of the content.
At least with verizon fios in the US http://www.thepiratebay.org/ no longer works for me, but http://thepiratebay.org/ works fine. I wonder if that has something to do with this issue.
I did an nslookup of thepiratebay.org and got 194.71.107.15 which doesn't work in my browser. I just get a blank page. I can't ping or traceroute to thepiratebay.org either. Could this have something to do with DDOS countermeasures?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
But it serves 2 purposes - it placates those who wanted the judge to do something, and it's both simple to implement and simple to get around - so it's a win-win. The judge gets this case off his docket, the entity bringing the suit can say "we won", etc.
They deserved something other than humiliation? (Winning a case based on laws you bought doesn't count as not-humiliating...)
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
YOHOHO.ORG is taken, but MEHEARTIES.ORG is available.
ARRR.COM? ... taken - for sale
... taken - has a pirates page
... taken - redirects back to your own IP
... taken - see the Avast! TalkLikeAPirate keyboard accessory
... taken - Industry42
... taken
... taken - some wordpress blog started in august
... free!
ARRRR.COM
ARRRRR.COM
ARRRRRR.COM
ARRRRRRR.COM
ARRRRRRRR.COM
ARRRRRRRRR.COM
ARRRRRRRRRR.COM
Hmmm ... When I try 194.71.107.15, I get a blank page, but depiraatbaai.be works just fine, and even gets me The Pirate Bay's main page in English. DNS here tells me that 194.71.107.15 is the IP address of depiraatbaai.be, so you'd think they'd work the same. Both of these were pasted directly into a browser's address widget, so it's not a problem with HTTP_REFERER or something like that. Anyone know what's going on here? Has some other court (or an ISP's management ;-) decided to look at the HTTP header and block GET commands that don't include a FQDN?
That seems far to sophisticated for any court (or ISP management ;-).
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Named based virtual hosting like almost every other web site in existance.
I think it's far more likely that the server is set up for name based virtual hosting (regardless of whether they are actually using it or not) and is set up to serve a blank page for unknown names.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Presumably the IP addresses would work as well, and failing that, use a different DNS provider or a local hosts file. Seems like a bit of a waste of time for the Belgian courts.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Anyone using TPB should be able to figure out how to get around the block, or know someone who can show them how, so it's really a non-issue.
Well, yeah, but in that case, the OP couldn't have used it, and would have no basis for the complaint:
Damn. I have to type four numbers now instead of a domain name to get to my torrents.
I mean, it's common for /. denizens to not bother reading TFA. But this person seems to be posting a complaint about needing to do something that wouldn't even work. Would a /. reader be dumb enough to complain about something without trying it to see if it's even feasible?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
the thing with using an ip instead of a url is that many servers host more than one website at the same ip.
Courts are not known for their sense of humour over hair splitting.
They're already got http://depiraatbaai.be/ set up.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
i made a mistype in the url for the telecomix irc, its sending people to telecomix.net when it should have been telecomix.org, the correct url should look something like this https://02.chat.mibbit.com/?server=irc.telecomix.org:6667&channel=%23telecomix&nick=slashdot
If an ISP blocks a domain rather than an IP address, that's like the delisting a number from the phone book*, and about as anachronistic. But sshhh... don't tell the courts!
(*Historical note: In the twentieth century, phone books were paper-based directories reprinted annually by telephone companies, listing names, addresses and telephone numbers.)
the judges will certainly correct the problem by asking to remove "194.71.107.15" in the DNS, and then we're screwed.
The Internet is unforgiving to the technologically illiterate, even if the latter are the holders of judicial power.