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."

Comments

Don't bother clicking TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother clicking on TFA, it's the exact same thing that's in the summary, no more content, no less content.

Re:Don't bother clicking TFA

[Dyinobal]

This is slashdot no one bothers to read the TFA

Re:Don't bother clicking TFA

[bs0d3]

ya, apparently the law allows me to copy/paste my own articles without asking myself permission

lol DNS blocking

[Dunbal]

Of course you could always change your DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and avoid DNS blocking entirely...

Re:lol DNS blocking

[causality]

Of course you could always change your DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and avoid DNS blocking entirely...

Running your own caching DNS server is so ridiculously easy, I'm surprised so many people trust $MEGACORP to do it for them. Don't get me wrong, in terms of load on the root servers it works for me that most others aren't doing this. I enjoy lots of things that would go away if everyone did it.

It's a shame that assuming responsibility of your own experience where it is reasonable to do so isn't precisely popular. We place far too much trust in random strangers to do too many things for us that we could do ourselves. This isn't at all like trying to be your own doctor or electrician, where the result could be quite disastrous. Still, if Establishment/authoritarian types start thinking that DNS is their one-stop solution for easy censorship, local caching DNS servers may become more common. Failing that, there are foreign proxies.

Re:lol DNS blocking

[icebraining]

Why wouldn't one trust someone else to run DNS? It's not like it's difficult to change if they start hijacking NXDOMAINs or censoring.
Besides, most of the censorship has been applied on the root servers themselves due to all the domain seizures by US authorities, so it's not like running your own caching server solves that.

Re:lol DNS blocking

[Qzukk]

It's not like it's difficult to change if they start hijacking NXDOMAINs or censoring.

Would you know it if they did censor? Hell, if I got some random ad page when I type a url, I'd assume it was a typosquatter. What would a less techsavvy person do? Call the ISP? "Hey I can't get to example.com" "Your connection is fine, example.com must be down" "oh ok".

Re:lol DNS blocking

[whoever57]

Why wouldn't one trust someone else to run DNS?

Because ISPs have a history of not respecting RFCs? For example a lot of large ISPs used to (and may still do) ignore the TTL data for a zone and just use a TTL of 3 days.

It's not like it's difficult to change

But why wait to change? I have shown that ISPs don't run proper DNS servers, and you stated that it is easy to change, so what are you waiting for?

Classic problem

[causality]

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.

Re:Classic problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Relying on the spirit of the law is great when the ones interpreting the "spirit" interpret is correctly and don't abuse the system. Unfortunately, there's that whole human thing that gets in the way...

Re:Classic problem

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

That's an interesting choice of an example, since "effects" includes computers and cell phones -- the letter and spirit agree entirely here, and both are violated with abandon (against ordinary subjects) by the uniformed thuggery, secure in the knowledge that the robed aristocracy will rule in their favor 4 times of 5.

It's not an issue of "letter of the law" vs. "spirit of the law", it's an issue of "the law" vs "law enforcement".

Re:Classic problem

[JAlexoi]

A) A court decision does not equate to a law in any Civil law countries, which Belgium is.
B) Rarely does a judge in a Civil legal system interpret the spirit of the law(unless that is explicitly stated in the law). Interpreting the laws' is prerogative of constitutional/supreme courts.

The American obsession with people that died almost 2 centuries ago, that lived in a totally different world and had a different world view, is rather disturbing...

Re:Classic problem

[nedlohs]

If a court order tell your to do X then you do X. You don't do X in spirit, you do to the letter what they said. Well assuming you are contesting the order in some way anyway.

In this case you block the names they said to block. Blocking more just opens you up to being sued by the name holder.

The court can update the order/make another one, if they didn't actually mean what they said.

Re:Classic problem

[martin-boundary]

Thanks, I was going to point this out too. Belgium uses civil law which is very different from the English common law that Americans have copied. What a Belgian judge decides cannot be meaningfully interpreted as a precedent in American terms.

Re:Classic problem

[xstonedogx]

You should be more disturbed about the American obsession with feudalism.

Re:Classic problem

[dbIII]

could make the case that judges don't generally understand technology, and it would be a valid one

On the other hand this could be the equivalent of a $1 fine because the law says the Judge has to impose some sort of penalty. Somebody of the course of this trial has to have told the Judge that DNS is analogous to the name and number in a phone book but the number is the important thing and can have several names pointed at it. Judges are rarely stupid especially in places where they have to earn the post through merit instead of election - they mostly get portrayed as stupid by those that have a vested interest in reducing the power of Judges (eg. politicians).

Re:Classic problem

[Charliemopps]

No, there's not. There is no "interpretation" of the constitution. Despite what many would lead you to believe, it's a very literal document and our government is in violation of every single amendment in it. Most teenagers could read it and tell you very directly what's meant and all agree.

But then we get into the realm of "Those guys wrote that thing a long long time ago, they didn't foresee all the stuff we've got to deal with now. They were dumb... old fashion. They didn't know about machine guns! Computers! Satellites!" No... they didn't know about that stuff, but they were not dumb, or old fashion. They were some of the most progressive people of their time. They fostered the most important revolution in human history and then overthrew the most powerful empire on earth with nothing more than farmers.

The best example is the right to bare arms... it's not the right to bare hunting rifles. The reason that amendment is there is so the citizens of the united states could violently overthrow the federal government should they feel the need. The armies of the federal government were never meant to be armed in such a way they could defeat the citizenry. The amendment is there to prevent a military coup.

Another example is the 1st amendment. Which is routinely trampled on for something as simple as "you're blocking traffic"

It's easy, it's only made complicated by those that wish to read something into the document that simply is not there.

Re:Classic problem

[mooingyak]

No, there's not. There is no "interpretation" of the constitution.

Of course there is. One person reads it, and understands it to mean one thing. Another person reads it, and understands it to mean something different and incompatible with the first person's understanding. Clearly one of them is wrong. No matter how direct and literal you strive to be in writing a document, there are always going to be corner cases where the intent is not obvious nor universally seen as one and only one way.

Re:Classic problem

[Kjella]

No, there's not. There is no "interpretation" of the constitution.

"The way I read it is the only way of reading it"

Most teenagers could read it and tell you very directly what's meant and all agree.

Try it. When the results are anything but, I'm sure you'll argue they've all been poisoned by whatever.

The best example is the right to bare arms... it's not the right to bare hunting rifles.

Bear. The world is bear. And in 1939 the Supreme Court said:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to any preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.

Then in 2010 they said:

(f) None of the Courtâ(TM)s precedents forecloses the Courtâ(TM)s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 , nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252 , refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174 , does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47â"54.

A sawed-off shotgun would be an excellent weapon for close self-defense, but it's not protected by the second amendment because it's not usable in a militia? They can pretend not to have changed their minds, but I would clearly say the Supreme Court of 1939 and the Supreme Court of 2010 had two vastly different interpretations of the second amendment. And if the supreme justices that are experts on constitutional law have had different interpretations, you can bet a bunch of teenagers will.

Re:Classic problem

[SuricouRaven]

And the home-field advantage - the british were half a world away, their supply lines stretched to breaking.

Remember who they were fighting. The British empire. Lots of people talk about taking over the world, but we got 25% of the way there. The largest empire ever seen by geographic area, and second largest by population. We came, we saw, we slaughtered and oppressed and we RULED. You think we were some pushover, to be defeated by a bunch of farmers? No, they had help. A lot of help.

Re:Classic problem

[Leebert]

If the second amendment grants the right to own a pistol, what about a shutgun? Combat shotgun? Land mines? Loaded bomber plane? Heavy artillary? Missiles? How about a few nuclear weapons?

I personally believe that the 2nd amendment *does* allow me to have nuclear weapons. I also believe that to be insane. However, the answer to that insanity is not to ignore the law, but to modify the amendment to reflect present-day reality.

Re:Classic problem

[richie2000]

Bear. The world is bear.

Word. The word is word.

Alternative domain for Belgians

[hydrofix]

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.

Re:Alternative domain for Belgians

[corbettw]

depiraatbaai? What kind of spelling is that. Stupid Flanders.

Re:Alternative domain for Belgians

[Arancaytar]

Stupid Sexy Flanders.

fixed

Re:Alternative domain for Belgians

[houghi]

I can confirm this. I am in Belgium and am directed to http://depiraatbaai.be./ So just a bit of patience for the DNS servers to be updated and all will be well.

All this has encouraged me to start using my own DNS. I know I could use Google, but why give them even more information then they already get.

Re:Classic problem restated

[TaoPhoenix]

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.

Re:Alternate domain names...

[tomhudson]

How about registering some alternate domains such as "yohoho.org" or "mehearties.org" or even "arrr.com".

YOHOHO.ORG is taken, but MEHEARTIES.ORG is available.

ARRR.COM? ... taken - for sale
ARRRR.COM ... taken - has a pirates page
ARRRRR.COM ... taken - redirects back to your own IP
ARRRRRR.COM ... taken - see the Avast! TalkLikeAPirate keyboard accessory
ARRRRRRR.COM ... taken - Industry42
ARRRRRRRR.COM ... taken
ARRRRRRRRR.COM ... taken - some wordpress blog started in august
ARRRRRRRRRR.COM ... free!

Asking for trouble

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Courts are not known for their sense of humour over hair splitting.