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Pirate Bay, IsoHunt Blocked In India
New submitter unmole writes "It seems that India's Department of Telecom has instructed ISPs to block popular torrent trackers like the Pirate Bay and IsoHunt. Visitors now see a page (Screenshot) informing them that 'This site has been blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecom (DOT),' with no additional details. The Department of Telecom has not made any public announcement to this effect. This comes months after an Indian court gave the green signal for prosecuting social networking sites."
Tried it just now, both sites works perfectly fine. Probably a problem with the ISP.
I would love to know what IP address those trackers resolve to inside India now.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I am in India and just tried accessing both of these.
This has been made after countless amount of pressure from the US. I don't think there would be any reason for India to do it otherwise - they are shooting themselves in the leg by not allowing people to get free content (yes, by violating copyright). In the long run the country would be much better and richer if they gained foothold in technology and knowledge by any means necessary. Hell, this is how US become to be what they are now - by blatantly ignoring European copyrights. Of course, US doesn't want to allow that so they can stay in power.
Can't the govt stop worrying about piracy and focus on solving the real world problems that plague India instead? TPB probably got blocked coz some fellow didnt get paid his demanded amount of protection money. In the meantime, go ahead and use TPB at http://thepiratebay.se/
----
Bitch please ! We still have Kick Ass Torrents !
I've noticed a big uptake in Bollywood movies on torrent sites, in the past couple of years.
Well, I guess the fun's over.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Given that the GDP of India in 2011 was $1389, compared with $48,387 for the USA, I really don't think sales of CD's and DVD's are going to sky-rocket after blocking torrent sites.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
It seems I can still buy my prescriptions from India without problems. But oh noes, someone can download a hollywood movie.
If anyone's interested, I'd be more than happy to share the code and experiences with someone to measure the effect of blocking the websites on bittorrent participation. See https://bitbucket.org/vdham/dutchpirate for the code that was used in the dutch measurements.
A problem with measuring this is that we did not have a good view of the "before" situation, so if this still works, than you can do a good measurement now. Send me a message if you want to know more or need help.
Don't worry, it's all just 1's and 0's anyway...
This is not true, or at least wildly inaccurate. The main Indian Government-owned ISP, BSNL, has not blocked any of these websites. Many of the private ISP's haven't either. There is one private ISP -- Reliance Infocomm -- which is owned by the Reliance ADA Group, which happens to also have considerable interests in content generation (they produce bollywood movies, and also are major financial backers to Spielberg's Dreamworks SKG). They are known to block torrent/video sharing sites during prominent movie releases.
Reliance Media has an upcoming Movie release scheduled in 2 weeks.
This happens every time just before a new movie release. It'll be back to normal after that. The few other ISPs are probably going through Reliance. None of the other large ISPs have done this.
Its just to reduce the chance of a leak before the release, which has happened a few times in the past and is at times disastrous for the movie as it gets reviewed before opening day. Then if its good it gets downloaded a lot, while if its bad there's are less viewers turning up in theaters.
The block is being implemented by Reliance because it is releasing a movie on Friday
Think of it this way: If Warner Brothers had an ISP as well, and they blocked filesharing sites for 2-3 days before and after a movie is released by them, and they blame it on the govt. since the govt. gave them the permission to do so
One country blocks PB, and a lot follow. It's like they can't think by themselves so they need others to make way for their stupid decisions, so they are encouraged to censor and butch the world in the name of "piracy".
It's like my country that started a CISPA-like law before the US did, and then the US did, infallibly, after a few weeks.
Best thing. We got the highest unemployment rate in Europe, with numbers that are ridiculous. Yet, they worry about piracy instead.
I bet India's mid/low-class suffering is also ignored in behalf of "entertainment" as well (when was the last time those companies managed to entertain me, I don't know).
Entertainment makes us happier (at times) and gives us things to talk about. But it's definitely not what matters in the big picture. I'd rather be able to feed myself than to watch a new Hollywood hit, or play a fucking EA game.
At what point in time we gave extreme priority to Big Media so they have the power to actually affect our freedom? Because people (in suits) spewing out movies and music and videogames should not have this kind of power. They should only need to entertain us. Yet, they command more than governments.
It makes me laugh how primitive a block they have put on these sites because i still have no issue in visiting them via simple means
infection...
Sudo make me a fucking sandwich..
Pirate hasn't been blocked. Still accessible from my computer(ISP is Airtel).
The majority of the people like to be controlled. We see a lot of news the last years about control and filtering on the internet. People want this. Why else is it possible for the entertaining industry to get content filtered. Why else is it possible that law enforcing departments can monitor us more and more.
Why else is it possible that government demands our internet communication to be stored for at least 2 years ( in the EU).
It's because people want this. It's rules for the people, by the people. The complaining minority should finally accept that we live in a democracy.
Essentially filtering is good. It protects you by seeing and doing things that you shouldn't do or see. Also being monitored will have a positive effect. People know that they are being monitored with everything. And this will lead to self censorship. Which is essentially also not bad. Are you really going to say in public everything you want? I don't think so. Being anonymous and creating a stage where everything can be said will lead to extremism.
And, to repeat myself here. The people WANT this. It is law made by the people for the people.
I am using Google's DNS servers and I can access both piratebay and isohunt .
The approach taken by the Indian government towards every such problem is stone-age . Drop a nuke to kill the roach. Unfortunately what the baffoons do not realise is that the only thing they will be killing are the humans ( legal users) . People wanting to download things from torrents will find one way or the other , until mega corporations release movies and music that are affordable and DRM free
"Can't stop the signal".
I say that quote is now obligatory whenever they try blocking access to information on the Internet.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
MAFIAA Fire!!!
A FireFox plugin to defeat blocking of PirateBay and other trackers.
It's ONLY DNS, after all... Save all your cryin' for the Queen.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
As I've commented in this story previously, thepiratebay and isohunt are not (yet?) blocked from my ISP (BSNL), but while randomly browsing I've come across a site that has been blocked here with the exact same message as others have noted: "This site has been blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecom (DOT)."
http://www.funscrape.com/
Is this site blocked for others too, both BSNL and other ISP users?
I wonder what's the reason for this one? Seems to be a harmless site...
Does India not have any free speech laws? A democracy that censor's speech is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship of consensus
This breaking news just in:
I am using Tata Photon+ TPB works for me.
Indian govt. is an asskisser. They kiss ass and don't even wipe their faces. India has been a UK follower regarding matters like these (Hell, even most Indian codes are a cheap ripoff of UK codes, think building construction codes, go figure..). "Department of Telecom" is run by bunch of assholes who cheated in their exams to get a job in it. They proved it by blocking a torrent "indexing" site "isohunt". They don't have a fucking clue what's an "indexing" site is. These ignorant germs wont hesitate to block Google; because it's an indexing site too. Meanwhile Ms. Prativa Patil is spending billions of dollars on trips with her homicidal brother, Manmohan Singh is probably sharing bed with kasab the terrorist and all the slackers are sitting in their home watching dodgy, glittery, "commercialized" IPL matches and crying if their team loses. "We're growing strong, we're developing" is a false hoot; not really, though since we're exponentially growing by population. This is the land of false hope and despair and we're "really" proud of being an Indian!! Well go ahead....debate me...because if you don't agree with me here ...I pity you and spit on you and your opinions even if you're glued and entitled to it.
Have a nice day!
For those who can't log into and/or download from Piratebay..use the link below.. ;)
http://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/
Have fun!
~Mr. S~
Guys the easiest way around it would be going to http://www.theslyratebay.com/ . Requiers no proxies or vpns or any other crap like that.
Why Slashdot like masala stories. Only reliance is blocking these sites, the official govt. ISP BSNL, MTNL don't block any sites. Also what means by the line "an Indian court gave the green signal for prosecuting social networking sites.", everyone knows India is the largest democratic country. Anyone has right to sue anyone, but that doesn't mean anything, the mentioned case was crushed in court, then why saying Indian court allow prosecuting... and in the other news, comparing India to great wall... Publish some real tech news, and not sprinkle spices on small stories and start portraying some countries as ... If you want masala news, I have lot about FBI and US Govt.
it is easy to access torrent sites thru tor project.............im dwnlodng movies thru dis only..........
Airtel just switched sides. apparently no one wants to fall foul of a rather dubious court order.
It's back to paid VPN for me again. LOL .
Airtel in Bangalore has blocked piratebay. This sucks big time as they don't stand to gain nothing from this move.