The Pirate Bay Claims It Is Now Hosting From North Korea

An anonymous reader writes in with news that The Pirate Bay claims North Korea has offered the site virtual asylum. A press release reads: "The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Not for illegal activities but being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information. Today, a new chapter is written in the history of the movement, as well as the history of the internets. A week ago we could reveal that The Pirate Bay was accessed via Norway and Catalonya. The move was to ensure that these countries and regions will get attention to the issues at hand. Today we can reveal that we have been invited by the leader of the republic of Korea, to fight our battles from their network."

Comments

Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

No it isn't.

Re:Nope.

[buchner.johannes]

Without doubt, North Korea will take some remuneration from the Pirate Bay, which makes the Pirate Bay give money and credibility to a country with a population living in fear and hunger, and strengthening a regime that operates concentration camps.

This shows that they either have not thought this through, or they have no stance on human rights (i.e. they show they just want to download illegal stuff, not increase freedom of individuals). I hope this is a joke or will be retracted.

Re:Nope.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's 1st of April according to the North Korean calendar. They haven't switched to Julian calendar yet.

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am anti-US in a lot of ways (corporatism, a culture of violence, religious extremism...), but even when I choose to be a bit dishonest in order to win an argument, there are some comparison that are so absurd that I would never dare to make them, even when talking to someone really, really stupid.

Comparing North Korea with the US about human rights? Seriously?

Re:Nope.

[thoughtlover]

The US doesn't have a favourable stance on human rights either. Obama is cleared to bomb civilians in his own country without a trial. What is your point?

False, false, false. Seriously, I agree that Obama hasn't lived up to expectations, but really, you're statement is completely false. The US State Dept has continually advocated for human rights' issues in other countries and condemned the actions of dictators --even when we have starving children and a homeless explosion, here. Sure, the administration has a policy for killing Americans (and has) in other countries and even that's despicable. Extraordinary Rendition is despicable. Guantanamo Bay is despicable, too. But to say Obama is killing Americans on our own soil is just trolling. -1 to you, good sir.

Re:Nope.

[cheater512]

Do as we say, not as we do.

Re:Nope.

[shutdown -p now]

No one actually knows how many people are imprisoned in NK, since they don't release any official stats. We can only guess.

Also, we don't know how many are executed outright.

Re:Nope.

[QuesarVII]

Let me know when Zimbabwe starts doing nuclear weapons testing...

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

When they shoot you in the back of the head you are not incarcerated and do not appear in the cited statistic.

Re:Nope.

[fsterman]

Um, yes it is:

$ traceroute thepiratebay.se
  1 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 2.199 ms 1.119 ms 1.066 ms ...
21 rvs-rt0003_fe-0-0 .intelsatone.net (209.159.170.215) 409.544 ms 557.059 ms 409.418 ms
22 202.72.96.6 (202.72.96.6) 1024.210 ms 907.023 ms 1024.071 ms

$ whois n 202.72.96.6 ...
% [whois.apnic.net node-2]
% Whois data copyright terms http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html

inetnum: 202.72.96.0 - 202.72.96.255
netname: INTELSAT-CUS-Camintel2-KH
country: KH
descr: Reassignment to CAMINTEL S. A. customer, KH
status: ASSIGNED NON-PORTABLE
remarks: * For issues of abuse related to this IP address block,
remarks: * including spam, please send email to at:
remarks: * mchsokhom@camintel.com

Re:Nope.

[fsterman]

TPB as operating expenses of ~$100,000. If half of that went to a single bandwidth provider, NK would have enough money to cover 1 middle-class contractor at an embassy.

The money coming in from TPB will have exactly zero impact on Kim Jong-un's capacity to violate human rights.

Re:Nope.

[Evtim]

Guess if your (very insightful) comment will make it to the news, so to speak? Whereas the comment you reply to will be on every first page in ...hm..the first world. In fact they can, and will do better - "TPB supporting N Korea's nuclear weapons program".

I, for one, want to see this happen just so that the front page of the TPB will read - "DMCA this".

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

Only innocent til proven guilty in criminal cases.
Also, who is Bradley Manning, who is Kevin Mitnick...
The US is one of very few western countries that has a large part of the country speaking against health-care.
The US tortures people.
The US pretty much ignores all international treaties, that would have them do something.

The US is not a great country when it comes to human rights.

Re:Nope.

[elucido]

Maybe there's more rape in North Korean prisons?

More of everything.

Revealed: the gas chamber horror of North Korea's gulag

North Korea is Dark

Japanese families fear that North Korea is still abducting

Care to take a holiday?

The world's worst cruise holiday?

Two resources that they will apparently never run short of:
Nitwits that take up their cause.
Soldiers and weapons

Food, on the other hand....
The Cannibals of North Korea

NK is brutal. The problem is the US is brutal as well. Maybe if a country which actually didn't have the most prisoners in the world were to comment people wouldn't view it as a joke. It's clear the US government is not serious about human rights. Do we care about the rights of our prisoners?

I do think that American citizens care abut human rights but the lawmakers aren't voting that way. They won't even end the brutal war on drugs and outlaw for profit prisons. How can I take them seriously when they are building the worst prison state in the history of mankind. A prison state which will allow rich people to own shares in the prison camps. Laws which will arrest people on any charge they need to, in order to meet some quota so the prisons can profit.

I don't see how it's any worse or any better than what NK does. NK uses less humane methods, but the result and plan seems to be the same. Both nations have a prison industry. If the US has a prison industry it cannot speak on prisons. Outlaw for profit prisons and then you can speak on it.

Ahhhhhhh....

[Anonymous Coward]

NOW comes the freedom and "liberation" thing for those poor north koreans....

Re:Ahhhhhhh....

[History's Coming To]

Precisely. If it was about belief and freedom of information then Torvalds, Doctorow and many like them would be the subject of persecution and legal threats in exactly the same way. The pirate bay breaks the law in many countries, and they are prosecuted as such. It's like whining about freedom of speech when you're committing a clear libel.

Re:Ahhhhhhh....

[Anonymous Coward]

OTOH, when TPB started everything they currently do was perfectly legal. The laws have changed a lot since then.

Re:Ahhhhhhh....

[Fluffeh]

The laws have changed a lot since then.

Indeed, mainly because the laws are both being written and applied to enforce what the fat-cats don't like.

TPB: We don't host the files, we host torrent information. That's not illegal!
Fat-Cats: We don't like that. That's now illegal.
TPB: Okay, we don't host torrent files anymore, merely link a hash, that's not illegal.
Fat-Cats: We don't like that, we will block you anyway and think of a new way to make what you do illegal.
TPB: We don't do anything that Google doesn't do, that's not illegal.
Fat-Cats: We are blocking you from [insert country] now, your illegal tirade is over!
TPB: We will just appear under a new IP or domain... We aren't doing anything against the letter of the law....

and so on, and so on... etc... repeat... meh.

Re:Ahhhhhhh....

[viperidaenz]

Laws are made in many countries so they can be prosecuted. They're do nothing more than Google. The only difference is individuals post links to the pirate bay instead of an automated crawler and their search algorithms aren't very good. They funded by advertising (although in TPB's case it seems to just be advertising Asian woman and lonely house wives)

Re:Well, we'll see how THAT works out for you

[Jacek Poplawski]

This is probably hoax

https://rdns.im/the-pirate-bay-north-korean-hosting-no-its-fake

The difference - it's enormous

[villew]

Republic of Korea != Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea

Re:The difference - it's enormous

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. You can tell how much better a place North Korea is because it's a democratic people's republic.

Re:The difference - it's enormous

[Quiet_Desperation]

Splitters.

It's a fake routing

[Zarhan]

Not based in North Korea, but a fake. Basically they have hijacked couple of IP addresses and set up fake BGP advertisement, and probably generated an artificial delay with some Linux box to emulate a satellite link. Most likely the 'bay is now hosted from Cambodia.

In-depth analysis here:https://rdns.im/the-pirate-bay-north-korean-hosting-no-its-fake

Re:It's a fake routing

[anarcat]

and there's a followup now that validates what you're saying pretty clearly..

https://rdns.im/the-pirate-bay-north-korean-hosting-no-its-fake-p2

quite interesting read!

The Glorious Leader

[Anonymous Coward]

once downloaded the entire Star Wars trilogy in 4k with zero seeders. He achieved zero lost packets and a share ratio of infiniti +1.

ROK does not equal DPRK

[TEG24601]

I'm sorry, but North Korea is the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", whereas South Korea is the "Republic of Korea". There is a huge difference.

Re:ROK does not equal DPRK

[SuricouRaven]

I've noticed a general rule: If a country feels the need to proclaim 'democratic' in their name, they usually aren't.

Doubly true for 'people's.'

Re:ROK does not equal DPRK

[MartinSchou]

While I agree with the sentiment, it does raise questions about "greatest country in the world", "land of the free", "bastion of freedom" etc.

Or to put it another way - judge countries/people/companies/stuff by their actual merits rather than their PR.

In honor of the move

[Grayhand]

Kim Jong Un has made Talk Like A Pirate Day a national holiday!

ROK or DPKR?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republic of Korea is South Korea.

The Democratic People's Korean Republic is North Korea.

The summary says Republic of Korea, which should mean South Korea...

Re:Now they've done it...

[Nemesisghost]

Oh, come on, wouldn't you want to see the utmost irony? The Defender of Democratic Values going to war against The Uber Evil Rightless Commie Nation over them allowing the latest Mickey Mouse movie or Metallica album being distributed for free? I mean, think of the children.

The Exception That Proves The Rule

[American AC in Paris]

Slashdot: the only site on the Internet where you get solid information in the comments, but only a fool would venture into the news post.

Re:The Exception That Proves The Rule

[PRMan]

The comments and the article are typically OK. It's the summaries that are screwed up!

Re:Is it April already?

[egcagrac0]

Apparently, they forgot to hold this one for release the extra 29 days...

Not yet

[segoy]

The article doesn't say they are being hosted from DRNK, it says they've been invited to. The /. title is a poor summation, but the fact that they're not currently hosted there does not disagree with the content of the linked blog post.

Re:Not yet

[anagama]

just to be pedantic, it's "DPRK" (Democratic People's Republic of Korea).

Re:Not yet

[Beardo the Bearded]

That's why we generally call it "Best Korea" online.

Re:Not yet

[EnempE]

Living in the actual Republic of Korea, let me assure you that you are not a pedant. The difference between the two Korea's is pretty significant.

Re:Not yet

[Anonymous Coward]

+1

You'd think with all the tech stories (Samsung is based is South Korea) and general international interest in North Korea that you'd get more of a reaction here from a confusion between the two.

Republic of Korea = South Korea
Democratic People's Republic of Korea = North Korea

Note: I also live in South Korea and recently had difficulty proving my address because a UK bank confused the two.

Re:Not yet

[jrumney]

UK banks are terrible when it comes to "there be dragons" parts of the world. My wife has lost access to her account because she can no longer use internet banking without a non-expired debit card, and cannot register for telephone banking without either logging on to internet banking or going into a branch in person. We spent months trying to resolve this, being told over the phone she just needs to send certain documents, then finding out when nothing happened for several weeks and a follow up call was made that they either have no record of receiving the documents, or they decided they weren't sufficient due to the risk of fraud in the nether regions of the world. After about 6 months, they finally had the helpful suggestion that it would be much easier to "just pop in" to our nearest branch in Hong Kong to sort things out (after all, its only 1500 miles away).

Re:Not yet

[tangent3]

I tend to call it "Democratic" "People's" "Republic" of Korea

Re:Not yet

[rjch]

Generally I've found a good rule of thumb is that any republic that includes "People's" in the title is almost always the repressive one.

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) vs Republic of Korea (South Korea)
People's Republic of China (Mainland China) vs Republic of China (Taiwan)

Re:Not yet

[joe545]

Despite the name, the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation is actually British

Yes Minister

[countach]

Sir Humphrey: East Yemen, isn't that a democracy?
Sir Richard Wharton: Its full name is "The Peoples' Democratic Republic of East Yemen."
Sir Humphrey: Ah, I see, so it's a communist dictatorship.

Re:WAT?

[madprof]

The famous hacker/sportsman.

Re:North? Are you sure? Please confirm.

[Dins]

Well, the press release on TPB's blog is datelined Pyongyang, so there's that...

Re:Antipiracy hijacking of traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, good job you posed anon egh? wouldnt want to confirm you are an idiot interpreting a traceroute and whois would we ?

try increasing the hops on your trace, level3 (who you whois'd) is a massive backbone/tier 1 provider, their domain name is managed by MarkMonitor who managed large brand domain names, but you know that right ?

The internet - one big irony machine.

[hack slash]

TPB is blocked here in the UK on the major ISPs (mine included), which after their move to NK means a 'free' country is now blocking a site in a 'closed' country.

How did that happen?

Re:The internet - one big irony machine.

[bill_mcgonigle]

a 'free' country is now blocking a site in a 'closed' country. How did that happen?

âoeIt doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrongâ. - Richard Feynman

democratic or people or republic

[zaroastra]

have you noticed that just for the fact that the country name has democratic or people or republic on its name, it will have a far greater chance of it being a dictatorship... having democratic people's republic is just asking for trouble :P

Re:What could possibly go wrong...

[Eskarel]

They may very well have known exactly what the Onion is. They also definitely know that the average North Korean doesn't know what the Onion is, won't see any of the foreign news pointing out what the Onion is, and will only see a "western" article talking about how wonderful their leader is. Deprived of its context and in with a likely rough translation, the sarcasm won't even be evident.

NK is operating on a shoe string budget

[SmallFurryCreature]

They had to close the consulate in Australia once because they couldn't afford to run it anymore.

50k might be peanuts to you but it would is cold hard cash.

NK has been trying to sell IT services for a while now. You can outsource pretty much anything there, if you can stomach it.

From NK's point of view, this might NOT be about 50k, it might be about the millions/billions the RIAA claims are made by copyright infringement that they want a slice off. The UN gave one small island group the rights to hurt the US by giving them permission to violate US copyright law... NK could hardly get in more trouble for doing the same AND thinking they are going to get payed for it.

Plus their leaders are just batshit crazy, the previous guys had an unknown number of people abducted (from outside NK), including relatively famous ones because he wanted them to work for him. There is no career in NK telling the leader his idea is silly.

One of the most shocking things I saw was years ago when people were actually shopping outsourcing and when you asked where it was outsourced they said Korea, which I found odd because Korea's standard of living is rather high and they also need every tech person they can get for themselves... and then I remembered there were two korea's. I was actually sitting in a presentation with someone trying to persuade us that outsourcing flash game production to a prison camp was a good idea.

It would be like going back in time and witness a powerpoint slide by the nazi's (you can see the link) about the cheap labor to be had in their polish facilities. I have lived a sheltered life really like most western people. But that day I saw true evil. Someone bought a truckload of gold teeth and did not ask questions and someone sends emails with work instructions to NK and does not ask questions.

TPB is making a gigantic mistake. Once again, the enemy of your enemy is NOT your friend. But the friend of my enemy is most assuredly my enemy.

Re:Nope (but traceroute/whois says yes)

[Forever Wondering]

traceroute to thepiratebay.se (194.71.107.15), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
6 ae-7.r20.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.52)
7 ae-4.r21.asbnva02.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.102)
8 ae-2.r23.amstnl02.nl.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.145)
9 ae-2.r02.amstnl02.nl.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.159)
10 xe-4-1.r02.dsdfge01.de.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.65)
11 * * *
12 213.198.77.122 (213.198.77.122)
13 * * *
14 xe-0-1-0-3.r02.frnkge03.de.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.62)
15 xe-0.level3.frnkge03.de.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.8.202)
16 vlan90.csw4.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.154.254)
17 ae-82-82.ebr2.Frankfurt1.Level3.net (4.69.140.25)
18 ae-61-61.csw1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.134.66)
19 ae-21-70.car1.NewYork1.Level3.net (4.69.155.67)
20 INTELSAT-IN.car1.NewYork1.Level3.net (64.156.82.14)
21 209.159.170.215 (209.159.170.215)
22 202.72.96.6 (202.72.96.6) 837.620
23 175.45.177.217 (175.45.177.217)

---

whois 175.45.177.217
[Querying whois.arin.net]
[Redirected to whois.apnic.net]
[Querying whois.apnic.net]
[whois.apnic.net]
% [whois.apnic.net node-3]
% Whois data copyright terms http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html

inetnum: 175.45.176.0 - 175.45.179.255
netname: STAR-KP
descr: Ryugyong-dong
descr: Potong-gang District
country: KP
admin-c: SJVC1-AP
tech-c: SJVC1-AP
status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE
mnt-by: APNIC-HM
mnt-lower: MAINT-STAR-KP
mnt-routes: MAINT-STAR-KP
remarks: This object can only be updated by APNIC hostmasters.
remarks: To update this object, please contact APNIC
remarks: hostmasters and include your organisation's account
remarks: name in the subject line.
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20091221
source: APNIC

role: STAR JOINT VENTURE CO LTD - network administrat
address: Ryugyong-dong Potong-gang District
country: KP
phone: +66 81 208 7602
fax-no: +66 2 240 3180
e-mail: sahayod@loxley.co.th
admin-c: SJVC1-AP
tech-c: SJVC1-AP
nic-hdl: SJVC1-AP
mnt-by: MAINT-STAR-KP
changed: hm-changed@apnic.net 20091214
source: APNIC

Not convinced

[marqs]

After reading this I find this theory much more plausible
https://rdns.im/the-pirate-bay-north-korean-hosting-no-its-fake

How many people has the US abused? They wont tell

[elucido]

I am anti-US in a lot of ways (corporatism, a culture of violence, religious extremism...), but even when I choose to be a bit dishonest in order to win an argument, there are some comparison that are so absurd that I would never dare to make them, even when talking to someone really, really stupid.

Comparing North Korea with the US about human rights? Seriously?

But we know how many people are in US prisons. The US has more prisoners than any other nation. We know the US has used black sites, has used water torture, has done experiments on people without their knowledge, has used secret prisons.

Why should I trust either country? They both abuse human rights and the only difference is the US government is better at covering it up. Why don't we have information on the terrorists locked in these so called secret prisons? Even if secret prisons are needed why hasn't the UN been able to investigate? Why these kinds of secrets?

Also the war on drugs destroyed peoples lives, destroyed families, and continues to do so. I could point out Americans who have been destroyed. Yet you're believing what the US government says about North Korea, a country you've never probably been to. I'm not saying NK isn't abusing human rights, I'm certain they are as abusive as any other government. I'm saying that governments in general abuse human rights and to try to pretend that the biggest most powerful government wouldn't be the best at it, why not? Who is going to police the US government?

also "arab", "socialist", "islamic", "democratic"

[Chirs]

See http://brenocon.com/blog/2007/08/its-all-in-a-name-kingdom-of-norway-vs-democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea/