The Pirate Bay's 'Move' To Korea Was a Prank

judgecorp writes "The Pirate Bay's announcement that it was moving to North Korea was a prank, making fun of gullible readers. Admitting the hoax, the site said 'You can't seriously cheer the 'fact' that we moved our servers to bloody North Korea. Applauds to you who told us to f*** off. Always stay critical. Towards everyone!'" The essence of a good troll: so absurd it could just be true.

Comments

North Korea

[AK Marc]

NK, the butt of the world's jokes.

Re:North Korea

[bennomatic]

Why did the NK submarine fleet sink? They left the screen doors open.

Why did the submarines have screen doors? To keep the fish out!

I'm sure that Poland is thrilled that NK has taken over their long worn mantle.
full disclosure: there is a lot of Polish peasantry among the branches of my family tree.

Re:North Korea

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Did you hear about Kim Jong dying? I hadn't heard that he was il.

Re:North Korea

[Anonymous Coward]

Fellow Polak here.

I always wondered why Polish jokes exist. When in fact, the Poles were the ones who first cracked the Enigma code (The Engigma machine was based on a commerical encoder for banks) - the English continued the work but they would never have been able to do what they did without the Poles (U571, or whatever that shitty movie was called, was pure horseshit entertainment. ).

They better vodka than the Russians.

The jokes are because of envy?

Re:North Korea

[Antipater]

His son took over, though. Did you at least know that he had Un?

Re:North Korea

[gmanterry]

NK, the butt of the world's jokes.

How about... NK, the butt of the world.

Re:North Korea

[cusco]

Don't know about elsewhere, but I grew up in northern Michigan were there were quite a few Polish families who homesteaded in the 19th century. The soil quality there was so poor (mostly sand) that harvests were generally pretty poor. Many immigrant families ended up with three meals a day of cornmeal mush and potatoes, and children raised on that kind of diet tend to mentally stunted if not outright retarded. In our area at least the Polack jokes had some relevance.

Re:North Korea

[Sperbels]

I always wondered why Polish jokes exist too. Looks like Wikipedia has a pretty good write up on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_joke

Re:North Korea

[bennomatic]

I always thought it had something to do with the fact that Poland still had a horse-mounted cavalry at the beginning of WWII. Hitler famously staged a fake cavalry attack to justify invading Poland. I think that image of Polish cavalry charging across the border with their swords raised toward's Hitler's tanks has resonated through the ages.

Re:North Korea

[marcello_dl]

Both are irrelevant.
What we could discuss instead is the viability of North Korea as a server hosting country.

Given that one of Korean family names is "Ping", I'd say they are pretty well positioned.

Re:North Korea

[clarkkent09]

The real joke is that many of the site users apparently cheered the "move". Apparently forced labor concentration camps, widespread torture, arbitrary arrest and murder of citizens by the government, collective punishment for entire families and villages, complete absence of freedom of speech, no independent media, death penalty listening to foreign radio are bad, but not as bad as IP laws that prevent you from downloading stuff you want for free.

Re:North Korea

[GameboyRMH]

I wasn't sure who to side with but I'm ready to admit that NK is a bit worse than the MPAA/RIAA.

Re:North Korea

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

Polish jokes were a staple of my childhood, and I like to think it's because they were considered inoffensive-- we didn't really think that being anti-Polish was a thing (we'd never encountered anyone who really hated Poles), so we figured no one was hurt by them. It was like making fun of Belgians, or something.

Re:North Korea

[Medievalist]

It's the telephone company that's behind all the polack jokes.

They're always driving Poles into the ground.

Re:North Korea

[wbr1]

>NK, the butt of the world.
FTFY

Re:North Korea

[JazzLad]

Think French.

Re:North Korea

[maroberts]

I always thought it had something to do with the fact that Poland still had a horse-mounted cavalry at the beginning of WWII.

Except the Wehrmacht was itself largely reliant on horses for logistical transport and reconnaissance throughout the war, especially during the beginning years. In fact, on the Western Front both the Germans and Soviets used mounted troops regularly.

I think you meant Eastern Front :-)

Re:North Korea

[CanHasDIY]

As in, "I was going to move my server farm to North Korea, but the Ping count is just way too high."

Re:North Korea

[Antipater]

The jokes started long before WWII. Blue and Gray Laughing, a book about the humor of soldiers during the American Civil War, has a number of them scattered throughout (end shameless plug for a book written by my relative).

During the war, the "Dutch", a catch-all term for Germanic and similar-enough-to-Germanic-that-Americans-didn't-care European immigrants (Germans, Dutch, Finns, etc.) were generally derided by both sides. Their communities seemed generally disinterested in the war, and their corps in the Union army collapsed spectacularly at both Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, inviting frequent and harsh ridicule. It's very possible that the Poles got swept up in that sentiment, though Polish immigration to the US really didn't kick into gear until decades later.

Re:North Korea

[AK Marc]

They were anti-immigrant jokes. Every immigrant group was made fun of at one point or another. The US if formed exclusively of immigrants (yes, even the "natives" immigrated from Asia), yet is staunchly anti-immigrant. "I got here first, get out." has replaced "Send me your..."

Re:North Korea

[loufoque]

I wasn't aware any of the above was bad.
Did your god tell you it was?

Re:North Korea

[mattventura]

Have you ever had North Korean food?

Neither have they.

Re:North Korea

[detain]

I'm pretty sure the US courts handle IP infringment a lot more harshly than any of the stuff NK does.

Re:North Korea

[shaitand]

There doesn't seem to be any modern day anti-immigrant stance toward legal immigrants. Unless you count people coming on work visas to take jobs at below market rates and leech money out of the economy to be sent overseas.

Re:North Korea

[cusco]

The last that I heard (probably four years ago) the entire country's Internet connectivity was supplied by a pair of T-3 lines from Taiwan. Server farm is going to be pretty quiet, I suspect.

Re:North Korea

[CrimsonAvenger]

I'm pretty sure the US courts handle IP infringment a lot more harshly than any of the stuff NK does.

I take it you haven't heard about their "three generations rule"? If you do something deserving of a concentration camp, they also send your parents, siblings, and children along.

Re:North Korea

[killkillkill]

Anything, anything at all to get information into that country is a very good thing.

Ageed. However, this move would not have contributed to such a goal. Not at all.

Re:North Korea

[CrimsonAvenger]

I always thought it had something to do with the fact that Poland still had a horse-mounted cavalry at the beginning of WWII. Hitler famously staged a fake cavalry attack to justify invading Poland. I think that image of Polish cavalry charging across the border with their swords raised toward's Hitler's tanks has resonated through the ages.

Of course, the truth was that that never happened. Polish cavalry were dragoons (that mans they rode horses to battle, then got down off the nags and fought like innfantry), just like every other cavalry force still extent then (USSR used them, for example).

It should also be noted that there were more horses in use by the Wehrmacht than the Poles. 90+% of German "prime movers" were draft horses, not trucks/tractors.

Re:North Korea

[idontgno]

Yeah. Those *AA bastards are real bastards.

Wait, what? You're saying that that's what NK does? Huh. I'da sworn that was more like the pigopolists.

Re:North Korea

[fustakrakich]

Wait, are you describing North Korea, or Saudi Arabia, or various South and Central American countries? You know, because The US and Europe are not really against those things if they think they can get free stuff from them.

Re:North Korea

[SeaFox]

The real joke is that many of the site users apparently cheered the "move". Apparently forced labor concentration camps, widespread torture, arbitrary arrest and murder of citizens by the government, collective punishment for entire families and villages, complete absence of freedom of speech, no independent media, death penalty listening to foreign radio are bad, but not as bad as IP laws that prevent you from downloading stuff you want for free.

Red herring much?
Cheering a move to NK doesn't imply cheering human rights abuses.

The cheering was for no other reason that the Pirate Bay was moving to a country that would not give a rat's ass what the U.S. or EU thought about copyright law and file sharing, nothing more. It is possible to hold mutually exclusive opinions on these two topics last time I checked.

Re:North Korea

[canadiannomad]

Somebody, mod the parent up. I'd also add that Canada and most of Europe are in the same boat.

Re:North Korea

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

If you do something deserving of a concentration camp, they also send your parents, siblings, and children along.

Only seems fair. They wouldn't want you to be lonely.

Re:North Korea

[TFAFalcon]

Why does moving your servers to North Korea somehow imply your support for their government? All it would do is cause the US to hate them even more (if that's possible). So you're just exploiting the dictatorship, perhaps bringing it's end a bit closer (an extra server would cost them what? 20% of their national power supply?)

Re:North Korea

[AK Marc]

I hear lots of things that disprove your assertion. How about an experiment, remove all laws that restrict immigration, and see if the people welcome the newcomers with open arms, or start whining about the newcomers. And yes, I hear all sorts of things that are anti-immigrant. I know 3rd generation Mexican families that have been insulted for speaking Spanish to each other in public. They weren't immigrants, but descendants of ones, same as you. I have a latter written by my great grandfather when he sailed to the US in the late 1800s from England. And my great grandmother (other side) came over about the same time from Norway. But nobody has told me to "go home", just my brown friends get told that (even the dark brown ones have been invited to travel back to Africa).

Re:North Korea

[AK Marc]

Hence why all the anti-imigration crap is stupid. It's all arbitrary and based in racism/tribalism.

Re:North Korea

[thegarbz]

Why are you taking sides?

Why can't we just accept that just because a government is batshit crazy doesn't mean that some of their policies are actually ok. Following on that premise why can't we then exploit those policies to counteract some of the stupid decisions of other governments?

When did the issue become all or nothing? There's plenty of hate to spread around to all governments.

Re:North Korea

[citizenr]

I always thought it had something to do with the fact that Poland still had a horse-mounted cavalry at the beginning of WWII. Hitler famously staged a fake cavalry attack to justify invading Poland. I think that image of Polish cavalry charging across the border with their swords raised toward's Hitler's tanks has resonated through the ages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWezYFUTn-4

In polish, but you can tell by picture alone whats going on

basically myth is this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWezYFUTn-4&t=32s
reality looked more like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWezYFUTn-4&t=5m49s

Polish Army even had rifles what easily penetrated early German WW2 tanks armor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wz._35_anti-tank_rifle

Re:North Korea

[citizenr]

It's very possible that the Poles got swept up in that sentiment, though Polish immigration to the US really didn't kick into gear until decades later.

Yes. Im sure it was all because of people like Kociuszko (hint : Kociuszko's Monument in West Point)

Re:North Korea

[dbIII]

It just means not enough people are paying attention to the world around them.

Re:North Korea

[dbIII]

I think you are barking up the wrong tree.
Starvation jokes aside, they used to export food to China until maybe about the 1970s when an even more insane industrialisation effort than the 1920s-30s USSR one changed them into a country that cannot feed itself.

Re:North Korea

[Hal_Porter]

For Internet kiddies "fascism" is when mum and dad tell them to move out to their own place and get a job to pay the rent, and then the RIAA tells them they need to pay for HBO and movies rather than just downloading them for free.

The idea that there's a actual holocaust happening on the other side of the world is far beyond their comprehension, hence the irritating "North Korea is the Best Korea" meme.

Spoiled little shits.

Re:North Korea

[Hal_Porter]

There's a saying in Norwegian diplomacy, 'always keep talking'. Why? Because it allows for the elements in a society who want change, to actually effect that change.

How did that work out for you in WWII?

Re:North Korea

[Hal_Porter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KTsXHXMkJA

Re:North Korea

[evanism]

probably not as bad as every single war you have lost since.

Re:North Korea

[evanism]

in a household, this is exactly what the MPAA does. Everyone is guilty.

Re:North Korea

[evanism]

Indeed your argument is true.

I don't agree with countries that torture, hold extraordinary renditions, run black concentration camps, indiscriminate murder other countries citizens, incarcerate its innocent citizens or bankrupt them to protect corporate larceny, but I do host my sites there.

Re:North Korea

[sribe]

The real joke is that many of the site users apparently cheered the "move". Apparently forced labor concentration camps, widespread torture, arbitrary arrest and murder of citizens by the government, collective punishment for entire families and villages, complete absence of freedom of speech, no independent media, death penalty listening to foreign radio are bad, but not as bad as IP laws that prevent you from downloading stuff you want for free.

Guess what? Dennis Rodman. Guess what? You know. Guess what? It's the same here. Guess what? Politics. Guess what?

Re:North Korea

[rioki]

Yea right WWII, love that reference. If you would study history you would learn that the US had a very strong isolationist policy. It joined in the war very late and it is a piece of cake to wage a war when the battleground is not in the same location as your factories. WWII was easy for the US, the US had 2 years to prepare. The Norwegians had to fight, totally unprepared and on their own ground.

Re:North Korea

[Sigg3.net]

As a Scandinavian I got the joke, and found articles on the fake routing. I'm not sure, but I read most comments that didn't read like an 11-year old as playing along with the joke.

Re:North Korea

[Inda]

Ronery!

I can't bereive you didn't go you that obrious one!

Re:North Korea

[Hal_Porter]

probably not as bad as every single war you have lost since.

I don't know who you think 'you' is, since a moment's reading of my comment history would tell you I'm not an American.

Still one think the UK and US have in common is that they have not been occupied for hundreds of years. Part of the reason for that is that historically they have been willing to kill people in huge numbers to keep that from happening.

Talking is nice and all but they only way to get rid of scourges like National Socialism is carpet bombing, not talking. If we'd have kept talking we would have ended up getting picked off like Norway did.

Another part of the reason is that the US and UK intervene all around the world to try to sabotage totalitarian movements whose existence they feel is not in their national interests. At its best that strategy brought down another totalitarian movement, Communism without actually needing to fry their cities with nukes. Because that, not talking, was the alternative.

A predatory and occasionally just plain murderous foreign policy on the part of the US and UK is one of the reasons that Scandinavia didn't fold like a house of cards in the face of the Russians the way most of it did with the Nazis.

Read your Orwell - a world dominated by interchangeable tyrannies would be a world in a dark age. That justifies all the Dresdens and aid to the nasty anti Communist forces that made sure that both National Socialism and USSR and Warsaw Pact are now things we only read about in the history books.

Think I'm misquoting Orwell? Perhaps, but I'm not so sure. He defended Dresden and disdained international agreements and pacifists like the irritating Vera Brittain - who I'm sure Scandinavians would have loved.

http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/eaip_01

Miss Vera Brittain's pamphlet, Seed of Chaos, is an eloquent attack on indiscriminate or 'obliteration' bombing. 'Owing to the R.A.F. raids,' she says, 'thousands of helpless and innocent people in German, Italian and German-occupied cities are being subjected to agonizing forms of death and injury comparable to the worst tortures of the Middle Ages.' Various well-known opponents of bombing, such as General Franco and Major-General Fuller, are brought out in support of this. Miss Brittain is not, however, taking the pacifist standpoint. She is willing and anxious to win the war, apparently. She merely wishes us to stick to 'legitimate' methods of war and abandon civilian bombing, which she fears will blacken our reputation in the eyes of posterity. Her pamphlet is issued by the Bombing Restriction Committee, which has issued others with similar titles.

Now, no one in his senses regards bombing, or any other operation of war, with anything but disgust. On the other hand, no decent person cares tuppence for the opinion of posterity. And there is something very distasteful in accepting war as an instrument and at the same time wanting to dodge responsibility for its more obviously barbarous features. Pacifism is a tenable position, provided that you are willing to take the consequences. But all talk of 'limiting' or 'humanizing' war N is sheer humbug, based on the fact that the average human being never bothers to examine catchwords.

The catchwords used in this connexion are 'killing civilians', 'massacre of women and children' and 'destruction of our cultural heritage'. It is tacitly assumed that air bombing does more of this kind of thing than ground warfare.

When you look a bit closer, the first question that strikes you is: Why is it worse to kill civilians than soldiers? Obviously one must not kill children if it is in any way avoidable, but it is only in propaganda pamphlets that every bomb drops on a school or an orphanage. A bomb kills a cross-section of the population; but not quite a representative selection, because the children and expectant mothers

Re:North Korea

[Hal_Porter]

The Norwegians had to fight, totally unprepared and on their own ground.

Sounds like a good reason for fighting totalitarianism when it's on the other side of the world to be honest. I.e. an interventionist foreign policy like the US and UK have. If you leave until it threatens you with invasion, you're likely invaded like Norway or forced into moral dubious fellow traveller status like Sweden did with Germany in WWII and Russia did with Sweden afterwards.

Norway clearly learned its lesson (unlike Sweden) - that's the reason it joined the US and UK in NATO post WWII.

Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I don't believe you.

Whew!

[cyberzephyr]

Thank the Robolords for that!

A day of mourning in North Korea

[Grayhand]

Apparently Kin Jong Un was inconsolable as he read the story in his pirate outfit. Then some one explained to him Pirate Bay wasn't an actual bay with pirates.

Re:A day of mourning in North Korea

[Freshly Exhumed]

Stop the presses! Kim Jong Un has just announced that Gnome founder Miguel de Icaza is moving to North Korea to head their complete IT move to Apple platforms. Kim's statement read: "We like Apple and their approach. We, of all people, GET IT. The customer must be fully managed, just as we fully manage our freedom-loving citizens."

Re:A day of mourning in North Korea

[interkin3tic]

He briefly paused eating cake.

in other words

[phantomfive]

They're just a bunch of kids, and no need to trust them.

Re:in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

They're just a bunch of kids, and no need to trust them.

Yep. Nice to see our culture is marginalizing itself as it struggles in a fight for legitimacy.

Re:in other words

[Looker_Device]

This is what is most disappointing. It's hard to take people seriously when they're pulling childish pranks like this. And there are a lot of issues regarding copyright and piracy that we *should* be taking seriously and debating. Stunts like this are annoying distractions, and only strengthen the RIAA/MPAA and its ilk.

Re:in other words

[something_wicked_thi]

It's an organization dedicated to subverting the law and what made you not trust them was an absurd prank about moving their servers to North Korea?

Re:in other words

[CanHasDIY]

This is what is most disappointing. It's hard to take people seriously when they're pulling childish pranks like this. And there are a lot of issues regarding copyright and piracy that we *should* be taking seriously and debating. Stunts like this are annoying distractions, and only strengthen the RIAA/MPAA and its ilk.

Read: "I totally fell for it."

You know what makes it really hard to take someone seriously? When the get all butthurt because they didn't get the joke.

Re:in other words

[viperidaenz]

It wasn't against the law when they started it. The laws were made after the fact.

Re:in other words

[Looker_Device]

Could be worse. I could have used terms like "butthurt" in my response.

Re:in other words

[pupsocket]

Like Abby Hoffman wasn't serious.

Re:in other words

[CanHasDIY]

Stellar comeback, Little Johnny.

Got any other playground gems to bandy about?

Re:in other words

[CanHasDIY]

They're just a bunch of kids, and no need to trust them.

You forgot to tell them to get off your lawn.

Damn you, Alzheimers!

Re:in other words

[shaitand]

The law is unjust and they are engaging in a civil disobedience protest.

Re:in other words

[shaitand]

If the law is unjust then it is those who punish people under it who need to absolved. It isn't wrong to break an unjust law, it is wrong to make or uphold one.

The meaning is found is increasing awareness of injustice. Actually suffering the punishment is beside the point. If an unconstitutional law is passed and you deliberately violate it so you can appeal all the way to the supreme court and have it overturned... and are successful, they don't lock you up afterward.

Re:in other words

[something_wicked_thi]

Basic logic fail. Go look up the fallacy, "Denying the antecedent."

Someone tell the RIAA/MPAA

[concealment]

They've already put the pressure on China to sanction North Korea.

Wherever The Pirate Bay goes next, watch out! They might just invade!

Re:No shit?

[AK Marc]

Why would anyone be claiming to do something so stupid if it weren't true?

Great Red Blistering Onions!

[mynameiskhan]

When I first read that story, I was indeed looking for a link to The Onion.

Re:No shit?

[oodaloop]

Slashdot "editors" who are so dumb they fell for the Photoshopped mardi gras beads on Mars picture.

You think they actually saw the pictures?

Wrong destination

[gmuslera]

They should move to Antigua. Even will be approved by the WTO.

Really

[g0bshiTe]

Kudos to those that told us to fuck off.

Are pirates really so odd that piracy is completely ok but move a server to a communist dickhead county and it's fuck you pirate bay.

Re:Really

[CanHasDIY]

Not really all that odd, when you consider their philosophy is that since software is not a tangible good, it is impossible to steal (copies aren't stolen, because the original is still there).

Besides, even if they did see it as theft, it still wouldn't be that odd that thieves would take a moral stance against despotic, iron-fisted dictators. "No honour among thieves," and all.

What I find odd is the fallacy of equivocation, i.e. stealing software is morally the same as forced labor and state-sanctioned murder.

The truth was just as odd

[paiute]

They moved their servers to Hugo Chavez' crypt.

Not just a simple prank

[futhermocker]

because they applied some BGP trickery to have the IP resolve in NK
https://rdns.im/the-pirate-bay-north-korean-hosting-no-its-fake

Re:Did it say

[something_wicked_thi]

pendantically childish

I don't know if that was intentional, but I choose to believe it was for the hilarity.

Re:Frist

[istartedi]

Don't mod parent down. Parent is most glorious first post ever. Dear Leader has cleverly disguised as "Anonymous Coward" and controls most of Slashdot. All hail!

Re:No shit?

[egcagrac0]

the bar for intelligence of the Slashdot editors is pretty low.

It's an ADA compliance thing.

Truth in Absurdity

[EmagGeek]

This is almost as absurd as the rumor that floated around yesterday that Obama held a candlelight vigil at the White House in honor of Hugo Chavez. A lot of people ate it up and went into orbit... then it was revealed to be a hoax... except some people apparently showed up at the White House, candles in hand, and had a vigil for him anyway out on the street and put pictures of it on various social media.

Kinda the odd, self-fulfilling hoax I guess.

Re:Truth in Absurdity

[fl!ptop]

except some people apparently showed up at the White House, candles in hand, and had a vigil for him anyway out on the street and put pictures of it on various social media

Was it organized by Sean Penn and Danny Glover?

Re:Frist

[pupsocket]

In your tagline the phrase "for all intensive purposes" is an aural misconstruing of the phrase "for all intents and purposes". Please convey our consternation to whomever you consulted for editorial emendations.

Dennis Rodman

[sinequonon]

You mean he wasn't over there to float the Pirate bay deal? Hmm...

Okay

[slashmydots]

Always stay critical. Towards everyone!

Okay, that second statement isn't a sentence.

Re:Frist

[pupsocket]

If you could care less, then must care care some.