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UK ISPs Secretly Start Blocking Torrent Site Proxies
An anonymous reader writes "Several UK Internet providers have quietly added a list of new sites to their secretive anti-piracy blocklists. Following in the footsteps of Sky, the first ISP to initiate a proxy blockade, Virgin, BT and several other providers now restrict access to several torrent site proxies. The surprise isn't really that proxies have been added to the blocklist, but that the music industry and ISPs are failing to disclose which sites are being banned."
When will they begin to block general proxies, as they can be used to access blocked sites?
As a site is blocked, it adapt. Like TPB, it will move, change, and persist. You can't eliminate torrenting by attacking the practice - so long as there's a drive to do it, it'll find a way.
Only on
block one, something else opens.. it's quite simple. instead of trying to find a solution for this, they should just deal with the root cause. make things more affordable could perhaps be one solution, eh? :)
It seems like this would pretty easy. You can fit magnet links inside a QR code, and there's a million other ways you could encode the link into an image, perhaps even encrypting the link with a simple cipher to stop bots from autoblocking them.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Install Opera.
Turn on turbo browsing mode (Icon bottom left.)
PirateProxy.net now working again for me on Virgin.
Never be afraid to ask. Wisdom must be gathered before it can be given.
At the minute, they're locked into a futile game of whack-a-mole. It makes me laugh sometimes; the BPI have more or less veto power over the major ISPs in the UK and all they can do is flail around blocking a few sites and proxies. I imagine some bitter, humourless executive in the bowels of the BPI shaking his fist and screaming "CURSE YOU INTERNET!"
I say they're lucky, as I suspect in five years time they won't even be able to play whack-a-mole. What with censorship by various states, the NSA revelations and increasing authoritarianism, I think the next "generation" of P2P, web and messenger services are going to be anonymous. Tor we all know about, and I notice I2P shows a lot of promise. File sharing will likely be the first breakthrough anonymous application, but I2P supports far more than that and other services will quickly follow.
I think encrypted, anonymous services will essentially be game over for censorship.
Hi
I just attempted to setup a proxy on my dedicated server at a datacentre in France.
It was blocked instantly
Tried a few other things, also blocked instantly
Tried running the webserver on port 800 thinking perhaps transparent webproxying at the ISP level was blocking it
It wasn't.
Got someone in japan to try it, it worked, got someone on a different ISP in the UK to try it, blocked.
There's clearly some sort of packet inspection going on and anything that comes up TPB is blocked in the UK.
How long before Mega gets censored? How long before trackers get censored? How long before the Tor website's download links get censored?
How long before /. is censored?
The UK should be sunk into the North Sea.
“The court orders obtained in relation to The Pirate Bay cover not only the site itself, but also sites which have the sole or predominant purpose of providing access to The Pirate Bay. It would not be right to allow proxy sites flagrantly to circumvent blocks ordered by the High Court. We do not publish the names of proxies and it would not be appropriate for us to do so,” a BPI spokesperson said.
Well, if they expect VPN providers to block the pirate sites, they will have to provide them with a list. If they fail to provide them with a list, then it is crystal clear that they have no intention to have them block pirate sites.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
We revolted from British rule. Maybe they can, too.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It's an open secret that about 75% of english-language TV worth watching, comes from the UK. I don't care how much the UK government works against the interest of its own citizens, but interfering with the cappers' ability to get their video to me, is anti-American. And Americans don't take kindly to other governments having anti-American policies. Fucking with me, is my government's job.
It's open season on Redcoats. PART 2, BIATCH!
This is a surprise to anyone?
No. The UK has been a police state for years. I can't believe anyone would want to live there or visit the damn country.
Yup, The US approach of not blocking the sites or proxies but then allowing shyster lawyers to sue the users to bankruptcy is much better.
I dont read
This block only seems to affect the big ISPs like BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin. Many of the smaller companies aren't part of these schemes and aren't being targetted by the court orders. Just switch your business to one of them!
Last week, I had a gaming itch to scratch and I felt like playing the XCOM reboot. It's available for £34.99 on the App Store and I was hesitant to buy it because I wasn't sure how it would run on my Macbook with an integrated graphics. It's always a hassle trying to get a refund for purchased software so I searched online for a demo to get a feel for how it would play. After some searching, I found that the demo was only available for the Window's version.
So I downloaded a torrent of the game.
To my surprise, the game ran well on my Macbook's integrated graphics chip. I spent a couple of hours checking things out, playing through the tutorials and just having fun with the game. I then shut it down, and proceeded to buy the game. screenie
The developers who made the port did themselves no favours by not releasing a demo. The lack of playable demo coupled with the asinine rules governing purchased software (no returns, wtf?) mean they would definitely have lost a sale. However, thanks to the availability of the cracked version I was able to check that the game ran fine on my machine which then led to a purchase.
TL;DR
Torrents help push sales. True story.