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"Piracy Filter" Blocks TorrentFreak for 4 Million Sky Customers

Posted by timothy on from the type-one-and-type-two-errors dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Website blocking has become a hot topic in the UK in recent weeks. Opponents of both voluntary and court-ordered blockades have warned about the potential collateral damage these blocking systems may cause, and they have now been proven right. As it turns out blocked sites can easily exploit the system and add new IP-addresses to Sky's blocklist. As a result TorrentFreak has been rendered inaccessible to the ISP's four million customers."

10 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. There we have it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is why censorship of the internet is a fucking stupid idea.

    1. Re:There we have it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Government officials usually have no real opinion on this due to a lack of understanding. They just act on lobby groups that are usually sponsored by Hollywood and other corporate interest groups.

    2. Re:There we have it by SGT+CAPSLOCK · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is to be expected of what I've come to call the "Corporate Internet".

      Governments and corporations have inherited our tubes, and I think that by now they're pretty confident that it's going to be acceptable for them to control and limit the content that ordinary people have access to.

      It's been like this for a while now; once you learn the ropes and (more importantly) learn to obey all the rules, you'll fit right in!

    3. Re:There we have it by davydagger · · Score: 4, Insightful

      there were people/corporations/governments that though the holocaust was a good idea. /godwin, but to prove a point that every bad anti-social oppressive idea does actually work for some people, the people in charge at the expence of everyone else.

  2. Re:So, What You're Saying is... by ClaraBow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So very true! The masses in the UK will suddenly acquire the necessary means to get around the filters. The word proxy will become a household word, just like it has become in school that filter the internet.

  3. Add DNS for "legitimate" sites by grahammm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the blocks are applied to any IP address pointed to by a blocked site, maybe as a demonstration a blocked site should add the IP addresses of all of the major UK political parties, BBC iPlayer, Youtube, Netflix, lovefilm etc. If mainstream media sites get (automatically) blocked then perhaps the backlash might force TPTB into either removing the requirement to block or require the ISPs to use a blocking mechanism with less potential for collateral damage.

    1. Re:Add DNS for "legitimate" sites by skovnymfe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They should block Slashdot, and all the sysadmins in the UK will rebel and take down the filter in their anger.

  4. Re:This makes me think of Wrath of Khan by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Kahn was quoting Melville; Kirk was his whale. And Star Trek is more known to most slashdotters than Melville.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  5. Re: Who cares? by Rockoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It makes the news interesting when you see it from both sides.

    Notice how easily they convinced you that there were only two sides...

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  6. Re:So, What You're Saying is... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the UK is now in the leauge of China, and Iran as far as internet access goes.

    You might want to try that again.

    I'm in China right now, and I've no trouble accessing either TorrentFreak or TPB.

    (And no, I'm not using a proxy or VPN, just a bog-standard residential connection.)

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.