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"Piracy Filter" Blocks TorrentFreak for 4 Million Sky Customers
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."
This is why censorship of the internet is a fucking stupid idea.
TorrentFreak isn't a site that allows you to conduct piracy. It's a news site that posts content relevant to file sharing.
This would be like shutting down newspapers because they speak about other crimes.
"To the last, I will grapple with thee... from Hell's heart, I stab at thee! For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!"
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.
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.
I'm a Sky user in the UK, and I am here to post the text of the article:
"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.
stop-blockedFollowing a High Court ruling last month, six UK ISPs are required to block subscriber access to the popular TV-torrent site EZTV.it.
The actions EZTV faces are not the first taken against a torrent site in the UK. The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents and several other “pirate” sites have been blocked by previous court orders and remain inaccessible by conventional means.
However, over the past couple of days Sky subscribers noticed that the blocklist had been quietly expanded with a new site that’s certainly not covered by any court order – TorrentFreak.com.
Our site first became inaccessible on Wednesday night, only to be unblocked 14 hours later. However, about an hour ago it was again added to the blocklist.
The recent blocking spree is causing confusion among Sky subscribers who have no idea why TorrentFreak is longer accessible. However, we can confirm that the problem lies with Sky’s filtering software that is supposed to enforce the court-ordered torrent site blockades.
The owner of EZTV informed TorrentFreak that he used Geo DNS to point UK visitors to TorrentFreak’s IP-address. Soon after there were reports that our website had become inaccessible to Sky users."
EZTV should have their DNS servers point to SKY's IP addresses and sit back and watch as hilarity ensues.
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
How many Sky customers are reading the article?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
FYI this site is not a tracker or place to download torrent files; it's a new sites that posts articles, and only articles relating to filesharing.
It's not a site that gives you torrents. It's a site that gives you news. And once we block information, the slippery slope just gets lubed a bit more.
Making information and getting it illegal is and was the hallmark of any and every dictatorship in history, from fascism to communism. Part of that right to speak is the right to listen, without, it's pointless. By that logic, even the Soviet Union had a freedom of speech, as long as you were alone and nobody would listen in. It just was not allowed to say anything when someone else could hear it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
TorrentFreak was featured on mainstream news outlets such as CNN, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times the BBC, the Guardian and the LA Times.
Which makes it seem like they are not a sensible thing to block. I've not visited the site for a great many years, but if you only object to the sites that you use being blocked then it's very easy for censors to creep in.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
They are evil too, even more so.. that should get about 3.9 million of their 4mil customers pissed off.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I listen to NBC and get all the leftie info then tune in FOX and get the right's viewpoint. It makes the news interesting when you see it from both sides.
unless the word "proxy" is....filtered.
for now you can "opt-out"
but not if your at a coffee shop, cafe, library or public network.
the UK is now in the leauge of China, and Iran as far as internet access goes.
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."
And now you know the real reason for this bullshit. Censorship was never to protect the children. Children don't give money to politicians, corporations do. It's always been about perceived copyright violation by "Big Media." All hail our bought and paid-for ruling class. Follow the money.
Now that I said that, I fell better.
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.
Yeah but....
I've now come upon two separate Windows 7 systems where the \windows\system32\drivers\etc (the etc) bit was suddenly now a hidden directory.
WTF??????
Is this MS getting into bed with the Gov and hiding the very place where you can 'fix' your system to bypass the filters....?
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
This time I was able to detect an APK "MY LEET HOSTS FILE YADDA YADDA" post after reading just the very first line.
Damn, I'm getting good.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
It makes the news interesting when you see it from both sides.
Notice how easily they convinced you that there were only two sides...
I'm not sure which represents the greater tragedy--that, or the fact anyone could mistake NBC for being "leftist".
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
An American ex-pat I work with seems to have trouble with some of the most basic of computer problems, your stereotypical person of age who didn't grow up with computers.
Yet he has a VPN to a server back in the states so he can watch Hulu content without the stupid geobarriers. The word proxy and VPN almost already is a household word.
*facepalm*
He doesn't mean that the China censors torrents. He means that China censors at all. Try visiting facebook or twitter, or other websites where citizens can pick up dangerous opinions.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Well, its certainly leftist from the American perspective where the right is "religious conservative" and the left is "whatever is popular today"
"His name was James Damore."
SKY is operated (largely) by NEWS Corp aka Murdoch and Fox news
So CAN WE PLEASE HAVE A BLOCK ON the SUN Newspapers Website and FOX news -
That would at least be some positive achievement out of this shambles
I live in the UK and I see a totally inept, totally technophobic government try to work the 21st century with 19th century tools and mentality.
We have 2 little rich boys trying to run a country that is in a shambles because they don't understand anything - basically.
Oh and to keep the balance - the other lot aren't much better
Too many lawyers and PR executives and not enough techies - or anyone who has actually had to work for a living - in our government.
Editing the hosts file on Windows also tends to result in antivirus software triggering. Understandable: Very few users these days have reason to edit the hosts file, but it's a very common target for malware (Redirect banking sites to pick up passwords, or redirect ad banner servers to those operated by the malware authors) so any editing of the file will be flagged as suspicious. A few times I've had Windows itsself revert the file to default automatically, but that was under Vista - I don't know if 7 does that or not.
I merely pointed out some facts. You're free to interpret them as you wish.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
An excellent comment, even if you slightly miss the point. Different countries will filter different things...which, actually, is the main hope.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
am i supposed to be surprised that it actually works? cause a piracy filter blocking a site focused on torrents isn't a huge supervise
What exactly is a "site focused on torrents", exactly?
Do you even know what you are talking about, or you are working as a guy operating filter in Sky?
the UK is now in the leauge of China, and Iran as far as internet access goes.
Actually, China is monitoring and filtering UK's internet access. (Huawei) Welcome to you Chinese overlords.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Don't, whatever you do, opt out. Your name will be added to the UK Pervert Database and the next time some poor soul is raped and murdered in your area the police will be rounding up anyone who opted out of the "pornography" and "weapons and violence" categories.
If you opt out of the "suicide and self-harm" filter you can expect a visit from an NHS mental healthcare professional. Seriously, I asked my MP about the filtering and told her not to use the example of saving a single life because it was flawed, so she used the example of saving a single life. Apparently someone said they were going to kill themselves on Twitter and the police backtraced their IP address so they could rescue them, but that wasn't good enough and she thought that the government should be monitoring Google searches.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yes, it's a real bloody tragedy that your kids can't access Facebook in China, like they can in Canada.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I did not miss the point.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
It's not like that in Win 7.
Just to play devils advocate:
It also prevents you from using the HOSTS file as an adblocker (pointing adservers to loopback) on Metro apps. It's being sold as a "security feature".
Well there are two major political mafias. That makes two sides. Most media outlets support either one or the other. There are some fringe groups who can't pull enough votes to matter to the media.
There are a variety of solutions to these problems.using alternative DNS is one but this does not work in the case that IP addresses are blocked. Proxies may also work but in the end these are reliant on no blocks existing on the proxies network .Even then how long before proxies are blocked ?TOR seems like a good idea but in reality its a bit slow and thus you couldn't just route all your traffic through it.
What is the long term solution to this?
Does anyone have any long term predictions or ideas about how we might work around this in a way that performs well and is more future proof?
FYI. EZTV is also blocked with BT infinity. And my VM at Bytemark cannot access either
my fear is that what happens when Microsoft or apple start putting pressure on the government to block things like cyanogen or the Linux kernel?
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