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RadioTimes.com Accidentally Included In UK Antipiracy Blocking

Posted by Unknown on from the silly-citizen-you're-not-a-rightsholder dept.

Techmeology writes "Legitimate TV schedule website RadioTimes.com was briefly blocked by ISPs Be Broadband and Virgin Media as a result of the site's shared IP address. This comes days after it was discovered that Sky's system is vulnerable to DNS attacks that lead to TorrentFreak being blocked accidentally."

3 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. It's not accidental. by bmo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There are those in broadcasting that still view the Internet as "the enemy" and that even program listings somehow deserve "copyright" - even after 31 years of TCP/IP Internet.

    --
    BMO

    (I deliberately didn't include pre-tcp/ip Arpanet/Tymnet, etc.)

  2. Re:Evilgasm! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You don't need to be so bold. Just put the BBC, Sky News, and a few other conventional media sites on there. Maybe add the official Parliamentary web site. After all, there must be something some people would regard as "porn" somewhere on those sites.

    Doing a blanket block is too obvious. Make it selective. As selective as you like. As if being "selective" would solve the problem. Then maybe people will get the point that being selective *IS* the problem.

    [lawl - the captcha is "hubris"]

  3. Incompetence: The real enemy by pseudorand · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It should now be obvious to everyone that we're on a one way train to rampant government censorship enforced at the ISP level with governments exercising legal threats towards ISPs to get their (and by 'their' I mean big corporations, rich religious conservatives and peope who use terrorist fear mongering to keep their cushy jobs.) way, and that western powers, rather than China and the middle east, will be leading the way.

    But why is this really a problem? Do I care if they don't let me download pr0n? No. Do I care that they make me actually pay for my entertainment, possibly increasing the price? Not really. Am I scared of the next Hitler coming to power and using his control of the media to exterminate some subset of the population? Seems like a long shot at present. Will censorship prevent a few terrorist attacks by making it harder for them to communicate? Possibly.
    But all that junk is either unimportant (pr0n and piracy) or unlikely (Hitler and terrorists).

    This article demonstrates the real problem with censorship: incompetence. They'll block the wrong stuff and there's nothing I can do about it. There will be a place to report problems, but reports will be ignored, or at least take 6 months to get resolved. The entirety of the Internet will be rendered useless. We may as well all just go back to writing letters and making phone calls (assuming those don't get blocked too).

    I need to raise some money to buy a good supply of pens. Anyone want to buy a slightly used keyboard?