RadioTimes.com Accidentally Included In UK Antipiracy Blocking

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."

Comments

Evilgasm!

[girlintraining]

Ambition: These network admins need some. I'm still waiting for one of these sites to update their DNS to include every IP address on the internet with an 'A' record in their domain, then create a web page for their crawler that sequentially lists them all. The entire UK wakes up tomorrow with no internet.

Great Britain could use a Great kick in the ass. The irony of trying to block porn and winding up booting themselves off the entire internet cannot be understated.

Re:Evilgasm!

[Gaygirlie]

Ambition: These network admins need some. I'm still waiting for one of these sites to update their DNS to include every IP address on the internet with an 'A' record in their domain, then create a web page for their crawler that sequentially lists them all. The entire UK wakes up tomorrow with no internet.

That's exactly the same thought I've had rumbling around in my head for a while now, though if I were running one of these blocked sites I'd probably include all the government sites and such there, but leave all the questionable content - offering sites out of there just to mess with people even more. On that note I'm fully expecting someone to blanket a whole range of IP-addresses like this and watching Cameron burn. Too bad that I don't like popcorn.

Re:Evilgasm!

[Zocalo]

Yup, one of the first things that crossed my mind too. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already, to be honest, given the dubious nature of many of the sites concerned, but it's probably just a matter of time. All they would need to do is randomly insert a few IP addresses of high profile sites into a list of A records for the blocked site, and bonus points for using dynamic updates to change the trojan IPs randomly making it harder to establish what happened. It'll cause a percentage of people who are not blocked and trying to visit the site to get default websites or error pages depending on how many duff A records there are in proportion to legit ones, but that's nothing compared to the PR pain of those trying to run the filters or operators of the collateral damage. I suspect the list of targets would be pretty broad, but good look if you are responsible for running websites for one of the following when someone actually gets around to it:

• Political bodies associated with censorship, especially the Conservatives & Lib Dems
• Specific politicians associated with censorship, such as Claire Perry
• Mainstream media, especially those promoting such ridiculous schemes such as the Daily Mail
• ISPs that have rolled over implemented the scheme (How many took it to the High Court again? It was ZERO, wasn't it?)

Re:Be & Sky

[speps]

UK as well, I am with XILO, very satisfied, the customer support was excellent and the service is very good. Also, here is their answer concerning filtering : https://discuss.xilo.net/responses/whats-going-to-be-happening-with-the-opt-in-for-adult-content-thing They offer unlimited bandwidth offers and don't throttle traffic (as per their FAQ) : http://www.xilo.net/adsl_broadband/

I have an idea

[slashmydots]

The only way they'll learn that this system is overzealous, non-working crap is their pocketbooks. Time to sue the hell out of them for downtime losses.

Re:I have an idea

[fahrbot-bot]

The only way they'll learn that this system is overzealous, non-working crap is their pocketbooks. Time to sue the hell out of them for downtime losses.

Or sue the ISP for over charging customers for Internet access. Customers are paying for access to the Internet, yet their ISP is only granting access to part of the Internet. I think customers are due a refund...