The Pirate Bay Is Back Online, Properly

New submitter cbiltcliffe writes: About a month ago, we discussed news that the Pirate Bay domain name was back online. This story mentioned a timer, which supposedly showed the time since the police raid. I didn't notice at the time, but a more recent check showed this counter was counting down, not up, with a time set to reach zero at the end of January. Sometime around a week ago, the waving pirate flag video changed to a graphic of an orange phoenix, and a disabled search box showed up. I've been watching the site since, and now, about 12 hours before the timer was to reach zero, the site is back up, complete with searches.

Comments

Problems with the staff

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems they have problems with the staff though.
More info here

Re:Problems with the staff

[BronsCon]

Yeah... staff locked out? Seems fishy, almost as though LEOs took over the domain and brought the site back up. Someone brew some tea, I think there's a pot of honey around here somewhere.

Re: Problems with the staff

[ihtoit]

there is a Flash exploit that STILL isn't patched, that only requires a user to visit a site with a bit of compromised embedded flash content like a banner ad, and BOOM, owned. You don't even have to click a link, just visit a domain hosting the content on a page.

Think "Autoplay", that's how fucking easy it is.

Re: Problems with the staff

[ihtoit]

problem with Noscript et al, is the same problem with softwalls like Zonealarm - the content is already downloaded to your computer for the parser to analyse before it's passed to the rendering engine. It's already in your system. Like Zonealarm, it should be considered the LAST line of defence. The first line of defence should be in your router. Have a blacklist, at the very least, of IPs of advertising domains. If your router doesn't offer blacklisting (my shitbox of a Netgear does, I'd be surprised if any more modern router didn't), use an old laptop and run everything through a softwall on that, that then passes through to your network. That's how I used to do it back when I had a cable connection through a Terajet 210 (which is actually just a modem with one ethernet port and fuck all else).

Re: Problems with the staff

[PopeRatzo]

there is a Flash exploit that STILL isn't patched, that only requires a user to visit a site with a bit of compromised embedded flash content like a banner ad, and BOOM, owned. You don't even have to click a link, just visit a domain hosting the content on a page.

I notice your account was created yesterday. Please let me be the first to welcome to you Slashdot.

Maybe you could tell us a little bit about yourself, by way of introduction. Like maybe your badge number.

Re: Problems with the staff

[ArcadeMan]

Adobe: [cheerfully] Welcome to Adobe, may I help you?
User: Yes.
Adobe: How may I help you?
User: You can start by delete that fucking dumb-ass buzzword checklist off your cash-grabbing scheme! And you can give me a fucking plug-in with fucking vector graphics, fucking bitmap graphics, fucking interactive controls, fucking video playback! A fucking plug-in without security holes!
Adobe: I really don't care for the way you're speaking to me.
User: And I really don't care for the way your company keeps releasing software with huge security holes with fucking backdoors for the fucking NSA. And I really didn't care to fucking wipe my system, re-install fucking Windows and fucking re-install your sfotware to get back with the same problem in my fucking face. I want a fucking secure plug-in RIGHT FUCKING NOW!
Adobe: Did you update Flash to the latest version?
User: No, I did not update Flash to the latest fucking version.
Adobe: Oh boy.
User: Oh boy, what?
Adobe: You're fucked!

Re: Problems with the staff

[ArcadeMan]

Slashdot. Where a simple "edit" button is too much to ask.

Sorry about the typos in my comment above, it won't happne agian.

Re: Problems with the staff

[Nethead]

Sorry about the typos in my comment above, it won't happne agian.

We've all said that.

Re: Problems with the staff

[FrankSchwab]

You have a weird definition of "virus" and "malware".

In my world, Malware includes everything that gets installed on your machine (surreptitiously or not) that does "bad" things ("mal" = (french) bad, evil). That would include worms, viruses, rootkits, unwanted toolbars, home page redirectors, Stuxnet, Cryptolocker, and just about every other form of third-party computer abuse.
Virus is a subset of malware. /frank

Re: Problems with the staff

[Anonymous Coward]

Viruses are meant to spread to other files on same system in hopes one of those files winds up on a floppy going to a fresh system to infect.
Worms are meant to use networking to spread.
Malware is meant to infect and stay hidden so it can deliver the following:
Adware is meant to hide so it can keep showing ads.
Spyware is meant to hide and keep track of you.
Ransomware doesn't hide at all, it tries to scare you into paying for protection.
Rogueware pretends to do something useful but says you need full paid version to do it. Except there is no problem that it can fix.

There's prolly more but I'm done shitting now.

Re: Problems with the staff

[drinkypoo]

problem with Noscript et al, is the same problem with softwalls like Zonealarm - the content is already downloaded to your computer for the parser to analyse before it's passed to the rendering engine. It's already in your system.

Well, yes and no. The script embedded in the html or whatever is already in your system, but any linked script files hosted on a dodgy domain don't actually get downloaded at all, at least on Firefox. In the past this was impossible on chrome by design, but I'm told it works properly now. The flash and most of the script is never in fact downloaded to your PC at all.

Countdown

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there going to be a countdown until it's taken back down? FBI.gov maybe?

Re:Countdown

[ihtoit]

tell that to Kim Dotcom.

And the game continues

[TheReaperD]

And the futile game of whack-a-mole continues. I wonder just how long media companies will take to realize that this is futile? My guess is they'll go out of business first.

Re:And the game continues

[martin-boundary]

That argument makes little sense. Of course people get paid for their work. The TBP operates in the pipeline _after_ people already got paid. Movies or whatnot don't get made without people getting paid. The carpenters who build sets and models get paid. The costume designers get paid. The extras get paid, the camera people, etc.

It's best to think of piracy as a form of spoilage. The example is harvesting apples. That's a lot of work, and the pickers must get paid, but once the apples are put in storage, some percentage of the apples will spoil. You don't see farmers being ideologically opposed to spoilage, do you? It's not an ideology or an ethical problem. It's a natural part of the lifecycle of apples. There are ways to minimize it, but it gets expensive and often is not worth it.

Media have a lifecycle too. Once enough people got to see them, some people will make copies, using cams or otherwise. With news it's even worse. Once enough people hear about the latest terrorist bombing, they'll paraphrase using their mouths. That's piracy: It's only a matter of numbers, and of probabilities.

Economically in fact, piracy is a good thing just like any form of spoilage. Imagine if you bought 10,000 apples and they never, ever, spoiled? You'd still be eating those apples when you were 80 years old. You'd never have bought another apple in your life. You'd have expensive storage costs over 80 years. The farmer would be out of business already, since after everyone bought a lifetime's worth they wouldn't buy any more. And apple prices would be much higher in a futile bid to compensate.

Same with movies and media. The myth of a piracy free hollywood is a nightmare in disguise. Don't waste your time believing their lies.

Re:And the game continues

[AK Marc]

I will remember not to pay you and see how you like it and make up some rationalization you already got paid.

Every person involved was already paid. The Grip and such got paid cash on the day they worked. Stealing it after hurts nobody who "worked" on it. Pay me cash for my work, then steal it after I'm paid. That won't hurt me.

Re:And the game continues

[houghi]

Talk about a bad example. farmers complain ALL THE TIME about apples getting spoiled. They are lting around and are not being sold and thus getting spoiled. Yet they STILL want the money for it (so in THAT way they are the same as the MAFIAA).
Replace apples by corn and perhaps you see where I am coming from.
Seriously, I know farmers personally. They will comp;ain about rotten apples, ripe apples, good weather and bad. A great crop is not good and a lousy crop is not good (although sometimes better finanically then a great crop).

Perhaps compare it with cribbing. One person does all the work and gets an A for efford. The other person also gets an A without the effort. Nothing has been taken from the first person. He still has his A and the knowledge to get that A.
Where it gets realy intresting is when you are looking for a job.
The MAFIAA says that your chance of getting a job is less, because somebody now has 'your' A and could get the job.

People that pirate say that this is not the case, because the A is not the only thing. They will very soon see that the person does not know anything and lose his job anyway this giving the first person the job.

However what also is true is that the value of the A becomes less, as more people walk around with fake an A and that (said the MAFIAA) is the reason you need to catch as many cheaters as possible.

This is all very interesting. OTOH the music industry is not broke because of tape recorders. The movie theaters are not broke because of VHS.

Re:And the game continues

[AthanasiusKircher]

Let me preface this (as i always have to do here) by saying that the current copyright system is broken, the stupid copyright extensions that businesses have pushed through are ridiculous, material should go into the public domain much sooner (the original U.S. 1790 Copyright Act's idea of 14 years seemed plenty), etc.

But just because we recognize that copyright is fundamentally broken and business models may need to change does NOT mean we should mod up any completely nonsensical pro-piracy argument that anyone writes here.

And that's what this is -- a "+5 Insightful" comment that fails basic logic.

That argument makes little sense. Of course people get paid for their work. The TBP operates in the pipeline _after_ people already got paid. Movies or whatnot don't get made without people getting paid. The carpenters who build sets and models get paid. The costume designers get paid. The extras get paid, the camera people, etc.

WHO PAYS THESE PEOPLE? and WHY?

Seriously. Are you (and the mods who bumped this up) so completely ignorant of basic business practices that you don't understand the concept of laying out capital with the expectation of future return?

Let's say you go to work to write some code, say, and people pay your salary. After you're done writing that code, does everyone at the business throw a giant party and say, "Huzzah! We're all paid! We don't need no stinkin' customers to buy anything! Yeah!"

No.

What happens with most business models is that at some stage someone (usually with more resources than your average worker) has to lay out money in advance and go into "debt" on a particular project. Why do they do this? Because they need to pay people who generally can't afford to sit around and wait to get paid until the project is done (i.e., most workers).

It's best to think of piracy as a form of spoilage. The example is harvesting apples. That's a lot of work, and the pickers must get paid, but once the apples are put in storage, some percentage of the apples will spoil.

What the heck are you talking about? When exactly do the people who paid the pickers get paid?? When they sell the apples. After the apples are picked, everyone can't just declare "Huzzah! Everyone has been paid! Let's all go home!"

The people who have NOT been paid yet are the people who funded the whole enterprise in the first place. And guess what? If those people don't make a profit, they stop growing apples. They close up shop. Those pickers who were "already paid" lose their jobs.

Look, any comparison to copyright/intellectual property is already flawed. But in some ways, it works like most businesses -- somebody (usually "investors" or "the boss" or whoever) puts out money in advance with the expectation that they get a return. If they don't get a return, they stop funding businesses like that.

Say you're building a commercial building. You hire an architect, engineers, and a number of construction workers of various kinds. They all "get paid" at the end of the week or at the end of the job. Various people may outlay money in such a project in advance other than you -- the construction company owner, for example, might bid on the job. He still needs to pay his workers usually weekly or biweekly, but his construction company may not get paid until the job is complete. Then he can balance the books.

Similarly, you -- the guy who had the idea of building the building or invested in it -- put out a lot of money up front. When do you get paid? Perhaps it takes 10 years of rent payments from future tenants to get your money back. But after those 10 years, you earn a profit for the rest of the life of the building.

All of those costs are built-in. Those construction workers, etc. are all paid by someone else who is waiting for a return on his money.

Re:And the game continues

[AthanasiusKircher]

Every person involved was already paid. The Grip and such got paid cash on the day they worked. Stealing it after hurts nobody who "worked" on it.

To this, I offer the following parable:

There once was a man who wanted to open a series of restaurants. He hired an architect, interior designers, and a team of construction contractors to build the first restaurant. After a year of planning and building, the restaurant was finished.

The man went on Slashdot and then did read posts by AK Marc and martin-boundary and others, who told him that "every person involved was already paid."

So the man decided not to open his restaurant. Burglars came and stole the food. Squatters came and took up residence in the building. But the man was unconcerned, since "every person involved was already paid."

At the end of the year, the man went to his accountant. Lo, his accountant was not pleased. "Why didst thou spend thy money upon this restaurant?" saith the accountant.

The man saith unto his accountant, "'Every person involved was already paid.' AK Marc and martin-boundary hath told me so. Thus I decided customers were not necessary and figured the project was finished."

But the account then pointed out that the man had not been paid. And lo, the man was sore aggrieved. Thenceforth, he built no more restaurants, and construction business dried up in town. His architect and his designers and his construction workers lost their jobs and never were paid again.

But, as the Slashdot posters had said:

Stealing it after hurts nobody who "worked" on it.

But the workers were quite confused, since they lost their jobs.

Here endeth the lesson.

(P.S. In case this is too unclear to the dense posters and mods who rated such comments highly -- yes, for a particular movie project, the people who "worked" on it were already paid. But the corporations and investors who paid all of them were depending on future profits to make back their initial capital outlay. If they don't receive enough profits, they will stop funding future projects, and "the grip and such" will likely not get as much work. You may or may not think this is a bad idea -- and I'm NOT defending the current copyright system by any means -- but pretending that "every person involved was already paid" and there will be no future impact on their lives is just ridiculous.)

SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[lesincompetent]

How do we know it's legit?
i.e. not a honeypot or some kind of trick...

Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[wbr1]

They are torrents.. not thesilkroad. if you are concerned use your neighbors wifi or a decent proxy.

Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[Marginal Coward]

How do we know it's legit?

Hey, it's The Pirate Bay - what's not to be legit?

Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[kimvette]

Is it legitimately illegitimate?

Nice nice....

[Kekke]

Now all the officials who where involved in that raid, can start searching again via PB.
No need to use those thousands of others torrent search sites that are available.

Good for them.
I hope they feel like winners now.

I support the pirate bay and glad to see them back

[Trax3001BBS]

But like to share a recent event

I got my first Notice of Copyright Infringement not one but 8, one file which consist of 8 episodes.
Hell it's even on youtube.

On behalf of Vobile as an agent for Discovery Communications, LLC
2880 Lakeside Drive, Suite 360
Santa Clara, CA 95054
agent@discovery.copyright-notice.com

Evidentiary Information:
Protocol: BitTorrent
Infringed Work: How the Universe Works
Infringing FileName: How.The.Universe.Works.Season.1[Complete][2010]HDTV-up=
endi
Infringing FileSize: 352 MB
Infringer's IP Address: nope
Infringer's Port: not that it matters

Where are the legal challenges and responses?

[deltaromeo]

Where has the page that shows all the takedown notices and legal challenges (and their responses) gone?

Tic Tac Dough and Hollywood Squares

[tepples]

Of course it did. In the classic game shows Tic Tac Dough and Hollywood Squares, two contestants whose emblems are "circle" and "X" are fighting to place their respective emblems in a grid of 3x3 squares. So how many episodes of these series are available through torrents?

Kick Ass

[future assassin]

I started to use Kick Ass and much nice over Piratebay. Best part is you get to see the comments numbers on the main list.

One thing I did discover lately though is a lot of shows 2+ years old have no seeds. Wonder if usenet server could be used as a seed even if a single see to shows don't dissapear into oblivion.

Re:Not even close

[cbiltcliffe]

Original submitter, here.
Are you talking about ads on TPB site, or within the /. story page?
TPB is actually one of the big reasons I first started blocking ad servers at my router. If I was searching for something with the HTPC that the kids HAD TO WATCH NOW, to see if it was available, I didn't want them seeing the various dating and sex site ads that were pretty much all you'd see on TPB.
So, I blocked some of the most notorious ad networks at the DNS level on my router, which solved that problem, and a whole lot of ads on other sites, too. Those overly loud auto play video ads for various pointless crap that show up in forums and such, I never see. Those were done in my second round of blocking after TPB stuff. Every once in a while I go through my squid proxy logs and see what other ad and tracking networks are showing up, and disable them. Best thing is, if I buy a new computer, it's automatically protected, without AdBlock/FlashBlock/CrapBlock/etc being installed.

I guess what I'm trying to say it is, if there are ads on TPB, then I didn't see them before submitting. And if there are ads on the /. story page, well.....I don't see them, either.
Sorry if the story caused you any trouble that was my fault.

Re:except the investors, who paid everybody up fro

[wertigon]

"most movies don't make back their initial investment in first release."

Correction. Most Hollywood movies that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars don't make back their investment. Solution: Cut down production costs.

Actors demanding 40M bucks for their role? Yeah, that will fade, sooner or later.

Look, it's market economics 101. If your product/service/whatever don't make enough money it is time to trim the fat. Why should hollywood business be any different?