Thanks To Encryption, UK Efforts To Block Torrent Sites Are Pointless (betanews.com)

Mark Wilson writes: In the UK, ISPs are required to block access to a number of big-name torrent sites — the thinking being that sites such as The Pirate Bay are used primarily for (gasp!) downloading pirated material. Despite the government's desire to control what people can access online, good old HTTPS means that people are able to very easily bypass any blocks that may be put in place. There are all manner of proxy services and mirror sites that provide access to otherwise-blocked content, but these are really not needed. With the likes of The Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents offering secure, encrypted connection, accessing the goodies they contain could involve little more than sticking an extra 's' in the URL.

Comments

Um

[penguinoid]

Adding an 's' won't change the name nor IP address of the website you're visiting.

Re:Um

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

"In theory ISPs could also block the site’s IP-addresses, but since many use shared IPs from CloudFlare this would also take down other unrelated websites."

Re:Been playing that game for ten years...

[DarkOx]

Well then you are doing it wrong. A ISP does not have the option but a organization like a school certainly can MTIM SSL.

There is no reason you should allow any SSL out you are not in the middle of.