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The Pirate Bay Now Blocked In Chrome, Firefox, And Safari (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari are actively blocking direct access to The Pirate Bay. Kickass Torrents suffered such a similar incident last month, because of the intermediary confirmation screen that appeared every time users navigated away from the site.
The reason why these three browsers block access to The Pirate Bay is unknown, but it could be related to a malvertising campaign that has plagued the site for more than two weeks. Two weeks ago, the malvertising campaign intensified right when season six of Game of Thrones premiered.
Meanwhile, HBO is contacting sites asking them to remove Game of Thrones torrents, and sending thousands of copyright infringement warnings to ISPs, urging them to remind pirates that they can stream HBO content legally after purchasing a subscription to HBO.
The reason why these three browsers block access to The Pirate Bay is unknown, but it could be related to a malvertising campaign that has plagued the site for more than two weeks. Two weeks ago, the malvertising campaign intensified right when season six of Game of Thrones premiered.
Meanwhile, HBO is contacting sites asking them to remove Game of Thrones torrents, and sending thousands of copyright infringement warnings to ISPs, urging them to remind pirates that they can stream HBO content legally after purchasing a subscription to HBO.
They can be pretty nasty. Since it's illegal, they don't mind using illegal means to try to make money, such as compromising your computer and installing malware.
Be careful, folks. :)
I just tried it and I didn't receive any message.
I subscribe to HBO. I own a TiVo. But HBO forces TiVo to prevent copying of HBO content off the TiVo and onto, say, a mobile device (note that this is not a problem with most TiVo content). Thus, if I want to watch an HBO show on the subway, I have no choice but to download it illegally.
Reminder that Netflix recently banned proxy services, meaning non-US subscribers can no longer watch the latest US TV shows legally. This has lead to a massive uptick in torrent seeds and what we are seeing is the new corporate Internet act in unison accordingly.
These companies, yes companies are in control of the internet, both and network and client level. They do not have your interests at heart.
I see these warnings from time to time... maybe they just messed up their SSL config.
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
You make it sound like non-torrent sites aren't nasty.
I expect it's covered by these options under security:
[ ] Block reported attack sites
[ ] Block reported web forgeries
If you don't have these ticked then Firefox won't block the sites I expect.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Currently, users accessing The Pirate Bay through Chrome will see the error "Deceptive site ahead," the ones accessing the portal through Firefox will see "Reported Web Forgery!," and Safari users will see "Suspected Phishing Site" in their browsers.
-->> Users are allowed to skip these errors and continue at their own expense. Screenshots are embedded below for reference.
(emphasis mine)
So people aren't actually being blocked, they're just being given a warning which they can ignore.
Good work Slashdot. Another shitty article with a title that's flat out wrong.
I expect it's covered by these options under security:
[ ] Block reported attack sites
[ ] Block reported web forgeries
If you don't have these ticked then Firefox won't block the sites I expect.
Apparently,a lot of people don't understand the meaning of the word "block". Those setting don't actually block anything, they just display a warning which you can ignore.
I don't want to subscribe to HBO. I want to subscribe the Game of Thrones. Not the rest of your crap.
This is due to the "SafeBrowsing" feature in Firefox.
i.e. Firefox contacts and checks the status of a website with Google, and if Google has it listed as malware/phishing, Firefox displays this warning.
It's easy to switch of the safebrowsing feature by simply going to:
about:config
and search for "browser.safebrowsing.enabled"
and switch to "false".
By the way, this is also the reason why there's always a Google tracking cookie present in FF/Chrome.
I don't go the TPB, but if a product is actively blocking me from going where I want, the it's time to switch products.
The Brave browser is looking better every day.
Working fine on Iceweasel.
Also confirming that it either does or does not work. I didn't bother to try it.
Than you for your valuable input...
I use Chrome, Chromium, and occasionally Firefox (if I am forced to). I have no problems getting to TPB.
As is normal here, some person has a connectivity problem and jumps to a conclusion - OMG I'm being blocked!
Well, I'm not being blocked.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Felderal law says you're wrong.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/506
And
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2319
I gotta love the "what I do is not illegal!!!" downloaders who can't be bothered to actually check the laws before giving bad, bad, rationalizations for their behavior.
Game of Thrones has become such a boring cliche! Making money from the same old song, over and over again! I hope HBO crashes in default.
Simply respond with:
Please get a court date.
I look forward to tearing you a new asshole and making you and the people you represent look as stupid and embarrassed as I possibly can.
Thank you,
Now fuck off.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I don't want to subscribe to HBO. I want to subscribe the Game of Thrones.
You can do that by buying each season's DVD or BD set as it comes out.
Yea, you really think having free HBO makes up for having to live in China rather than the US?
I sure as hell don't. And can you please keep your fucking smog on your side of the god damn ocean?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Just imagine all the people trying to connect to TPB in order to find out whether its really censored.
They send tons of emails to us. We contact them to pay to be their process server and they hang up the phone. Piracy is when someone makes copies and sells them. So far no bottom dwelling copyright spammer has agreed to pay for us to deliver their letter. We have never received a single subpoena. They think we have to do it for free here in the land of the fee. Even if one finally did buck up and pay for us to deliver them they would still be handled as a civil suit. Feel free to shill away how wrong I am but I have real world knowledge about how cheap these bottom feeders are.
Your post reminds me of the "pirated games are always virii" BS. And FYI, torrent sites aren't illegal...unless you live in some totalitarian shit hole.
Om, nomnomnom...
1+ It has been flagged in the "Safe Browsing" platform, anyone can disable it in the browser. I always made a note to disable it back when I used Firefox and now that I use Chrome have it disabled in Chrome. Never liked a 3rd party service deciding what is or isn't safe for me to view. It has always had a large number of false positives. This isn't news.
I've always wanted to invoice them for carrying out the work they are requesting in their notices. Of course, they won't pay and when I have enough unpaid invoices, I'd sell the debt to one of those shady collection agencies. Then sit back and grab the popcorn.
The problem I have with Firefox's warning ("Reported Web Forgery!") is that the first thing I though was that TPB had been hacked, or their domain stolen/changed, and a forgery was on their place, like what happened with eztv.
I wasn't sure if they were claiming that the legit TPB was a forgery, or if I was trying to access a forgery of TPB.
The books spoil most of the plot points anyway.
(Why do beloved fantasy authors have middle initials "R. R."?)
Same here in Chrome.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
My chrome instance doesn't do anything with TPB, just goes to the main page. I wonder if this is a windows thing?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
typed in thepiratebay.org in firefox 46.0.1 and didn't get any warning. same with Safari.
is this blocking only happening when you click on a link?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Tell me how Netflix is nasty?
Well, your always free to include the codecs yourself and then release your own livecd distro...
No. It has no issues in Windows. I think the article is fake.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
It is an important part of a vast AI surveillance apparatus that seeks to predict your behavior. The ethical consequences of this are both unknowable, and of no concern to the people who will come to possess and control this data.
It really isn't blocked at least for me.
And they were actually blocked for a good reason; to prevent drive-by ransomware infection.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I can personally confirm that pirated games are sometimes malware. I got Bioshock Infinite off of usenet - some sneaky releaser had altered it to add a background bitcoin miner.
The whole world MUST abide by US laws or face consequences. It's working very well. Soon enough the whole world WILL abide by US laws and your "democratically elected" governments will submit to US authority willingly. Get over it.
Naw, man, the ethical consequences are awesome. I don't have to decide what to watch anymore, the TV does that for me.
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
If I could subscribe to HBO I probably would, but they do not offer their service to me in the country I live in unless I also get a TV subscription.
Just let me subscribe and watch content like Netflix lets me.
Meanwhile, HBO is contacting sites asking them to remove Game of Thrones torrents, and sending thousands of copyright infringement warnings to ISPs, urging them to remind pirates that they can stream HBO content legally after purchasing a subscription to HBO.
Erhm, I think ca 93% of the world cannot subscribe to HBO, due to HBO not making themselves available.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
1) Disable Google Phishing protection. Because it sends urls to google and because it updates the blocklist using a tracking cookie (google wrkey)
2) Install Adblock and Noscript
Then enjoy TPB
It uses tracking technology.
and DRM. But that's what you bought when you registered, the tracking is not.
Same with thepiratebay.se
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
A lot of countries do cooperate with US authorities because (1) treaties (2) because they are getting foreign aid from the US and if they don't cooperate they could be putting that aid at risk (3) they have other US stakes they don't want to put in jeopardy.
Check out http://beta.foreignassistance.gov/explore to see just how many countries take foreign aid from the US.
That was a common thing back when I last looked at pirated software. Interestingly enough one of those games was Bioshock Infinite. In my case I found the miner due it being poorly written so that it wouldn't run on the ATI 4670 I was using at the time. Once I knew to look for it there was no problem in finding and removing the bitcoin miner and verifying the game worked. Though I never ended up playing the game until after I later picked up a legit copy of the game.
WHAT?! Ads of its choosing? Who would serve ads that they choose? THIS IS A NIGHTMARE! /s
That smog is from manufacturing your dumb bullshit. God forbid the smog you caused comes near you.
My tv subscription do broadcast GoT, although a few hours later because of subtitles, since I don't have the need for those I still download them from those torrent sites, and HBO still gets the very same cut, and payed well in advance by my tv provider. So I am pretty much guilty free, and has a service that extends the usefulness of GoT without them having to pay one extra cent.
Chrome and Firefox work fine for me to https://thepiratebay.se/
Posting from Australia (with a VPN)! :-)
Torrent sites aren't illegal, and copyright infringement isn't illegal (at least in the U.S). They are civil violations which are handled by the civil court system, the police can't arrest you for copying digital content nor distributing it for free dispite what misinformation campaigns would have you believe.
Further, a lot of fringe sites suffer malvertisement issues due to the low quality ad services they are forced to use (ads pay for hosting) as more reputable services drop these sites out of fear of costly legal action.
Blame litigious media conglomerates for the malware...
Mine did give me a warning yesterday. It's probable that the rule was quickly retracted.
Note that it wasn't a malware warning - it was a "DECEPTIVE SITE" warning, the ruleset against fake download buttons. Possibly targeting the "Anonymous download!" deceptive ads under magnet links.
It may be in line with Google's recently proclaimed war on fake download buttons.
Because the sneaky releaser screwed up: He wrote it to use an OpenCL DLL file that was not present on my system, so I started getting an error popup.
If they'd done a better job it might have taken me a bit longer to wonder why my GPU fan was running all the time.
Error message about a missing DLL for OpenCL? Likewise.
Sometimes yes. But not anymore then that. The reality is you're more likely going to pick up malware, virii or a trojan from going to CNN or NBC News then you will going to a torrent site. Especially since the people who pump out that malware know that even if the ad is pulled quickly, they've likely infected tens of thousands of machines in minutes.
Om, nomnomnom...
haven't had a problem with Netscape 4.7
rewriting history since 2109
I'm calling bullshit on this story.
As long as Rupert Murdoch's people keep waving nice fat cheques in front of the HBO people Game of Thrones will continue to remain exclusive to Foxtel.
The only way that will change is if someone else (Fetch TV, Stan, Presto, Netflix or whoever) is willing to pay more money than Foxtel and I cant see that happening.
Talk about yourself and your kangaroo courts, free countries don't consider information illegal.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The problem is more one of inconvenience, because it throws up the same warning page not just entering the site, but also for every link you click on the site as well.
If anything, it's encouraging unsafe behavior, because most users will be so put off by this annoying behavior that they'll just disable the feature entirely.
I just tried (btw, I always DO turn off js when hitting any strange sites).
my FF works just fine with the site in question.
then again, I avoided upgrading FF for over 2yrs or so. any updates don't affect me anymore.
btw, thanks for the heads up about GOT. just GOT what everyone wanted; streisand can be very helpful ;) ;)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
A temporary block is still a block, far better than getting instantly pwned.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
No apparently what some people don't understand, is that just like with Opera-of-old, enabling the "feature" to block-some-bad-site-for-some-reason will send ALL of your browsing history to Mozilla|Opera|Chrome.
I subscribe to HBO. I own a TiVo. But HBO forces TiVo to prevent copying of HBO content off the TiVo and onto, say, a mobile device (note that this is not a problem with most TiVo content). Thus, if I want to watch an HBO show on the subway, I have no choice but to download it illegally.
"...pirates...can stream HBO content legally after purchasing a subscription to HBO."
I've been dying to give HBO my money. I have no desire to watch shows on anything but my TV but, while the price is right, torrenting is a bit of a hassle. They, (or someone), promised to have an HBO Now app for PS4 by April of 2016. April has come and gone, with no word on it. I'm not going to buy another TV box, like Apple TV, just to use it for HBO Now, (and I'm sure as hell not going to get cable TV just to use HBO Go). The PS4 already does all of that, plus lets me play GTA. One box to rule them all, I say.
Look, it's not a big hassle to torrent G of T, but I'd rather not have to do that for topical shows, such as John Oliver's.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
I have Scriptblock and Ublock installed though.
Might be that the actual black-listed element is a malware-serving ad server.
Both you and I will never see it (thanks to Ublock),
the other poster happens not to have received this specific ad so no warning sign,
whereas TFA's Author happen to be served an ad from this black-listed server at the specific moment they took the screen shot for TFA, hence the warning box.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Felder is an asshole, and you know it.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Seems to be pretty poor at predicting my behavior, given the terrible suggestions it makes.
And if you don't like it, remember: Because NUKES, that's why!
Something over three hundred million people have to abide by USA laws, and they're overrepresented on the Internet. Saying that torrenting copyrighted material without permission is not a crime, without allowing for jurisdictions where it is, is either ignorance or falsehood.
Not that I approve of the US definition of criminal copyright infringement here, but it is the law for a large number of people on /.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Wrong. There's a lot of law on civil matters, and "illegal" doesn't mean just "criminal". In the case of copyright infringement, last I looked torrenting copyrighted material without permission was a criminal matter in the US.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Do you have an actual example of a free country by your definition? Pretty much every country has copyright laws, although not necessarily as restrictive as those of the US.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Let's have a citation please, it's a civil issue.
Cheap storage VM.
The easiest to find is the Wikipedia article. This says:
On rereading, it isn't obvious that (C) applies to torrenting, but many torrenters will fall in the $1K category.
This isn't the law as I think it should be, but as it is.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'll second that one.