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CloudFlare Puts Pirate Sites on New IP Addresses, Avoids Cogent Blockade (torrentfreak.com)

Earlier this month, several users worldwide reported that they were unable to access pirate websites including the Pirate Bay. It was because the internet backbone network of Cogent Communications had blackholed the CloudFlare IP-address of pirate websites. Less than a week later, CloudFlare is fighting back. From a report on TorrentFreak: The Pirate Bay and dozens of other pirate sites that were blocked by Cogent's Internet backbone are now accessible again. CloudFlare appears to have moved the sites in question to a new pair of IP-addresses, effectively bypassing Cogent's blackhole. [...] As of yesterday, the sites in question have been assigned the IP-addresses 104.31.16.3 and 104.31.17.3, still grouped together. Most, if not all of the sites, are blocked by court order in the UK so this is presumably done to prevent ISP overblocking of 'regular' CloudFlare subscribers.

11 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. For their next trick... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    They need to identify UK government websites that are using cloudflare, and put them on the blackholed IP's.

    1. Re:For their next trick... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Redirect all UK government websites to this address instead.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:For their next trick... by gnick · · Score: 2

      That's not an IP address, it is a URI

      He called it an address, not an IP address. "URL" is close enough to being synonymous with "web address."

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    3. Re: For their next trick... by gnick · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You did say URI. You could have said URL. It was, after all, a URL. This page gives a good description of the difference as well as a guide for responding to the statement, "Actually, that’s called a URI, not a URL"

      The response to this correction can range from quietly thinking this person needs to get out more, to agreeing indifferently via shoulder shrug, to removing the safety clasp on a Katana.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  2. Re:All they have to do by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Funny

    Then all CloudFlare has to do is verify if the new addresses are blocked and change them if necessary, this could be automated.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  3. Funny by viperidaenz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Surely there are some MPAA/RIAA members who use Cloudfare.

    Cloudfare should switch their sites to the previously blocked IP addresses.

  4. Re:All they have to do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well that's one way to force IPv6 deployment.

  5. The solution is unfortunately national segregation by Baron_Yam · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We already have nations cutting off Internet during times of unrest, and applying massive filtering and spying efforts against communications to and from their populations regardless.

    If you're going to apply national laws to an international system, that system is going to need to be chopped up into pieces that fit the political borders.

    That really sucks if your nation is surrounded by nations who disagree on what should be passed through their borders, so ultimately there needs to be some kind of Internet Treaty, where it is agreed that traffic is only to be interfered with if one of the end points is domestic, or by agreement with one of the governments with authority over an end point.

    Let governments be responsible for the border filters (and, presumably, spying), and then private companies like Cogent will have no interest in taking actions like IP block blacklisting.

  6. Re:The solution is unfortunately national segregat by torkus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not true.

    It's a game of diminishing returns but there's never an absolute winner.

    You can make it nearly impossible to circumvent, and then someone can build a complex circumvention...and so on. Remember when 'hacking' was dumping the plaintext password database after booting off a floppy?

    You can make censorship difficult enough to circumvent that people will find something else to do...but the cost (implementation and maint) in that is very high.

    --
    You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
  7. Re:All they have to do by Neuronwelder · · Score: 2

    It makes me wonder if this "control thing" gets so bad, that people use and share line of site transmitters with each other to make their own nets.

  8. Re:All they have to do by mysidia · · Score: 2

    Blacklist 0.0.0.0/32? Feh.... I have an even better idea...:

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 38.100.128.10

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 38.119.116.148

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 81.2.129.253

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 66.28.0.14

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 66.28.0.30

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 66.28.3.10

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 80.245.32.74

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 80.91.64.50

    www.thepiratebay.org AAAA 120 2001:550:1:a::d

    www.thepiratebay.org AAAA 120 2001:550:1:b::d

    www.thepiratebay.org AAAA 120 2001:550:1:c::d

    www.thepiratebay.org AAAA 120 2001:978:1:b::d

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 207.46.163.138

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 207.46.163.247

    www.thepiratebay.org A 120 207.46.163.215