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Piracy websites blocked by Cogent, one of the largest internet backbones.

KuJoe
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Several Pirate Bay users from ISPs all over the world have been unable to access their favorite torrent site for more than a week. Their requests are being stopped in the Internet backbone network of Cogent Communications, which has blackholed the CloudFlare IP-address of The Pirate Bay and many other torrent and streaming sites.

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/internet-backbone-provider-cogent-blocks-pirate-bay-and-other-pirate-sites-170209/

 

I find it interesting that this has not been talked about that much, Cogent is basically a Tier 1 backbone to the internet with one of the largest IPv6 presences in the world right now. This means that even if your ISP doesn't block torrent sites, you still might not be able to reach them if your ISP peers with or uses Cogent as a primary upstream provider. I find it strange that only Cogent is doing this which makes me think it's not a court ordered block but it does make a lot of sense from a business standpoint if you are familiar with Cogent from a commercial perspective (TL;DR: Cogent is one of the cheapest bandwidth options for public and private data centers, their networks are regularly congested and are known for their packet loss and slow speeds during both peak and off-peak hours). Cogent is known for making crazy decisions though so this doesn't surprise me at all if this change was company policy, I just find it odd that a major element of the internet as we know it made this change without the internet freaking out.

 

Also to put this into context, Cogent is one of 17 internet backbones globally. That means that the whole internet operates on those 17 upstream providers (Tier 2 and lower rent some portion of bandwidth from those 17 providers) and 1 of them just blocked a bunch of websites, imagine if the other 16 started blocking traffic eliminating whole continents from accessing them. To put the size of Cogent's internet reach into perspective, Cogent has over 56,000 miles of fiber globally while Sprint (another one of the 17 Tier 1s) only has about 26,000 miles. As I said before Cogent is huge in the IPv6 world (rivaled only by Hurricane Electric in terms of connectivity), if your ISP offers IPv6 there's a good chance you've been routed through Cogent so imagine when one day we make the switch to IPv6 and your favorite streaming sites are now blocked. Another thing to mention is that VPN providers LOVE Cogent because of their cheap bandwidth, so choose your VPN provider wisely. :)

 

Now with all of that being said, there are still a few much bigger internet backbones out there and out of the 17 there are 8 not based in the US so I doubt there is much cause for concern yet... I just find it fascinating this change was made without many waves being made on the internet (that I could find).

 

EDIT: One thing to note is that this is just IP blockes which is both good and bad, it's easy enough to bypass by it also means other sites can be blocked also if a website changes their DNS settings and the old IP is assigned to a new website before the block is removed. TPB uses CloudFlare so that IP can just as easily be used for thousands of other websites if TPB gets their IP swapped out and CloudFlare put that IP into the "shared" pool of IPs.

 

EDIT2: I know I get wordy when it comes to posting because I like to be detailed and thorough so it's apparent that my lengthy post either has too much information or is being misread/ignored by some people. Here's a simple TL:DR:

 

The reason I am posting this isn't because websites are being blocked, that's not a huge deal in 2017, the bigger issue is that they were blocked quietly by a Tier 1 internet backbone provider and nobody seems to have noticed.

Edited by KuJoe
Added a short and simple TL;DR

-KuJoe

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Luckily doesn't affect me. My home ISP peers with Level 3. Also, I can always VPN into CENIC xD (peered with Internet2 and a half dozen other backbone providers) from home. So I'm all good.

 

On the flip side, I don't see why this should be a thing.

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4 minutes ago, ionbasa said:

Luckily doesn't affect me.

Yet. Level3 has been going downhill over the past few years so it might not be so far fetched to think they want to make a few BGP changes to clean up their network a bit. ;)

-KuJoe

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How many people are blocked though? I just checked and I have no problem accessing TPB.

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3 minutes ago, Bensemus said:

How many people are blocked though? I just checked and I have no problem accessing TPB.

It's hard to tell. The blocking itself isn't a big concern (thank you multi-homed data centers) it's the fact that it happened so quietly.

-KuJoe

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3 minutes ago, Prysin said:

Lol. As if this will change anything at all 

I guess I got a little long-winded in my post. I should go back and re-write it since the point is being missed.

-KuJoe

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What's there to block? Piratebay doesn't have content anymore lmao

 

 

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1 minute ago, Mooshi said:

What's there to block? Piratebay doesn't have content anymore lmao

I can see why this isn't being talked about as much. The bigger issue is being missed. :(

-KuJoe

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1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

Yet. Level3 has been going downhill over the past few years so it might not be so far fetched to think they want to make a few BGP changes to clean up their network a bit. ;)

Option 1: (realistic)

Then I'll just VPN (if it ever comes to that), Amazons VPS is cost competitive enough that I wouldn't mind paying. Its about $36 a month or $.05 per hour. Not too bad. Doubt it'll ever come to that, but if it does, I'd be severely disappointed. 

 

Option 2: (50/50 chance)

Ask work to subsidize a Metro-E connection to their own infrastructure. Costly, but not unheard-of. 

▶ Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. - Einstein◀

Please remember to mark a thread as solved if your issue has been fixed, it helps other who may stumble across the thread at a later point in time.

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1 minute ago, ionbasa said:

Option 1: (realistic)

Then I'll just VPN (if it ever comes to that), Amazons VPS is cost competitive enough that I wouldn't mind paying. Its about $36 a month or $.05 per hour. Not too bad. Doubt it'll ever come to that, but if it does, I'd be severely disappointed. 

 

Option 2: (50/50 chance)

Ask work to subsidize a Metro-E connection to their own infrastructure. Costly, but not unheard-of. 

There are cheaper options luckily, and being in California gives you great access to some.

-KuJoe

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1 hour ago, huilun02 said:

Just use one of them free online based proxy to find the torrent seed and once you start the dl no one can stop it...

 

Not that I pirate anymore, with so many cheap sources to get the game legit on Steam and such. 

That's not the point, I already said it's trivial to get around such blocks.

-KuJoe

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i for one find it really worrying that there is deep rooted censorship like this. yea its piracy but these backbones have a LOT of power, and now they are blocking content. blocking spamhaus is one thing, but these are legitimate services that are not a cyber security threat. this is why net neutrality is so fucking important.

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The point is what if some day Cogent goes "Damn those LMG guys are using a lot of bandwidth, blocked". Or any other website, country, subent etc. Tier 1 providers messing with traffic is extremely important, the internet is already the wild west and we don't need virtual showdowns firing "guns" at each other.

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They do this about once a year, and each time it is as effectual as trying to police fish farts in the ocean.

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1 minute ago, Kierax said:

They do this about once a year, and each time it is as effectual as trying to police fish farts in the ocean.

Can you link me to the other times they've done this? This is the first time I've heard about Cogent nullrouting their IP.

-KuJoe

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1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

Can you link me to the other times they've done this? This is the first time I've heard about Cogent nullrouting their IP.

Not Cogent last time it was all the major UK isp's and I believe some USA ones. 

 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/online-piracy-blacklist-blocks-can-be-bypassed-some-uk-isps-by-use-https-1546711

 

I recall posts on Facebook literally minutes after the blocks are in place with people sharing posts how to bypass.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34581801

 

Oh and

 

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-isp-piracy-blocks-high-court

 

Each time they lasted as long as a pensioners erection before people figured a way around.

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2 minutes ago, Kierax said:

Not Cogent last time it was all the major UK isp's and I believe some USA ones. 

 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/online-piracy-blacklist-blocks-can-be-bypassed-some-uk-isps-by-use-https-1546711

 

I recall posts on Facebook literally minutes after the blocks are in place with people sharing posts how to bypass.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34581801

 

Oh and

 

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-isp-piracy-blocks-high-court

 

Each time they lasted as long as a pensioners erection before people figured a way around.

LoL, that's not the same thing at all. This is completely different and on an entirely different scale.

-KuJoe

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1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

LoL, that's not the same thing at all. This is completely different and on a completely different scale.

I am sceptical.  No matter how they do it people will find a way, always have, and always will.  I don't agree with it, content via Netflix etc etc is cheap enough these days compared to the 90's.  But heh-ho people will do what people will do.

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Kierax said:

I am sceptical.  No matter how they do it people will find a way, always have, and always will.

That's still not the point though.

-KuJoe

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2 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

That's still not the point though.

Lets agree to disagree, and once the way back to the 'Bay is found, we can continue :)

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I just tried it and I can visit thepiratebay.org. I am located in Germany, though I would never use this site cause only torrent people get caught here in Germany

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5 minutes ago, Kierax said:

Lets agree to disagree, and once the way back to the 'Bay is found, we can continue :)

Bypassing a block like this is trivial, anybody can do it. That's not why I posted this though and the fact that some people don't understand that is exactly why I posted this. People get upset over something so minimal like LTT's thumbnails but I haven't heard any outrage about a Tier 1 internet backbone provider voluntarily censoring the internet around the world.

-KuJoe

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1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

Bypassing a block like this is trivial, anybody can do it. That's not why I posted this though and the fact that some people don't understand that is exactly why I posted this. People get upset over LTT's thumbnails but I haven't heard any outrage about a Tier 1 internet backbone provider voluntarily censoring the internet around the world.

 

Because their "censor" is like you said bypassed in minutes,  and they're not the first and only, China has its firewall, Russia blocks many sites, but are the blocks effective? they stop a percentage, but the rest keep on going. 

 

It's one of the reasons Tor is so successful, and many people will take up options like Tunnelbear as well.

 

 

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