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

[KuJoe]

9 minutes ago, Kierax said:

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.

If things start getting blocked at the backbone level then it gets bad. TOR and VPNs are only effective if the backbone providers continue to route the traffic for them, if enough Tier 1 providers start blocking traffic it will have a huge impact on the internet. And we're not even talking about hundreds of providers, there are 17 in total so it only takes a handful to make that kind of impact. If one of them can block traffic without anybody noticing what's to stop the others from blocking traffic also? It's a really bad road to go down. Also keep in mind that this block is impacting countries where torrenting copyrighted material isn't against the law, Cogent is effectively forcing a US law on a country and ISPs are poweless to stop them.

[leadeater]

11 minutes ago, Kierax said:

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.

Difference is the example you gave is retail internet providers blocking access to sites in response to a court order. Cogent in the case just went "Meh screw it why not?" But not only that, they didn't tell anyone.

 

What if your a retail internet provider that prides themselves on neutral internet access and has it part of the marketing but customers on their network have to traverse Cogent so are blocked, who takes the flack? The retail provider.

[Tieox]

1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

If things start getting blocked at the backbone level then it gets bad. TOR and VPNs are only effective if the backbone providers continue to route the traffic for them, if enough Tier 1 providers start blocking traffic it will have a huge impact on the internet. And we're not even talking about hundreds of providers, there are 17 in total so it only takes a handful to make that kind of impact. If one of them can block traffic without anybody noticing what's to stop the others from blocking traffic also? It's a really bad road to go down. Also keep in mind that this block is impacting countries where torrenting copyrighted material isn't against the law, Cogent is effectively forcing a US law on a country.

 

It is a dark road, and I do see your point.  but in some regards, I see the point of the anti-piracy groups who are making it abundantly clear they will censor the whole internet to a DRM standard due to those who pirate EVERYTHING.  

 

Their main issue is they can only lock things down to a point before they step on someone's massive legitimate money making area, then we get a massive lawsuit filed because boy do corporate giants love their lawsuits.

 

 

[KuJoe]

2 minutes ago, Kierax said:

It is a dark road, and I do see your point.  but in some regards, I see the point of the anti-piracy groups who are making it abundantly clear they will censor the whole internet to a DRM standard due to those who pirate EVERYTHING.  

 

Their main issue is they can only lock things down to a point before they step on someone's massive legitimate money making area, then we get a massive lawsuit filed because boy do corporate giants love their lawsuits.

 

 

I agree, we'll never see sites like Google (YouTube, GMail, etc...), Facebook, or Netflix blocked by a backbone provider because of the legal ramifications but services like TOR, VPN providers, and organizations without a huge legal team are the real targets that I worry about. If Cogent could block sites "because of piracy" without anybody getting up in arms imagine how easy it would be for a dozen of them to block TOR "because of <insert any illegal thing here>". Disabling something like TOR would be effortless, I have a simple script that's only a few lines of code and it's all they would need.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Kierax said:

It is a dark road, and I do see your point.  but in some regards, I see the point of the anti-piracy groups who are making it abundantly clear they will censor the whole internet to a DRM standard due to those who pirate EVERYTHING.  

Issue is they are so hell bent on stopping people that were never going to pay for what they stole, i.e. were never potential customers, that they are prepared to spend hundreds if not thousands of times more money than lost revenue trying to stop this while not giving a damn what they break trying to do it.

 

You only need to make it hard enough to stop most people, then actually give a legitimate and easy to access and pay for content/services model and leave it at that.

 

Countries/corporations aren't allowed to commit war crimes so they shouldn't be allowed to commit digital war crimes either, collateral damage isn't ok and neither is using cruel/harmful weapons.

[Tieox]

1 minute ago, KuJoe said:

I agree, we'll never see sites like Google (YouTube, GMail, etc...), Facebook, or Netflix blocked by a backbone provider because of the legal ramifications but services like TOR, VPN providers, and organizations without a huge legal team are the real targets that I worry about. If Cogent could block sites "because of piracy" without anybody getting up in arms imagine how easy it would be for a dozen of them to block TOR "because of <insert any illegal thing here>". Disabling something like TOR would be effortless, I have a simple script that's only a few lines of code and it's all they would need.

 

So long as people using Tor are basically using it to bypass censorship filters such as restrictions on freedom of speech are not inhibited, and they remain using these blocks to help content creators turn a profit which in today's economy everyone needs, then it's fine.

 

As with anything the road to hell is paved with good intentions, we can as users only wait and see what the future has in store. 

 

[Tieox]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Issue is they are so hell bent on stopping people that were never going to pay for what they stole, i.e. were never potential customers, that they are prepared to spend hundreds if not thousands of times more money than lost revenue trying to stop this while not giving a damn what they break trying to do it.

 

You only need to make it hard enough to stop most people, then actually give a legitimate and easy to access and pay for content/services model and leave it at that.

 

Countries/corporations aren't allowed to commit war crimes so they shouldn't be allowed to commit digital war crimes either, collateral damage isn't ok and neither is using cruel/harmful weapons.

 

 

A fair and good point, in my experience in my little village, you just make the proxies harder to find and quite a few will go on iTunes instead, I've lost customers because I've refused point blank to help them find a way onto a torrent site.  You will NEVER stop the die-hards though, but I feel that is not Cogent point, they want to stop a percentage, and raise content creators profits by a sufficient amount to be happy.

 

The true worrisome part is what happens then? who watches the watchers? the only thing we can take some comfort in is if they step on a giants money making ground, the lawsuit should have a popcorn stand outside.

[KuJoe]

1 minute ago, Kierax said:

So long as people using Tor are basically using it to bypass censorship filters such as restrictions on freedom of speech are not inhibited, and they remain using these blocks to help content creators turn a profit which in today's economy everyone needs, then it's fine.

 

As with anything the road to hell is paved with good intentions, we can as users only wait and see what the future has in store. 

 

Unfortunately some of us aren't just users though. As a service provider who relies on network connectivity in my data centers it's things like this that bother me more than a lot of the stories posted around here lately.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, Kierax said:

The true worrisome part is what happens then? who watches the watchers?

The watcherers? 

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Kierax said:

You will NEVER stop the die-hards though, but I feel that is not Cogent point, they want to stop a percentage, and raise content creators profits by a sufficient amount to be happy

I don't believe for a second Cogent is thinking about anyone else but themselves. They have bandwidth issues, they did a traffic analysis, torrents are a big user, ThePirateBay is the most commonly used site to find content to torrent, block ThePirateBay.

[Bensemus]

1 hour ago, Teddy07 said:

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

It's true. My cousin was in Germany for a school thing and was caught downloading a few songs. Idk what site was used but they got a $30,000 fine or something close to that. No idea if they payed it or how it was settled but I've downloaded thousands of songs in Canada and have never gotten even an email asking me to stop. I did get an email when I tried watching Deep Water Horizon via popcorn time but the rip was so crapy my family decided to buy it instead on iTunes

[paddy-stone]

Just tested, can access TPB fine... in fact first time I have been there in a number of years as I don't often use torrents at all, unless I can't get the files from elsewhere.

[Bouzoo]

4 hours ago, Mooshi said:

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

Interestingly, they are arguably still no. 1 when it comes to music. 

[Teddy07]

1 hour ago, Bensemus said:

It's true. My cousin was in Germany for a school thing and was caught downloading a few songs. Idk what site was used but they got a $30,000 fine or something close to that. No idea if they payed it 

1

Lawyers only pressure people with those large sums. They are only interested that you sign their declaration of cease and desist, which of course includes paying the lawyers expenses of ~1000 €. 

Only the Lawyers make a huge profit in catching the pirates while the actual copyright owner barely gets anything.

[Guest]

13 hours ago, leadeater said:

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.

Well actually remember about 18 months back, maybe 2 years?

[KuJoe]

5 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

Well actually remember about 18 months back, maybe 2 years?

Details please?

[flibberdipper]

ngl This is kind of gay.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

Details please?

Can't go too in depth but basically the DC we were using at the time used Cogent as a primary provider.

[KuJoe]

2 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

Can't go too in depth but basically the DC we were using at the time used Cogent as a primary provider.

That's pretty common these days because of how cheap they are. It wasn't hosted in Toronto by chance was it?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, KuJoe said:

That's pretty common these days because of how cheap they are. It wasn't hosted in Toronto by chance was it?

Nah - North Carolina 

[KuJoe]

6 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

Nah - North Carolina 

LoL, poor Dacentec.

[AresKrieger]

18 hours ago, Mooshi said:

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

Umm currently they are the most popular torrent site so clearly they do still have content people want.

[Zodiark1593]

17 hours ago, Kierax said:

It is a dark road, and I do see your point.  but in some regards, I see the point of the anti-piracy groups who are making it abundantly clear they will censor the whole internet to a DRM standard due to those who pirate EVERYTHING.  

 

Their main issue is they can only lock things down to a point before they step on someone's massive legitimate money making area, then we get a massive lawsuit filed because boy do corporate giants love their lawsuits.

 

 

*You need an Intel 13th gen i processor to view this YouTube video*

 

Short of attempting to lock down the platform entirely (studios are probably kicking themselves for lacking the foresight 30 years ago), Internet blocks are a mere inconvenience. 

[BuckGup]

I mean KAT was literally raided by the police and the owner arrested yet the site is back up and more popular than ever. Also TOR is a thing. Stupid slow to torrent large files but still a thing

[KuJoe]

2 minutes ago, SamStrecker said:

I mean KAT was literally raided by the police and the owner arrested yet the site is back up and more popular than ever. Also TOR is a thing. Stupid slow to torrent large files but still a thing

That isn't the point.