

UK ISPs block The Promo Bay - Libertatea
http://thenextweb.com/uk/2012/12/02/a-slippery-slope-uk-isps-block-the-promo-bay-a-completely-legal-site-separate-from-the-pirate-bay/

======
shocks
We are now on the slippery slope of which there is no return.

The minute UK ISPs got the infrastructure in place to block TBP, they got the
infrastructure to block any webpage the government want at the touch of a few
buttons. Now it's easy to "just block this website as well".

The beginning of a censored internet.

Fucking wonderful.

(Blocked on Be [bethere.co.uk] too, btw.)

~~~
aes256
This isn't anything new. Most of the major ISPs in the UK work with the
Internet Watch Foundation [1] who maintain a blacklist of sites with certain
types of content (child pornography, criminally obscene images, etc.) and have
been blocking these for years.

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation>

~~~
shocks
Understood, but the point here is that promobay.org doesn't actually link to
copyright material or anything else of such a nature.

Promobay.org was just banned because it has a weak affiliation to a method of
desceminating content, some of which could in certain circumstances be
copyright material - but ultimately that is up to the USER and not the website
to which promobay is related.

Edit: grammar.

~~~
aes256
We haven't had official word from any of the ISPs involved.

Sounds to me like a mistake, or an excessively cautious response to the prior
court order requiring ISPs to block access to TPB. This may be a different
domain, and it may be hosted on a different server, but this is inextricably
linked to TPB.

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willdaybleagain
Ooh. Hey guys, Will here - the guy who made the promobay.org app.

We started a change.org petition. Not entirely sure what it'll do to help, but
hey: [http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/stop-bt-virgin-
media-a...](http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/stop-bt-virgin-media-and-be-
from-blocking-the-promo-bay-let-customers-access-promobay-org)

~~~
jmillikin

      > We started a change.org petition. Not entirely sure
      > what it'll do to help
    

"nothing"?

~~~
willdaybleagain
very possibly. :)

~~~
mibbitier
FWIW, I'm on BT and it's not blocked here.

~~~
ishkur101
FWIW, I'm on BT and <http://promobay.org/> is blocked

~~~
mibbitier
Odd. I'm using google DNS, so maybe they're "blocking" it via dns.

------
meaty
If you are suffering from this, please switch to a proper ISP such as Andrews
and Arnold or newnet plc.

Cheap ubiquitous internet connections in the UK are always broken in some way.

~~~
jiggy2011
IIRC these sites are blocked because of a court order, the ISP has no say and
has to comply.

Looked at the prices for Andrews and Arnold £25 per month with a download cap
of 25GB. I would use that up in under a week.

~~~
meaty
Actually not strictly true. Only the larger named ISPs (larger market share)
have to comply. The smaller ISPs do not.

+£10 for 100Gb. +£20 for 200Gb. Not particularly expensive and considering
it's a proper line, not some screwed up censored telescreen pipe, I'm not
fussed.

~~~
jiggy2011
They seem to price _much_ higher for daytime use , which is when I would
mainly use it (I work from home). 200GB of offpeak and daytime per month would
be £332.00.

Besides, if everyone just switched to a "proper" ISP then they would be forced
into compliance, the same as everyone else.

~~~
meaty
If you pick the home::1 contract, it's not tied to any time of the day. "No
units or time periods - usage is any time of day or night."

I work from home a lot too and have a wife and three children on the end of
the line as well.

If everyone switched to much smaller ISPs and they were numerous, it would be
hard to police.

~~~
jiggy2011
I can't seem to get more than 50GB per month with that (according to logs I
shift 10x that).

Problem is that people will just go with whichever ISP is most popular and
their friends are using or the cheapest. People won't generally sit and
research all of their options.

~~~
meaty
You top up during the month.

------
DigitalSea
They tried implementing a similar system here in Australia, but recently our
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy backed down and instead said they would
only block sites related to child abuse only after years of public backlash
about the filter.

Seeing what has happened in the UK even if it was an accident with The Promo
Bay has made me realise that even though a government says it has its peoples
interests at heart with a filter, it's all too easy to add a site to a
blocklist when it should be a much more complicated and drawn out process that
ensures only bad sites get blocked not sites trying to help unsigned artists.

~~~
barrkel
It's not the government that expanded filtering use, it was the courts.

~~~
DigitalSea
Who do you think was responsible for implementing the filter in the first
place? The courts may have been responsible for extending it, but there should
never have been a filter introduced in the first place to be extended.
Filtering has been proven to be very ineffective, expensive and detrimental to
an open society. The Internet might have it's grey areas, but filtering
doesn't benefit anyone other than the lobbyists acting on behalf of the
entertainment industry averse to change.

~~~
barrkel
I'm saying that governments may be sincere in their motives with censorship,
and not betray their motives, but other mechanisms may still pervert and
corrupt the implementation.

Don't mistake me for someone in favour of filters.

------
casca
The court has ordered that they block access. Different ISPs have chosen to
block this in different ways. Some drop the DNS, some redirect to their own
blocking site.

Presumably the Pirate Party will add another option to their TPB proxy to show
those who are already convinced how stupid this is
(<https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/>).

~~~
buro9
Are you able to cite the court order?

I am curious whether a site (and it's many domains) was excluded, a specific
list of domains, or "all domains owned by <entity>".

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rmk2
Funnily enough, this site isn't blocked from within JANET
(<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JANET>)

~~~
Osmium
JANET is still one of those few bastions of sanity. Goodness knows how long
that'll last though. Probably until someone notices it's being run sensibly
and decides to do something about it.

------
summerdown2
From Virgin:

[http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Chatter/Blocking-of-
the-...](http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Chatter/Blocking-of-the-Promo-
Bay/m-p/1592746#M2602)

Hi I've got our official statement on this:

Promobay.org is included on the list of URLs Virgin Media is required to block
under UK law following the ruling of the High Court against the Pirate Bay. As
a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the
company but strongly believes compelling legal alternatives are needed to give
consumers access to great content at the right price.

and followed by:

Also for the record this site isn't blocked by the IWF, it's a seperate matter
caused by the court order against the Pirate Bay.

------
summerdown2
Blocked on virgin cable broadband.

Sorry, the web page you have requested is not available through Virgin Media.

Virgin Media has received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent
access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement.

~~~
Angostura
Yes, I'm just trying to work out who at Virgin to contact to find out the
details of said Court Order

------
TranceMan
<http://promobay.org/> is blocked here on Virgin Media,
<http://thepromobay.co.uk/> seems ok - looks legit?

~~~
viraptor
Both work on Sky (first one with www. prepended - seems to be a config issue),
but the second link looks like just a TPB mirror/proxy - it has the search for
torrents mainly. That's something completely different than the first link,
which is actually a promotion site.

~~~
d5ve
promobay.org resolves to 108.59.2.74 for me, and www.promobay.org resolves to
108.59.2.75.

The first is blocked for me on Virgin, but the second works fine. This does
look like a DNS issue on the part of TPB, rather than Virgin blocking
promobay.

~~~
tarkin2
Sky blocks the first, not the second.

This is disgusting. It's time to switch ISPs and start helping whoever is
fighting this.

~~~
EwanToo
it might be surprising to find that Talktalk and bt (i think) went to court
fighting the original blocking orders, they were very unwilling to implement
mandatory blocking

------
tehwalrus
neither of these sites is blocked for me, in the UK.

I use IDNET - smaller broadband companies don't have to comply with these
rulings. Also, well defined usage limits and no throttling! what's not to
like? oh, slightly more expensive.

------
jsolson
How is the blocking being carried out?

For example, if you switch to Google DNS, does that get around the issue?

~~~
barrkel
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_blocking_sys...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_\(content_blocking_system\))

~~~
Lagged2Death
Sounds like a VPN will completely and invisibly bypass the block. So the
filtering will only inconvenience the least sophisticated (and from the point
of view of the "content industry," the least scary) violators.

It's a plan that might have been drafted by the highest levels of organized
piracy, to keep the hoi polloi in their thrall.

------
Empro
Well this just sucks. I wouldn't want to be living in the UK.

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k-mcgrady
Blocked on TalkTalk too although the message they show is the same as they one
they show for the pirate bay (and actually includes TPB's logo).

------
hackerboos
Actually the site works on BT.

~~~
insin
It's blocked for me on BT, same message as The Pirate Bay

> Error - site blocked

