Seriously, guys. This is embarrassing.
In mid-December, an order from Australia's Federal Court directed Telstra, Optus, TPG and M2 — four of Australia's largest ISPs, including their subsidiaries like iiNet and AAPT — to block access to The Pirate Pay, Isohunt and other websites often used to download copyrighted materials.
Those ISPs were left to choose their own methods of site blocking, whether it be a simple URL block or a DNS-based redirection. The method favoured by most uses DNS, which ties a website's URL to its numerical IP address and directs those requests through to the appropriate location.
A DNS block is phenomenally easy to circumvent.
On a Windows PC, it takes a matter of seconds to change your network connection's DNS settings to Google's public DNS. Open up your Wi-Fi, click a couple of things, tap the '8' key four times, et voila. It was quick enough that I could GIF it.
It took me less than five seconds to get around the Australian government's #siteblock laws. GREAT JOB, TEAM pic.twitter.com/V9mKtegMwR
— Campbell Simpson (@csimps0n) February 7, 2017
It's Laughably Easy To Circumvent Australia's Torrent Site Blocking
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That reminds me to change my DNS anyway. Now that iiNet have taken away Freezone on their cheapest Naked DSL package, there's absolutely no incentive to keep using theirs.
If you are a Netflix user and have had unmetered Netflix data through iiNet, changing your DNS may also affect that so it's no longer unmetered data. Although it looks like you can just change your preferred DNS on your local PC rather than on the router for the whole house, so if you watch netflix on another device connected to your TV then it may still be ok.
actually.. if you are still on one of those Grandfather plans that have been retired now. You still get the unmetered content that was in the Freezone
by using iinet dns servers my xbox live Netflix and steam downloads are still quota free... id be out an extra 300gb+ a month if it wasn't!
Shhh, let the dinosaurs think they got one over the people.
What's the first rule of fight club ?
Yeah, geez, let them think they've won. Let them sail their frigate with a big banner saying "We Did It". Pageantry for commonfolk.
Meanwhile, business as usual for the rest of us.
When the sites were originally blocked, and then the block bypassed a minute later, it got me thinking.
Is this whole thing the ISP's being passive aggressive, and finding a way to legally drag their feet on the issue?
Basic outcome of the case was that ISP's could block the sites, for around $50 per site, give or take. Vary the number around that, it was a godsend to the content holders.
In short though, it dropped the cost onto the content holders. At $50 per site, they wouldnt care, it was a trivial cost, but I'm thinking the ISP's knew it wouldnt be so easy, so set up the content holders to bear the real cost somewhere down the track.
Its $50 to provide a DNS block, but what about a deeper block that might actually achieve something? Pretty sure that aint gonna be $50, but given the content owners have happily accepted paying the cost now, do they have any excuse not to pay it if its suddenly $2000 per site, per ISP?
Alternatively, the ISP's have done what they said they'd do, so now do the content owners have to go back to court to get them to try something else?
I thought at the time that the ISP's didnt fight too hard, and that the $50 per site cost was ridiculously low. Given they'd know how easy it was to bypass, its just adding up more to me that it was a deliberate move on the ISP's part.
Deep packet inspection is already implemented by & performed by at least one major ISP on all traffic for "reasons". Implementing a new rule to block certain packets is not going to be terribly difficult for them to & financially it will be quite easy for the government to fund
Which one was this, I think I know but no reason to keep it quiet. I'm sure most people would want to avoid them.
Would be Bigpond I'd imagine, what with their fat fingers in the Foxtel pie ...
None of them were ever even blocked for me. I've been using a VPN since before the metadata retention came in, and on top of that I've been using OpenDNS on my network router for ages.
When the blocks started happening I didn't even notice.
Open DNS is owned by Cisco which is an NSA Partner! There is no point using a VPN if you are going to be using Open DNS. Besides a VPN is only one hop, which doesn't provide much if any anonymity. Use TOR which is three hops and does its DNS resolving differently in a way designed to protect your privacy.
lol good one John Apple.
Aww I needed that...
90% of the Tor exit nodes are spy agencies anyway, so you have zero anonymity with Tor.
If you truly want to be invisible, you'd need at least 5 VPN accounts from various providers all running a connection to a different continent.
Then you'd need to spoof your MAC address for any said connections (or get burner nic's).
Not to mention the software side requirements from preventing geo trackers, cookies and other nefarious scripts.
But the biggest one of them all... Don't use MS Windows.
It's not even that difficult. Google "The Pirate Bay", top result is a list of sites that mirror the pirate bay. Pick one that works.
I hadn't heard of SolarMovie and didn't realise the other sites were still running/useful.
my ISP still hasn't blocked Pirate bay
I think the thing is that they feel this is going to stop the average joe/joleen, who doesn't know how technology works. They are used to going to TPB, plug in the show they want and click download.
If they get the redirect because of it, that'll stop them, and the media contingent will declare it a win. If however, you know what you're doing, yes it is laughable.
That's the only way I can think they can see this as a win. They'll never stop piracy, but don't want to release ways that will actually resolve the issue. :)
Shhh ! What are you doing Campbell Simpson ? Do you WANT the luddites to notice and implememt a way that DOES work / causes inconvenience to work around ? You SHOULD be running stories that say what a b*tch this all is and how wonderfully it's working to bring piracy down. Seriously, why shatter the government and content holder's smug illusions when making them think it's working is a totally great idea ?
Last edited 07/02/17 2:54 pmI think they already know, just be damned if they do something that requires effort to solve.
The harm the government are doing with this is incredibly shortsighted (who'd have thought from the mob that brought you NBN FTTN and metadata retention?).
People will understand DNS, see how easy it is to use one not controlled by their ISP, then find out they can use one that blocks ads and then no one wins - legitimate content providers who don't overload their page with auto-playing video/audio ads lose revenue, copyright holders just spend money on lawyers instructing ISPs to make ineffectual blocks, ISPs pay to maintain a block list.
Still, good time to be in the VPN business.
5 secs? lol it took me longer to load the gif!!!
no one gives a shit, including the government. But hey, we've implemented something when someone comes asking.
Last edited 07/02/17 7:20 pmIf they get a better system, I'm holding you personally responsible for challenging them.
Thing is, opting for a DNS block is the more robust of the two proposed blocking methods. URL blocks are even easier to get around.
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