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
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/12/its-absurdly-easy-to-get-around-australias-torrent-site-blocking/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/12/thepiratebay-hyd.jpg” title=”It’s Absurdly Easy To Get Around Australia’s Torrent Site Blocking” excerpt=”Before Christmas, the first practical application of Australia’s site-blocking laws was used to block websites apparently used for illegitimate file sharing of copyrighted materials.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/12/its-official-australian-isps-will-be-forced-to-block-the-pirate-bay-and-other-torrent-sites/” thumb=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/09/piratebay.jpg” title=”It’s Official: Australian ISPs Will Be Forced To Block The Pirate Bay And Other Torrent Sites” excerpt=”The Federal Court has ordered Australian internet service providers (ISPs) to block five torrent websites, including Pirate Bay and TorrentHound, within 15 days. Here’s what you need to know.”]
This story originally appeared on Gizmodo
Comments
21 responses to “We Got Past The Government’s Anti-Piracy Blocks In Five Seconds”
I created an intra-network for my network and got an VPN which is also another shell network….
nut all i had to do to get passed it really was go to 123pirate.bay
GG gov GG
Welp i had to look up a proxy server list which took seconds also.. So if speedruns for games are a thing… What about bypassing our blocks?
Telstra: “We need $500 for every site that is blocked”
After switching to Google DNS, I also note that my webpages start loading up a lot faster (On Dodo here. Not my choice, but it’s not *that* bad (Rural NSW – Not many options here))
Yep, I had switched to google DNS a while ago precisely for the speed increase so I didn’t even notice the block whenever it came around.
lol I said before site blocking via dns poisoning is one of those everyone win situation except for ordinary consumers
the suits gets to tick the “do something about piracy” box, the ISPs gets to pocket $$$ and the pirates win because they won’t even be remotely affected.
the downside is if the ISP passes costs onto the consumers which so far hasn’t happened (as far as I know)
I’m pretty sure that it’s the copyright holders who request the site block that have to pay the ISP’s per site.
Maybe they’ll start charging more for legitimate copies to cover these costs, thus driving even more people towards piracy.
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.
It costs almost nothing to change a record in DNS. The ISP’s charge a couple of hundred for this anyway.
My ISP hasn’t even blocked it yet.
Telstra user here, no blocks on my end.
All torrent pages still working as per normal for me but i still prefer to use the regular interwebs over torrents. much better selection 😉
I’m on Optus but same thing here. Thought maybe Optus hadn’t done it yet so I looked it up and found they did back in December… Not sure why I can still get onto TPB without hassle then 😛
My favourite part is that http://thepiratebay.org is blocked on Telstra’s mobile network – but you really have to go out of your way to visit that site, because it automatically redirects you to http://m.thepiratebay.org, which is not blocked.
So the 5 seconds in this article’s title is actually an over-estimate!
I just put up a similar post and it was deemed inappropriate? WTH Kotaku
Was the link. The piratebay by itself is a known quantity, but I have to be super super cautious with other URLs to protect users here. (Ideally I’d prefer people didn’t put URLs into comments at all, as a safety measure, but batguy’s comment was fine.)
I bypassed it in zero seconds because I’ve never noticed the block.
I did switch to using google DNS many years ago though.
Are you guys special snowflakes?
Yes everyone knows how easy it is to get around blocks and several articles have already stated this. But if the media could stop advertising how easy it is to get around these blocks that would be great, you know in case the government decides to put something up the will be more of a headache to get around.
My thoughts exactly. It’s like going around boasting about Fight Club. Don’t ruin things for those in the know for the sake of showing off.
Yes this was reported on this site multiple times in mid December… Why the repost?
Seriously guys, this is embarrassing.
Can we get less Simpson on this site? I already avoid Gizmodo because of him without trying to dodge his articles here too.
I was away from home and ran into the block looking for an ebook.
Sad part is that it took longer to download the ebook than it did to bypass the block.
Australian internet / 10
Torrents are a brilliant source of data use for ISPs. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot by implementing a block that was any more obtrusive than they absolutely have to?
shhh