A traceroute to thepiratebay.se is kind of amusing.
From my home (Sweden), the packets seem to go to Frankfurt, then New York, take a link via an ip which reverses to intelsatone.net to a cambodgian ip (500ms latency right here), then reach the ip 175.45.177.217, assigned to Star Joint Venture Co Ltd. Who seem to be a legitimate North Korea internet provider (or, well, as legitimate as it gets, coming from North Korea). The rest of the traceroute doesn't ping back (edit: 6 hops, which could stay in NK, or lead you back anywhere in the world).
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the ICMP responses are forged - It seems disadvantageous for the site to have such a long path, since each hop has the potential for attack.
I don't believe forging will help them much - they are doing this to avoid international law enforcement, and international law enforcement can easily check through a simple bluff like that.
Altering routing companies sending traffic through in bulk from Germany-NY-Satellite is far more difficult, but we may see them do this anyway. Time will tell.
Apart from that /24, STAR JOINT VENTURE only advertises 175.45.176.0/22 (albeit as four /24, idiotically enough). What's kind of interesting is that this /22 is visible with a much shorter AS path:
The question is: Is is deliberate that the Chinese don't allow transit of the Pirate Bay /24 through their network? (As opposed to Intelsat, a Washington-based American company.)
I see two prefixes advertised by 51040, with very different paths:
cr1.ipls# sh ip bgp regexp 51040$
BGP table version is 210945139, local router ID is 8.30.x.255
Status codes: s suppressed, d damped, h history, * valid, > best, i - internal,
r RIB-failure, S Stale
Origin codes: i - IGP, e - EGP, ? - incomplete
Network Next Hop Metric LocPrf Weight Path
*> 194.14.56.0 4.69.180.161 0 0 3356 5580 3.987 51040 i
*> 194.71.107.0 4.69.180.161 0 0 3356 2914 39138 22351 2.207 51040 i
I don't know what, if anything, they use 194.14.56/24 for, but both appear to belong to the same organization (although the registrant records differ just a bit).
EDIT: I'm gonna dig into my database and see what the path looked like a day or two ago.
EDIT: 2 days ago: the .107/24 path: 3356 3549 16150 51040
16150 is "Availo Networks AB" and they do appear to do heavy prefix filtering -- as they should -- but I see no import policy for 51040:
$ whois -h whois.ripe.net AS16150
...
It's possible and plausible that TPB is using one or more VPNs to hide the true route traffic is taking (who knows what they're really doing, though).
This seems reasonably legit. AS131279 (Star Joint Venture Co Ltd) has (or had) a peering with the Piratpartie Norge (pirate party norway): http://bgp.he.net/AS131279#_peers
It could be bad labelling too. I'm not sure about the details of how it happened, but I used an ISP in UK who was assigning ranges officially located in Italy.
(BTW: that really broke google for a long time. google will revert your language to the automatically discovered one, even after you use their magic url that should prevent this)
The IP addresses allocated to the ISP I work for are "officially located" (according to my ARIN POC records) in the city I live in (specifically, at my PO Box). We ($ISP) don't even provide service in that city.
You're confusing how internet routing with how some internet services assign geographical locations to ip address (GeoIP). The path your traffic takes through the internet has nothing to do with geoip.
I don't see any open ports on that host, do you? Even if it's just a load balancer, the connection would need to terminate on a routable IP somewhere...
This makes me upset. Its upsetting because while yes, information freedom is a very important topic and needs to happen, but it does not trump human freedom. I'm not sure if this is a straw man or not - but how can they justify working with an entity that has such a horrid human rights record?
Yes, definitely, we should not stand by while companies host their content in countries known to use torture to extract information, hold prisoners with out trial, hold prisoners with out charge, allow their leaders to execute citizens summarily, execute minors and the mentally retarded, incarcerate people at a rate higher than any other country on earth merely in order to serve as slave labour for the state and state sponsored corporations.
Even worse is many of the citizens of this 'republic' have been brainwashed by a compulsory education system that they actually live in a democratic republic.
If you think you can legitimately compare the living conditions, political environment, and human suffering in North Korea that with the USA, you might have also brainwashed yourself (it happens when you take everything you have for granted).
In NK you'd be lucky to get 1 meal a day. Over here poor people are morbidly fat.
And at the end of the day, you're not a prisoner, if you hate it here so much, you can leave this country any day you want to. But can't say the same for people in NK.
Besides for executing minors/mentally handicapped, the US does all those things. Torture (waterboarding), hold prisoners without trial/charge (Guantanamo Bay), allow their leaders to execute citizens summarily (drone strikes), incarcerate people at a high rate for benefit of state sponsored corporations (drug war - privatized jails). I'm not arguing politics - I don't think HN is the place for it, but you should evaluate your perspective and how it might be changing how you view the world.
I'm honestly confused, are you talking about the United States of America or North Korea. With the exception of the execution of minors, it describes the USA fairly accurately.
If you are so upset about those issues in the United States how about you sign up to adopt some of the citizens who vote for them? We'd be happy to ship a few off.
Don't really know why or if they are doing this, but the PirateBay's primary purpose is to stay up.
If they are pushed to such extremes as to go to North Korea, then it's ultimately your fault, the citizen of a Western country, for allowing your government to take such drastic anti-copyright measures that ultimately lead to corruption and censorship.
Kind of ironic that Internet freedom will be increasingly achieved in our countries by befriending our enemies.
>it's ultimately your fault, the citizen of a Western country, for allowing your government..
Yeah, no. I didn't vote for these assholes. If you think even part of the nonsense professed by the MafiAA organizations has popular support, you're terribly deluded. I don't take kindly to being told I'm at fault for something I oppose and took every positive and reasonable step available to me to oppose.
> but how can they justify working with an entity that has such a horrid human rights record?
As pointed out yesterday on the Bradley Manning discussion, the US is starting to get to the point where it can't credibly criticize other countries for their human rights abuses, given what goes on in this country.
I don't want this to turn into a discussion of whether the US is worse than North Korea, but both have abused - and continue to abuse - human rights in abysmal ways.
>I don't want this to turn into a discussion of whether the US is worse than North Korea, but both have abused - and continue to abuse - human rights in abysmal ways.
Sorry, no. Making the comparison assumes there's some parity, which is completely misleading.
In a different context, it's about as outlandish as claiming the space shuttle is really no different from the wright flyer. After all, both are capable of flight.
Wow. I'm happy to turn this into a discussion. North Korea has it worse. There is no way in hell, you are going to convince me that the US is a bigger domestic human rights violator.
I think this can help you understand their mentality, PRQ, the hosting company behind TPB, have hosted pedophiles.
I don't know if they still do because I haven't kept track, but they did for sure host pedophile message boards in 2005-2006 where pedophiles discussed things like raising children for sex.
Why? I can only guess that it's because they believe in freedom of speech over everything else.
I don't even know how to approach the moral quandary of seeking asylum in a concentration camp. Am I supposed to be impressed by the Fresh Young DPRK? There is no opening of relations here, just PR. Have TPB truly been hunted to the darkest corners of the Earth?
In the end all this means to me is that I'm going to save the $65 that I was about to spend on a PB hoodie. Assuming TPB are paying for their NK servers, I'd rather not risking providing funds for lil' Kim's holocaust.
I agree. Comparing the right for free information to freedom of speech is debatable. But comparing it to freedom of individuality and the right of existence does not strike me funny at all. Joke or not.
Keep in mind that our news media reports only the facts that fit their story of "NK is evil" and don't report any facts to the contrary. I assure you without a doubt it's a lot better place than our media makes it seem. Sure, their undemocratic system of government is a bad one, it's a CVS system when the rest of the world has moved to Git, and they will be A LOT better off when they switch, but the place has a lot of good going for it, and the reports we see are almost always chosen not for their objective value but to support the one sided argument that our media has been telling for years.
To point to a specific example, yesterday I watched George Stephanopoulos interview Dennis Rodman after Rodman's NK trip and George made some comment about the human rights record and to back it up he mentioned that NK has 200,000 folks in prison camps. Based on that logic, the U.S. is 10x worse with 2.2 million people in prison right now.
NK has a bad system of government. Their human rights record leaves much to be desired. But so does the human rights record of every country on earth, including the US.
If you ever bother to read about any of these accounts, they are all practically cookie-cutter. NK visits are practically on rails. It's not definitive proof of anything, but neither is the lack of visits to NK producing 'smoking gun' photos from prison camps.
| Based on that logic, the U.S. is 10x worse with
| 2.2 million people in prison right now.
1. The US doesn't throw entire families in jail to punish the actions of a single person.
2. Your logic about the numbers doesn't take into account the portion of the population. The US is a lot larger than North Korea. If we translate those numbers into percentages, North Korea has 0.81% of the population in prison, and the U.S. has 0.69% of the population in prison.
3. As bad as the US prison system is, I don't think that it's reach GULAG / Auschwitz levels, which by all accounts NK has.
| Their human rights record leaves much to be
| desired. But so does the human rights record
| of every country on earth, including the US.
That's like saying that GW Bush started a war in Iraq. Hitler started a war in Europe. They both started wars, therefore GW Bush == Hitler! My logic wins!
[ Note: Nobody wanted to believe that the Holocaust was real in Germany until the troops started liberating the camps. IIRC, there were rumors, but most people basically said what you are saying, though there was probably more out of disbelief that human beings could do such a thing. ]
Ah yes Dennis Rodman is such a reliable source of information. He has to suck up to low life dictators. He's broke as shit! At this point Rodman is hoping to be anyone's lapdog just for rent money. There are people in prison camps for things their grandfathers did in North Korea. At least the people in the US had a trial by their peers for something they were actually were accused of doing.
The Pirate Bay is not concerned with your judgment. The Pirate Bay is concerned with making socio-political statements and providing access to their site, seemingly in that order. Discomfort with the situation is exactly what they are going for.
It should make you uneasy that they have to go to North Korea to keep the site online. While they are not martyrs for an easy to grasp cause, and their definition of 'free speech' may fly in the face of yours, they are doing their absolute best to keep alive what they think is important. This has recently resulted in much irony. Irony that I'm sure they're proud of.
You should hate this. That's the point. This wasn't done so people could keep downloading movies illegally, this was done to make a statement, to get you to think. So please, ice your knee, and think.
Think about what? No sarcasm, genuinely unsure what you're suggesting we should think about, please can you explain what the statement they're making is and what we should be thinking about.
fale@machine:~$ tcptraceroute -f 128 -m 128 thepiratebay.se
Selected device venet0, address 5.9.249.8, port 40771 for outgoing packets
Tracing the path to thepiratebay.se (194.71.107.15) on TCP port 80 (www), 128 hops max
128 thepiratebay.org (194.71.107.15) [open] 51.673 ms 49.002 ms 47.187 ms
That server is in Germany, no way it's possible to have 50ms to NK. Also traditional traceroute has 500ms+ RTT.
They are faking/spoofing the ICMP responses.
They are also prepending their route advertisement with corresponding AS paths to further disguise it.
194.71.107.0/24 *[BGP/170] 02:10:36, MED 0, localpref 150, from 80.91.255.255
AS path: 2914 39138 22351 131279 51040 I
AS39138 is probably the real upstream provider of TBP. They peer with AS51040(TPB network) and TPB router prepends AS22351(Intelsat) and AS131279(North Korean ISP) into it's AS Path before advertising it to AS39138.
Exactly. Here is a collection of route-servers and looking glasses which tell you what path a route from ISP x to IP y will take. http://www.bgp4.as/looking-glasses
You will see that every single route to 194.71.107.0/24 will travel through AS39138.
Well it's nice to know that "one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship" wouldn't let concerns over something as insignificant as totalitarianism deter them from "forming a special bond" with a state to distribute warez.
They acknowledge the irony in their own post - the only way that they can promote freedom of speech is by forming a partnership with the least free country in the world, not by forming an alliance with the supposedly 'free' countries in Western Europe/North America.
In other words, the Western countries' belief in 'freedom of speech' is starting to seem as shallow as the word 'Democratic' in the 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea'.
Piracy is not freedom of speech. It is the copying and syndication of the intellectual works of others. I suspect more HNers would be upset about piracy, if they weren't using SaaS business models which are not as vulnerable to it.
It's really easy to brush off the fact that hundreds of people worked to make that movie you downloaded for free, especially when you never have to look any one of them in the eye.
These days with things like netflix, itunes, and amazon prime, the only excuse one can make for participating in piracy is destitution. I totally understand those who wouldn't have been able to acquire the goods anyway doing so by using the pirate bay and other services. In this sense, they're kind of a decentralized information welfare program.
Most countries have this already, and it's called a library. Too bad most libraries haven't caught up with the information age yet. So the piracy services have been filling a very important spot.
I'd strongly urge everyone not to use the pirate bay. North Korea is an oppressive country that would nuke the US in a heartbeat.
It makes me sick that so many people idolize these guys.
Before you rationalize your piracy in response to my post, please sound out the word: "rational" "lies"
I don't believe for one second that North Korea was their only possible option for survival. If anything, getting set up in NK probably took significantly more work and planning than any number of more conventional routes (eastern europe et. al).
If this is in fact true, and not a gag, it's an overt political statement, and one I couldn't disagree with more.
I expected more from HN than this knee-jerk support for TPB due to its self-promulgated association with "freedom of information." Freedom of information, in the specific context of The Pirate Bay, means denying content authors the freedom to choose channels of distribution for their work. It means repackaging content, giving it away "for free," while raking in advertising revenue. It means diverting money away from the entire chain of content creators (e.g., writers, actors, directors, extras, special effects artists), marketers, distributors, etc., and solely into the pockets of TPB's operators.
It's OK to support freedom of information, and also recognize TPB for what it really is.
(Shrug) The money TPB is "diverting" is money that the content industry refuses to accept from its would-be customers.
It's the industry's job to ask me what distribution channel I want to use, not dictate what channel they require me to use. When they figure that out, they'll start making money again.
No. It's their content; they make the rules. It's the industry's job to use whatever distribution channels make them and their clients the most money. That's it.
If you don't like it, you don't have to buy their content, but it doesn't give you the right to bootleg it.
If a content maker doesn't like it, they don't have to use a big publishing house that restricts their sales avenues, but they also know they're probably going to make less money that way.
I wish people would stop pretending the ads on the pirate bay are of significant value. A couple banner ads is absolutely nothing compared to the cost of content production. TPB could run without ads and nothing would really change. They are not even in the same ballpark as 'raking in' the amounts of money content creators charge. There are in fact services where you pay significant amounts of money for media downloads, like rapidshare, that you can make a good argument are taking money from content producers. But TPB is not in that business.
TL;DR:
TPB allows downloads unapproved by content producers: YES
Banner ads are key to allowing this: NO
Banner ads mean they aren't nonprofit: YES*
Banner ads mean they are taking money from content producers: NO
> "They are not even in the same ballpark as 'raking in' the amounts of money content creators charge."
What does the magnitude of TPB's profit have to do with anything? The morality of an action is determined by how much the offender profits monetarily?
The content creators invest effort, money, and years of their lives to produce the content. A typical movie, for instance, represents the collective work of hundreds of people spanning several years. Of course they'll need to charge more to generate a profit. And TPB only needs banner ads to generate the profit. What's your point?
> "...rapidshare, that you can make a good argument are taking money from content producers."
You seem to have bought into this farce that people who download pirated content are categorically unwilling to pay money for non-pirated content. This is complete bs.
My nephews and his friends don't spend money on music, since they can easily get it for free online and it lets them spend their money on other stuff. Are you claiming that if these kids grew up in the 70s or 80s, none of them would listen to music because they'd all be against spending their money on it? BS.
"Taking money from content producers" doesn't just mean I've taken ten dollars out of some musician's wallet and put that same ten dollars into my wallet. It could mean taking ten dollars out of a musician's wallet, putting a dollar into mine, and burning the rest. Or burning it all. From the perspective of the musician, the result is the same.
> "Banner ads are key to allowing this: NO"
My argument was that, based on their actions and words, profit or notoriety are more likely their motivations than a principled stand on freedom of speech, as many here want to attribute to TPB. The Westboro Baptist Church is also defended by the freedom of speech. That doesn't mean we should hold up the Westboro Baptist Church as noble crusaders in a fight for our freedoms. That gives them way too much credit.
When the author chooses the distribution channel, the channel is essentially part of the asking price. People are then free to gauge whether or not the asking price is too high, and opt not to buy. Ultimately, the choice of distribution channel becomes determined by both parties, the buyers and sellers, by agreeing on a price.
On the other hand, if the consumers collectively decide to subvert this process and set the price at zero, where does that leave the author? Their message is "I'm going to take your work and pay you nothing for it. Get back to us when you can offer us a better deal than something for nothing."
Which option seems like a better system to you? Technology has made taking content and paying nothing for it a frictionless transaction. Many people here seem to believe that since technology has enabled it, or made it so easy, or made it so difficult to regulate, it therefore must be a natural right that we've had all along, but can only now fully enjoy due to the miracles of modern technology.
If some group on the supply side gains a monopoly, the government in theory steps in and regulates to protect the consumer from price gouging. This notion appeals to us, that when one party in the holds all the cards, they shouldn't use exploit that power to price gouge. Yet when the consumers suddenly hold all the cards, we turn a blind eye to imbalance in power.
I'm not saying that movie studios and record labels should be protected so that they can cling to old distribution methods. But expecting authors, or anyone on the supply side, to offer a price as good as free is not a reasonable expectation.
This is exactly the issue, TPB or something like it will always exist so long as there's a niche to be exploited between the final cut and your eyelids.
I wish people would stop making such jumps in logic to justify an untenable position. Facilitating the download of illegal content has nothing to do with "speech" or personal opinion, even if the phrase can be rewritten as "telling people where to find warez".
I use it everyday but I can admit they're professional thieves who now appear to be under the protection of possibly the most brutal dictatorships on earth. The only reason they're still around is because everybody uses it and that makes it politically difficult to come down hard on them. This probably makes it significantly easier to bring the full force of the US government into play.
If North Korea really is involved in this (and the traceroutes seem to indicate it is), let's turn the irony up a notch and turn the spotlight on a few North-Korea-critical torrents - now served through the very censor-happy country that is getting criticized:
It will be interesting to see how serious their new overlord is about that "freedom of speech thing". My guess is that sooner or later, some of those films will suddenly vanish from the site.
This is a pretty interesting bit of gamesmanship. In a single stroke it ties together what is perhaps the greatest threat to global stability today (PRK) and where is perhaps the most ridiculous non-threat to global stability (pirated movies) and sets them as equals.
By doing that, it illustrates just how ridiculous the current copyright situation is.
Of course the other way of looking at it is that the creators of TPB think that threats to their freedom to profit from placing advertisements around links to copyrighted material trump the threats to the freedom of the North Korean people. A lack of PR perspective so perverse it almost makes the RIAA and MPAA look like the good guys.
Did HN just turn stupid? I can only shake my head.
The idea that it would even be feasible for TPB to host in North Korea is ridiculous. The fact that they already have a history of pranks about their hosting should be a big clue.
Absolutely uncool. No matter what you think about current IP law - and let's face it, it's a bag of worms - getting into bed with North Korea is inexcusable. On top of everything else, and here "everything" means institutional murder and oppression, it kind of suggests a lack of morality on TPB's part.
Is it possible that people in the DPRK refer to themselves as the 'Republic of Korea' in an attempt to deny/disqualify the existence of any other 'Republic of Korea'? (ie, 'The one true Republic of Korea' or something like that).
I have been to the DPRK on holiday and whilst I was there it was explicitly made clear that the people of the DPRK (or at least, the ones I met who are presumably on-message) do refer to "Korea" as one Korea.
That's not denial of the existence of other Korea, and not "we're the true Korea"; it's more that there is only one Korea, it's the entire peninsula, and this unfortunate state of affairs where there are currently two separate governments isn't an indication that there are two Koreas. There's one Korea. The whole thing.
I asked the guides specifically so I think I've got it more or less right.
I don't like it.
Putting the web's biggest P2P website in the hands of one of the most authoritative dictatorial regime - what could go wrong? Security issues anyone?
Seems fishy at best, and if true it is counter productive: it will not reflect well on TPB...
Same as with Gerard Depardieu. He/they made choice not to be in one kind of dictatorship so they escaped to other. So it seems like pretty subjective stuff (personally i think it's wrong), but it's their choice so who cares. Why do you care?
Here is what they think:
"This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information."
12 INTELSAT-IN.car1.NewYork1.Level3.net (64.156.82.14) 127.129 ms 121.898 ms 121.857 ms
13 209.159.170.215 (209.159.170.215) 214.763 ms 196.291 ms 210.602 ms
14 202.72.96.6 (202.72.96.6) 697.258 ms 711.336 ms 693.061 ms
15 175.45.177.217 (175.45.177.217) 696.368 ms 699.046 ms 702.013 ms
My route, from the US, was one hell of a world trip. Bounced around the US a bit then back and forth between NYC and Frankfurt, finally down to Nigeria (appears to be a satellite uplink), over to Cambodia and then into NK.
Nothing seems to indicate a joke - North Korea does seem interested in strange PR stunts, so this could very well be real. I'm unsure as to how hosting would possibly work there though - I don't believe they have free internet access in/out of North Korea for these servers to run on - perhaps satellite connections could be used.
I doubt the country even has the bandwidth to host such a site. thepiratebay.se resolves to a German IP for me. I call BS and shenanigans. This just appears to be a publicity stunt.
Eric Schmidt brought us maps. Dennis Rodman brought us TPB. This is fine diplomacy.
I know DPRK has bigger problems, but the exposure isn't bad. TPB isn't in a position to free the people, so I can't concur with those who claim this is somehow ignorant of those issues. Times are changing there. Channels are opening up. These guys may serve a greater purpose, even if it's not today.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 3 MARCH 102, 평양 (PYONGYANG).
The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Not for illegal activities but being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information. Today, a new chapter is written in the history of the movement, as well as the history of the internets.
A week ago we could reveal that The Pirate Bay was accessed via Norway and Catalonya. The move was to ensure that these countries and regions will get attention to the issues at hand. Today we can reveal that we have been invited by the leader of the republic of Korea, to fight our battles from their network.
This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information.
We believe that being offered our virtual asylum in Korea is a first step of this country's changing view of access to information. It's a country opening up and one thing is sure, they do not care about threats like others do. In that way, TPB and Korea might have a special bond. We will do our best to influence the Korean leaders to also let their own population use our service, and to make sure that we can help improve the situation in any way we can. When someone is reaching out to make things better, it's also ones duty to grab their hand.
"...being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information."
Seriously?
The Pirate Bay's "freedom of information" posturing is a complete farce. The site exists for the sole purpose of making money for its operators. Messages like this one, whether satire or not, expose the site for what it is. It makes money by ripping content from the distribution channels chosen by the content authors, repackaging it, and giving it away for free while raking in advertising dollars. In the process, they deny content authors the freedom to select channel of distribution that will allow them to be compensated for their work.
Technology has paved the way for improved means of distributing content, but this is not it.
The only upside of TPB is that it will disrupt the existing content delivery chain enough to force some innovation in a space dominated by a few very large and very stagnant players.
Hosting a site already hated by US authorities in a country that the US considers to be an enemy is probably not the best idea. My guess is that a US Senator or Congressman is somewhere right now drafting a bill that would prohibit US internet providers from providing access to sites hosted in North Korea.
The irony here is just too much to swallow. Of all possible places, a party campaigning for greater freedoms ends up in NORTH KOREA.
I used be proud of defending tpb. Now I'm really not sure.
Stupid move, so much that words fail me. "Korea" (as they call themselves, they don't acknowledge the autonomy of the South) has been looking for months for investors to replenish their economy in the face of mounting sanctions. TPB is giving them exactly what they need to become a greater menace to the region.
> The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Not for illegal activities but being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information.
How noble. Good thing that they found refuge in the country that basically is one big concentration camp. Can't make this stuff up.
This is hilarious if true (nslookup points to 194.71.107.15 in germany, so I have my doubts). Hopefully (and this is really idealistic of me, because I suspect the reaction will be entirely negative) this opens up a larger conversation on internet freedoms in an absurd way beyond SOPA/CISPA/whatever internet freedom-stripping bill-of-the-day is debated on capitol hill.
It is, isn't it? UK is a first world country. They've blocked TPB. NK is an oppressive regime. They've blocked everything.
I guess that's the modern difference between "rogue" and "first world" as far as censorship goes. The former block because of threats to the political regime. The latter because of threats to corporate profits.
Ironic that no one in the country pirate bay is now hosted will be able to access its contents. The free world has to go to the totalitarian world to access data and the totalitarian world have have to come to the free world to access the data.
Do you really want North Korea to know exactly which copyrights you've violated and which banned books you've read? I mean, your torrent client sends that information to the tracker. (But then, it also sends it to other peers.)
I know it's TPB so I should have known this, but beware of this link at the office. If you don't have a good ad-blocker installed it will throw up some non-HR friendly popups!
I realize this is propaganda but it's working on me. I'm starting to like Kim Jong-Un. First Eric Schmidt, then Dennis Rodman and now TPB. If these are the kinds of friends he wants to make, I'm a fan.
This is a masterful 'fuck you' to the establishment and at the same time an olive branch to the internet generation all over the World. The people who will be running the World in 20, 30, 40 years - when he is still in power.
My first reaction: GET OUTTA HERE!! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING!
but oh well, I have a wiggly feeling in my mouth each time I read this, I don't know, whether this is funny or world changing or ironic or god knows what. The internet has melted a new barrier.
So.
A traceroute to thepiratebay.se is kind of amusing.
From my home (Sweden), the packets seem to go to Frankfurt, then New York, take a link via an ip which reverses to intelsatone.net to a cambodgian ip (500ms latency right here), then reach the ip 175.45.177.217, assigned to Star Joint Venture Co Ltd. Who seem to be a legitimate North Korea internet provider (or, well, as legitimate as it gets, coming from North Korea). The rest of the traceroute doesn't ping back (edit: 6 hops, which could stay in NK, or lead you back anywhere in the world).
If it's a joke, it's a very elaborate one.
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the ICMP responses are forged - It seems disadvantageous for the site to have such a long path, since each hop has the potential for attack.
http://www.thoughtcrime.org/software/fakeroute/ can be seen as previous work that it is practical to do something like this.
No it's not forged as can be seen from the AS path in the global routing table.
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Not just ICMP, doing a traceroute over tcp also results in this. Looks to be either a really well done forgery, or legitimate.
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I don't believe forging will help them much - they are doing this to avoid international law enforcement, and international law enforcement can easily check through a simple bluff like that.
Altering routing companies sending traffic through in bulk from Germany-NY-Satellite is far more difficult, but we may see them do this anyway. Time will tell.
They can also have someone inside the Thai Star Joint corporation that does the internet connectivity in NK.
AS path as seen from the RIPE NCC RIS looking glass for 194.71.107.0/24:
... 2914 39138 22351 131279 51040
... [NTT America/ARIN] [rrbone/RIPE] [Intelsat/ARIN] [STAR JOINT VENTURE/APNIC] [The Pirate Bay/RIPE]
Apart from that /24, STAR JOINT VENTURE only advertises 175.45.176.0/22 (albeit as four /24, idiotically enough). What's kind of interesting is that this /22 is visible with a much shorter AS path:
... 3257 4837 131279
... [Tinet/RIPE] [China Netcom/APNIC] [STAR JOINT VENTURE/APNIC]
The question is: Is is deliberate that the Chinese don't allow transit of the Pirate Bay /24 through their network? (As opposed to Intelsat, a Washington-based American company.)
I see two prefixes advertised by 51040, with very different paths:
I don't know what, if anything, they use 194.14.56/24 for, but both appear to belong to the same organization (although the registrant records differ just a bit).
EDIT: I'm gonna dig into my database and see what the path looked like a day or two ago.
EDIT: 2 days ago: the .107/24 path: 3356 3549 16150 51040
16150 is "Availo Networks AB" and they do appear to do heavy prefix filtering -- as they should -- but I see no import policy for 51040:
It's possible and plausible that TPB is using one or more VPNs to hide the true route traffic is taking (who knows what they're really doing, though).
I don't understand BGP and AS... what does that mean?
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First type traceroute thepiratebay.se Then tcptraceroute -f 128 -m 128 thepiratebay.se http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5319720 for explanation how they did it.
This seems reasonably legit. AS131279 (Star Joint Venture Co Ltd) has (or had) a peering with the Piratpartie Norge (pirate party norway): http://bgp.he.net/AS131279#_peers
It could be bad labelling too. I'm not sure about the details of how it happened, but I used an ISP in UK who was assigning ranges officially located in Italy.
(BTW: that really broke google for a long time. google will revert your language to the automatically discovered one, even after you use their magic url that should prevent this)
There is no "official location" of IP addresses.
The IP addresses allocated to the ISP I work for are "officially located" (according to my ARIN POC records) in the city I live in (specifically, at my PO Box). We ($ISP) don't even provide service in that city.
You're confusing how internet routing with how some internet services assign geographical locations to ip address (GeoIP). The path your traffic takes through the internet has nothing to do with geoip.
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I don't see any open ports on that host, do you? Even if it's just a load balancer, the connection would need to terminate on a routable IP somewhere...
This makes me upset. Its upsetting because while yes, information freedom is a very important topic and needs to happen, but it does not trump human freedom. I'm not sure if this is a straw man or not - but how can they justify working with an entity that has such a horrid human rights record?
Yes, definitely, we should not stand by while companies host their content in countries known to use torture to extract information, hold prisoners with out trial, hold prisoners with out charge, allow their leaders to execute citizens summarily, execute minors and the mentally retarded, incarcerate people at a rate higher than any other country on earth merely in order to serve as slave labour for the state and state sponsored corporations.
Even worse is many of the citizens of this 'republic' have been brainwashed by a compulsory education system that they actually live in a democratic republic.
If you think you can legitimately compare the living conditions, political environment, and human suffering in North Korea that with the USA, you might have also brainwashed yourself (it happens when you take everything you have for granted).
In NK you'd be lucky to get 1 meal a day. Over here poor people are morbidly fat.
And at the end of the day, you're not a prisoner, if you hate it here so much, you can leave this country any day you want to. But can't say the same for people in NK.
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Besides for executing minors/mentally handicapped, the US does all those things. Torture (waterboarding), hold prisoners without trial/charge (Guantanamo Bay), allow their leaders to execute citizens summarily (drone strikes), incarcerate people at a high rate for benefit of state sponsored corporations (drug war - privatized jails). I'm not arguing politics - I don't think HN is the place for it, but you should evaluate your perspective and how it might be changing how you view the world.
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I'm honestly confused, are you talking about the United States of America or North Korea. With the exception of the execution of minors, it describes the USA fairly accurately.
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If you are so upset about those issues in the United States how about you sign up to adopt some of the citizens who vote for them? We'd be happy to ship a few off.
Assuming this is not in fact a reference to NK at all what is the execution of minors and the mentally retarded that you refer to?
i lol'ed
Don't really know why or if they are doing this, but the PirateBay's primary purpose is to stay up.
If they are pushed to such extremes as to go to North Korea, then it's ultimately your fault, the citizen of a Western country, for allowing your government to take such drastic anti-copyright measures that ultimately lead to corruption and censorship.
Kind of ironic that Internet freedom will be increasingly achieved in our countries by befriending our enemies.
>it's ultimately your fault, the citizen of a Western country, for allowing your government..
Yeah, no. I didn't vote for these assholes. If you think even part of the nonsense professed by the MafiAA organizations has popular support, you're terribly deluded. I don't take kindly to being told I'm at fault for something I oppose and took every positive and reasonable step available to me to oppose.
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> but how can they justify working with an entity that has such a horrid human rights record?
As pointed out yesterday on the Bradley Manning discussion, the US is starting to get to the point where it can't credibly criticize other countries for their human rights abuses, given what goes on in this country.
I don't want this to turn into a discussion of whether the US is worse than North Korea, but both have abused - and continue to abuse - human rights in abysmal ways.
>I don't want this to turn into a discussion of whether the US is worse than North Korea, but both have abused - and continue to abuse - human rights in abysmal ways.
Sorry, no. Making the comparison assumes there's some parity, which is completely misleading.
In a different context, it's about as outlandish as claiming the space shuttle is really no different from the wright flyer. After all, both are capable of flight.
Everybody has the right to leave the US
Nobody has the right to leave NK
That alone says loads.
The most essential freedom is the freedom to disagree and leave. North Koreans don't have that right.
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Wow. I'm happy to turn this into a discussion. North Korea has it worse. There is no way in hell, you are going to convince me that the US is a bigger domestic human rights violator.
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Not to the extent of keeping thousands of prisoners in Holocaust-like conditions, I think.
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I think this can help you understand their mentality, PRQ, the hosting company behind TPB, have hosted pedophiles.
I don't know if they still do because I haven't kept track, but they did for sure host pedophile message boards in 2005-2006 where pedophiles discussed things like raising children for sex.
Why? I can only guess that it's because they believe in freedom of speech over everything else.
Do you think child raping pedophiles will stop raping children if they can't host their boards at PRQ?
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The primary function that the Pirate Bay serves is to illegitimately take other people's work and give it away for free - ohh, while displaying ads.
Why would you hold them up to a higher standard?
Yeah, not like those social networks or anything.
I feel the same way. I personally think there have to be priorities in life and they might have lost some perspective about things here:
http://www.businessinsider.com/survivors-liken-north-korean-...
http://www.fastcompany.com/3006452/fast-feed/north-koreas-co...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_North_Korea
I don't even know how to approach the moral quandary of seeking asylum in a concentration camp. Am I supposed to be impressed by the Fresh Young DPRK? There is no opening of relations here, just PR. Have TPB truly been hunted to the darkest corners of the Earth?
In the end all this means to me is that I'm going to save the $65 that I was about to spend on a PB hoodie. Assuming TPB are paying for their NK servers, I'd rather not risking providing funds for lil' Kim's holocaust.
I agree. Comparing the right for free information to freedom of speech is debatable. But comparing it to freedom of individuality and the right of existence does not strike me funny at all. Joke or not.
Keep in mind that our news media reports only the facts that fit their story of "NK is evil" and don't report any facts to the contrary. I assure you without a doubt it's a lot better place than our media makes it seem. Sure, their undemocratic system of government is a bad one, it's a CVS system when the rest of the world has moved to Git, and they will be A LOT better off when they switch, but the place has a lot of good going for it, and the reports we see are almost always chosen not for their objective value but to support the one sided argument that our media has been telling for years.
To point to a specific example, yesterday I watched George Stephanopoulos interview Dennis Rodman after Rodman's NK trip and George made some comment about the human rights record and to back it up he mentioned that NK has 200,000 folks in prison camps. Based on that logic, the U.S. is 10x worse with 2.2 million people in prison right now.
NK has a bad system of government. Their human rights record leaves much to be desired. But so does the human rights record of every country on earth, including the US.
If you ever bother to read about any of these accounts, they are all practically cookie-cutter. NK visits are practically on rails. It's not definitive proof of anything, but neither is the lack of visits to NK producing 'smoking gun' photos from prison camps.
1. The US doesn't throw entire families in jail to punish the actions of a single person.
2. Your logic about the numbers doesn't take into account the portion of the population. The US is a lot larger than North Korea. If we translate those numbers into percentages, North Korea has 0.81% of the population in prison, and the U.S. has 0.69% of the population in prison.
3. As bad as the US prison system is, I don't think that it's reach GULAG / Auschwitz levels, which by all accounts NK has.
That's like saying that GW Bush started a war in Iraq. Hitler started a war in Europe. They both started wars, therefore GW Bush == Hitler! My logic wins!
[ Note: Nobody wanted to believe that the Holocaust was real in Germany until the troops started liberating the camps. IIRC, there were rumors, but most people basically said what you are saying, though there was probably more out of disbelief that human beings could do such a thing. ]
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>Based on that logic, the U.S. is 10x worse with 2.2 million people in prison right now.
The US also has 13 times the population. And conditions in US prisons are not comparable to conditions in North Korean prisons.
Bull. Shit.
North Korea is a totalitarian hell hole where there has been an ongoing holocaust of citizens for 6 decades.
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Ah yes Dennis Rodman is such a reliable source of information. He has to suck up to low life dictators. He's broke as shit! At this point Rodman is hoping to be anyone's lapdog just for rent money. There are people in prison camps for things their grandfathers did in North Korea. At least the people in the US had a trial by their peers for something they were actually were accused of doing.
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If North Korea has a lot of good going for it, I'm sure you can give us a few examples.
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NK has 200,000 folks in prison camps. Based on that logic, the U.S. is 10x worse with 2.2 million people in prison right now.
Per capita calculations or it is meaningless.
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you mean America?
on a more serious note, your country is pushing them to leave their own country. Where to go? To your enemies of course.
the justification is what they say, that if that said body is ready to mend its way, then it shall be helped.
Pirate bay has been offered, they haven't accepted it for now.
Perhaps it's as simple as... money?
Free movies.
The Pirate Bay is not concerned with your judgment. The Pirate Bay is concerned with making socio-political statements and providing access to their site, seemingly in that order. Discomfort with the situation is exactly what they are going for.
It should make you uneasy that they have to go to North Korea to keep the site online. While they are not martyrs for an easy to grasp cause, and their definition of 'free speech' may fly in the face of yours, they are doing their absolute best to keep alive what they think is important. This has recently resulted in much irony. Irony that I'm sure they're proud of.
You should hate this. That's the point. This wasn't done so people could keep downloading movies illegally, this was done to make a statement, to get you to think. So please, ice your knee, and think.
It's a joke. THAT'S the point.
Think about what? No sarcasm, genuinely unsure what you're suggesting we should think about, please can you explain what the statement they're making is and what we should be thinking about.
fale@machine:~$ tcptraceroute -f 128 -m 128 thepiratebay.se Selected device venet0, address 5.9.249.8, port 40771 for outgoing packets Tracing the path to thepiratebay.se (194.71.107.15) on TCP port 80 (www), 128 hops max 128 thepiratebay.org (194.71.107.15) [open] 51.673 ms 49.002 ms 47.187 ms
That server is in Germany, no way it's possible to have 50ms to NK. Also traditional traceroute has 500ms+ RTT.
They are faking/spoofing the ICMP responses. They are also prepending their route advertisement with corresponding AS paths to further disguise it.
From TeliaSonera looking glass http://lg.telia.net/
194.71.107.0/24 *[BGP/170] 02:10:36, MED 0, localpref 150, from 80.91.255.255 AS path: 2914 39138 22351 131279 51040 I
AS39138 is probably the real upstream provider of TBP. They peer with AS51040(TPB network) and TPB router prepends AS22351(Intelsat) and AS131279(North Korean ISP) into it's AS Path before advertising it to AS39138.
Yeah, and why is AS39138 in /all/ the AS paths I tried on that site, when there other ways to AS22351
Exactly. Here is a collection of route-servers and looking glasses which tell you what path a route from ISP x to IP y will take. http://www.bgp4.as/looking-glasses You will see that every single route to 194.71.107.0/24 will travel through AS39138.
Yep, I just tried this myself.
I get about 40 ms from south germany and about 30 ms from france to thepiratebay.se ; but almost 400 ms to www.kcna.kp
yandex.ru
Well it's nice to know that "one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship" wouldn't let concerns over something as insignificant as totalitarianism deter them from "forming a special bond" with a state to distribute warez.
They acknowledge the irony in their own post - the only way that they can promote freedom of speech is by forming a partnership with the least free country in the world, not by forming an alliance with the supposedly 'free' countries in Western Europe/North America.
In other words, the Western countries' belief in 'freedom of speech' is starting to seem as shallow as the word 'Democratic' in the 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea'.
Piracy is not freedom of speech. It is the copying and syndication of the intellectual works of others. I suspect more HNers would be upset about piracy, if they weren't using SaaS business models which are not as vulnerable to it.
It's really easy to brush off the fact that hundreds of people worked to make that movie you downloaded for free, especially when you never have to look any one of them in the eye.
These days with things like netflix, itunes, and amazon prime, the only excuse one can make for participating in piracy is destitution. I totally understand those who wouldn't have been able to acquire the goods anyway doing so by using the pirate bay and other services. In this sense, they're kind of a decentralized information welfare program. Most countries have this already, and it's called a library. Too bad most libraries haven't caught up with the information age yet. So the piracy services have been filling a very important spot.
I'd strongly urge everyone not to use the pirate bay. North Korea is an oppressive country that would nuke the US in a heartbeat.
It makes me sick that so many people idolize these guys.
Before you rationalize your piracy in response to my post, please sound out the word: "rational" "lies"
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I don't believe for one second that North Korea was their only possible option for survival. If anything, getting set up in NK probably took significantly more work and planning than any number of more conventional routes (eastern europe et. al).
If this is in fact true, and not a gag, it's an overt political statement, and one I couldn't disagree with more.
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Alternately, you know, it might just be that their conception of "freedom of speech" does not jibe well with that of the "supposedly free"?
I expected more from HN than this knee-jerk support for TPB due to its self-promulgated association with "freedom of information." Freedom of information, in the specific context of The Pirate Bay, means denying content authors the freedom to choose channels of distribution for their work. It means repackaging content, giving it away "for free," while raking in advertising revenue. It means diverting money away from the entire chain of content creators (e.g., writers, actors, directors, extras, special effects artists), marketers, distributors, etc., and solely into the pockets of TPB's operators.
It's OK to support freedom of information, and also recognize TPB for what it really is.
(Shrug) The money TPB is "diverting" is money that the content industry refuses to accept from its would-be customers.
It's the industry's job to ask me what distribution channel I want to use, not dictate what channel they require me to use. When they figure that out, they'll start making money again.
No. It's their content; they make the rules. It's the industry's job to use whatever distribution channels make them and their clients the most money. That's it.
If you don't like it, you don't have to buy their content, but it doesn't give you the right to bootleg it.
If a content maker doesn't like it, they don't have to use a big publishing house that restricts their sales avenues, but they also know they're probably going to make less money that way.
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I wish people would stop pretending the ads on the pirate bay are of significant value. A couple banner ads is absolutely nothing compared to the cost of content production. TPB could run without ads and nothing would really change. They are not even in the same ballpark as 'raking in' the amounts of money content creators charge. There are in fact services where you pay significant amounts of money for media downloads, like rapidshare, that you can make a good argument are taking money from content producers. But TPB is not in that business.
TL;DR:
TPB allows downloads unapproved by content producers: YES
Banner ads are key to allowing this: NO
Banner ads mean they aren't nonprofit: YES*
Banner ads mean they are taking money from content producers: NO
> "They are not even in the same ballpark as 'raking in' the amounts of money content creators charge."
What does the magnitude of TPB's profit have to do with anything? The morality of an action is determined by how much the offender profits monetarily?
The content creators invest effort, money, and years of their lives to produce the content. A typical movie, for instance, represents the collective work of hundreds of people spanning several years. Of course they'll need to charge more to generate a profit. And TPB only needs banner ads to generate the profit. What's your point?
> "...rapidshare, that you can make a good argument are taking money from content producers."
You seem to have bought into this farce that people who download pirated content are categorically unwilling to pay money for non-pirated content. This is complete bs.
My nephews and his friends don't spend money on music, since they can easily get it for free online and it lets them spend their money on other stuff. Are you claiming that if these kids grew up in the 70s or 80s, none of them would listen to music because they'd all be against spending their money on it? BS.
"Taking money from content producers" doesn't just mean I've taken ten dollars out of some musician's wallet and put that same ten dollars into my wallet. It could mean taking ten dollars out of a musician's wallet, putting a dollar into mine, and burning the rest. Or burning it all. From the perspective of the musician, the result is the same.
> "Banner ads are key to allowing this: NO"
My argument was that, based on their actions and words, profit or notoriety are more likely their motivations than a principled stand on freedom of speech, as many here want to attribute to TPB. The Westboro Baptist Church is also defended by the freedom of speech. That doesn't mean we should hold up the Westboro Baptist Church as noble crusaders in a fight for our freedoms. That gives them way too much credit.
Why should authors and not "consumers" (man, how I hate this word) choose distribution channels?
When the author chooses the distribution channel, the channel is essentially part of the asking price. People are then free to gauge whether or not the asking price is too high, and opt not to buy. Ultimately, the choice of distribution channel becomes determined by both parties, the buyers and sellers, by agreeing on a price.
On the other hand, if the consumers collectively decide to subvert this process and set the price at zero, where does that leave the author? Their message is "I'm going to take your work and pay you nothing for it. Get back to us when you can offer us a better deal than something for nothing."
Which option seems like a better system to you? Technology has made taking content and paying nothing for it a frictionless transaction. Many people here seem to believe that since technology has enabled it, or made it so easy, or made it so difficult to regulate, it therefore must be a natural right that we've had all along, but can only now fully enjoy due to the miracles of modern technology.
If some group on the supply side gains a monopoly, the government in theory steps in and regulates to protect the consumer from price gouging. This notion appeals to us, that when one party in the holds all the cards, they shouldn't use exploit that power to price gouge. Yet when the consumers suddenly hold all the cards, we turn a blind eye to imbalance in power.
I'm not saying that movie studios and record labels should be protected so that they can cling to old distribution methods. But expecting authors, or anyone on the supply side, to offer a price as good as free is not a reasonable expectation.
This is exactly the issue, TPB or something like it will always exist so long as there's a niche to be exploited between the final cut and your eyelids.
The piratebay does not host content. It is a directory, it is pure speech. "Congress shall make no law..."
I wish people would stop making such jumps in logic to justify an untenable position. Facilitating the download of illegal content has nothing to do with "speech" or personal opinion, even if the phrase can be rewritten as "telling people where to find warez".
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Sounds like reupp.org might be of service..
I use it everyday but I can admit they're professional thieves who now appear to be under the protection of possibly the most brutal dictatorships on earth. The only reason they're still around is because everybody uses it and that makes it politically difficult to come down hard on them. This probably makes it significantly easier to bring the full force of the US government into play.
> The only reason they're still around is because everybody uses it
And since we are supposed to have democracy here, maybe it's a valid reason?
Nuke tests haven't caused us to invade North Korean but if this happens the MPAA could get it done.
as strange that may sound, it might become true.
If North Korea really is involved in this (and the traceroutes seem to indicate it is), let's turn the irony up a notch and turn the spotlight on a few North-Korea-critical torrents - now served through the very censor-happy country that is getting criticized:
Children of the Secret State - North Korea https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6441601/
Inside - Undercover in North Korea https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6136295/
Comrades and Strangers: Behind the Closed Doors of North Korea https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6899842/
The Vice Guide to North Korea https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/5378291/
National Geographic Explorer ~ Inside North Korea https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/6110419/
It will be interesting to see how serious their new overlord is about that "freedom of speech thing". My guess is that sooner or later, some of those films will suddenly vanish from the site.
This is a pretty interesting bit of gamesmanship. In a single stroke it ties together what is perhaps the greatest threat to global stability today (PRK) and where is perhaps the most ridiculous non-threat to global stability (pirated movies) and sets them as equals.
By doing that, it illustrates just how ridiculous the current copyright situation is.
Nicely played Piratebay, nicely played.
Of course the other way of looking at it is that the creators of TPB think that threats to their freedom to profit from placing advertisements around links to copyrighted material trump the threats to the freedom of the North Korean people. A lack of PR perspective so perverse it almost makes the RIAA and MPAA look like the good guys.
>by Kim Jung-Bay
Of course it's serious.
edit: I thought it's a joke... but the traceroute trully ends in North Korea with the 175.45.177.217 IP.
So ... maybe it's actualy legit.
I don't know what to trust anymore.
Sure, just like the airborne Raspberry Pi drone servers.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/pirate-bay-plans-...
Did HN just turn stupid? I can only shake my head.
The idea that it would even be feasible for TPB to host in North Korea is ridiculous. The fact that they already have a history of pranks about their hosting should be a big clue.
Absolutely uncool. No matter what you think about current IP law - and let's face it, it's a bag of worms - getting into bed with North Korea is inexcusable. On top of everything else, and here "everything" means institutional murder and oppression, it kind of suggests a lack of morality on TPB's part.
Sergey Brin, Dennis Rodman, and now the Pirate Bay? This is the weirdest PR campaign ever
Eric Schmidt, not Sergey Brin.
>"...we have been invited by the leader of the republic of Korea..."
That's the wrong one, though.
Republic of Korea = South
Democratic People's Republic of Korea = North
Is it possible that people in the DPRK refer to themselves as the 'Republic of Korea' in an attempt to deny/disqualify the existence of any other 'Republic of Korea'? (ie, 'The one true Republic of Korea' or something like that).
I have been to the DPRK on holiday and whilst I was there it was explicitly made clear that the people of the DPRK (or at least, the ones I met who are presumably on-message) do refer to "Korea" as one Korea.
That's not denial of the existence of other Korea, and not "we're the true Korea"; it's more that there is only one Korea, it's the entire peninsula, and this unfortunate state of affairs where there are currently two separate governments isn't an indication that there are two Koreas. There's one Korea. The whole thing.
I asked the guides specifically so I think I've got it more or less right.
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Why do communist countries insist on calling themselves "democratic"? If you're such a firm believer in that philosophy, why not have some pride?
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I don't like it. Putting the web's biggest P2P website in the hands of one of the most authoritative dictatorial regime - what could go wrong? Security issues anyone? Seems fishy at best, and if true it is counter productive: it will not reflect well on TPB...
Same as with Gerard Depardieu. He/they made choice not to be in one kind of dictatorship so they escaped to other. So it seems like pretty subjective stuff (personally i think it's wrong), but it's their choice so who cares. Why do you care?
Here is what they think:
"This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information."
Is this false?
Pretty good idea or do you think NK will release _any_ informations to american based entertainment companies?
I'm sorry, but is this a joke? Or were they seriously offered server space in North Korea as some sort of political/PR thing?
The route goes to NK
traceroute thepiratebay.se output:
175.45.177.217 Seems to be an actual IP in NK[0]
[0] http://bgp.he.net/AS131279
My route, from the US, was one hell of a world trip. Bounced around the US a bit then back and forth between NYC and Frankfurt, finally down to Nigeria (appears to be a satellite uplink), over to Cambodia and then into NK.
Huh.
I get a German IP, 194.71.107.15 and the tracepath results take the route nowhere near Asia.
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I don't see it in my traceroute. It is going through Frankfurt.
Nothing seems to indicate a joke - North Korea does seem interested in strange PR stunts, so this could very well be real. I'm unsure as to how hosting would possibly work there though - I don't believe they have free internet access in/out of North Korea for these servers to run on - perhaps satellite connections could be used.
I doubt the country even has the bandwidth to host such a site. thepiratebay.se resolves to a German IP for me. I call BS and shenanigans. This just appears to be a publicity stunt.
Eric Schmidt brought us maps. Dennis Rodman brought us TPB. This is fine diplomacy.
I know DPRK has bigger problems, but the exposure isn't bad. TPB isn't in a position to free the people, so I can't concur with those who claim this is somehow ignorant of those issues. Times are changing there. Channels are opening up. These guys may serve a greater purpose, even if it's not today.
It's not April 1st yet... so, I guess not?
I can only hope the comments on that article are also part of the joke.
Can anyone repost the text here for those of use whose work filters block tpb?
PRESS RELEASE, NEW PROVIDER FOR TPB
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, 3 MARCH 102, 평양 (PYONGYANG).
The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Not for illegal activities but being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information. Today, a new chapter is written in the history of the movement, as well as the history of the internets.
A week ago we could reveal that The Pirate Bay was accessed via Norway and Catalonya. The move was to ensure that these countries and regions will get attention to the issues at hand. Today we can reveal that we have been invited by the leader of the republic of Korea, to fight our battles from their network.
This is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high. At the same time, companies from that country is chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information.
We believe that being offered our virtual asylum in Korea is a first step of this country's changing view of access to information. It's a country opening up and one thing is sure, they do not care about threats like others do. In that way, TPB and Korea might have a special bond. We will do our best to influence the Korean leaders to also let their own population use our service, and to make sure that we can help improve the situation in any way we can. When someone is reaching out to make things better, it's also ones duty to grab their hand.
Posted 24 mins ago by Kim Jung-Bay
"...being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information."
Seriously?
The Pirate Bay's "freedom of information" posturing is a complete farce. The site exists for the sole purpose of making money for its operators. Messages like this one, whether satire or not, expose the site for what it is. It makes money by ripping content from the distribution channels chosen by the content authors, repackaging it, and giving it away for free while raking in advertising dollars. In the process, they deny content authors the freedom to select channel of distribution that will allow them to be compensated for their work.
Technology has paved the way for improved means of distributing content, but this is not it.
The only upside of TPB is that it will disrupt the existing content delivery chain enough to force some innovation in a space dominated by a few very large and very stagnant players.
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Or for those of us who live in a country (UK) where it's blocked.
I used http://tpb.ipredator.se/ when I was in London this morning, it seemed to work perfectly well.
I guess nobody updated their IPs, though:
http://proxybay.info/
Hosting a site already hated by US authorities in a country that the US considers to be an enemy is probably not the best idea. My guess is that a US Senator or Congressman is somewhere right now drafting a bill that would prohibit US internet providers from providing access to sites hosted in North Korea.
hey, they could probably buy the implementation from iran!
Why? They sold it to them.... (Ok, Nokia did....)
Enemy of my enemy is my friend.
EDIT: My previous comment was totally wrong. This is legit. The Pirate Bay (AS51040) is announcing routes via Ryugyong-dong (AS131279)
See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5319720 AS Paths can be modified pretty easily http://blog.ioshints.info/2008/02/bgp-essentials-as-path-pre...
According to this blogpost https://rdns.im/the-pirate-bay-north-korean-hosting-no-its-f... it's not really hosted in NK.
The irony here is just too much to swallow. Of all possible places, a party campaigning for greater freedoms ends up in NORTH KOREA. I used be proud of defending tpb. Now I'm really not sure.
Stupid move, so much that words fail me. "Korea" (as they call themselves, they don't acknowledge the autonomy of the South) has been looking for months for investors to replenish their economy in the face of mounting sanctions. TPB is giving them exactly what they need to become a greater menace to the region.
> The Pirate Bay has been hunted in many countries around the world. Not for illegal activities but being persecuted for beliefs of freedom of information.
How noble. Good thing that they found refuge in the country that basically is one big concentration camp. Can't make this stuff up.
Holy Crap. This is... unprecedented.
So North Korea will now have access to the entire Western World's culture catalog? For Free?! I wonder how Kim Jong Un will exploit that.
And now anyone who downloads a torrent from TPB has potentially been compromised? Or is that alarmist?
So North Korea will now have access to the entire Western World's culture catalog?
Understand the difference between the torrent file and the actual data and all shall be revealed.
Pirate Bay mainly uses magnet links, Magnet links are really just links with no data associated with them.
Does having access to the torrent file not give you access to the actual data?
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> So North Korea will now have access to the entire Western World's culture catalog?
The part that owns computers, sure.
This is probably a practical application of what we saw earlier with the star wars traceroute.
Trace 216.81.59.173 to see the effect if you haven't seen it already.
This is hilarious if true (nslookup points to 194.71.107.15 in germany, so I have my doubts). Hopefully (and this is really idealistic of me, because I suspect the reaction will be entirely negative) this opens up a larger conversation on internet freedoms in an absurd way beyond SOPA/CISPA/whatever internet freedom-stripping bill-of-the-day is debated on capitol hill.
Isn't it one month early for April fools? Oh wait...
Seriously this is mind boggling! I can't believe it has come to that!
It is, isn't it? UK is a first world country. They've blocked TPB. NK is an oppressive regime. They've blocked everything.
I guess that's the modern difference between "rogue" and "first world" as far as censorship goes. The former block because of threats to the political regime. The latter because of threats to corporate profits.
Yeah, well, good luck with that.
We have a client in a chinese data center where they would just turn off the power randomly because the government said so.
Not to mention the unscheduled blackouts.
Does NK have enough bandwidth for something like this? They just have one terrestrial link from PRC, right?
Just. Feeling. Surreal.
But, the irony of the Politics makes strange bedfellows does not seem lost on them.
Ironic that no one in the country pirate bay is now hosted will be able to access its contents. The free world has to go to the totalitarian world to access data and the totalitarian world have have to come to the free world to access the data.
Do you really want North Korea to know exactly which copyrights you've violated and which banned books you've read? I mean, your torrent client sends that information to the tracker. (But then, it also sends it to other peers.)
I know it's TPB so I should have known this, but beware of this link at the office. If you don't have a good ad-blocker installed it will throw up some non-HR friendly popups!
Someone send them this story http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2007-09-atbirth.htm.
Prophecy fulfilled :)
http://openclipart.org/people/worker/1325935795.svg
Well, I can certainly point to this article next time someone tries to tell me how awesome the HN comment section is.
What's really ironic is that a lot of the content hosted on the Pirate Bay is banned in North Korea.
Apparently North Korea has more information freedom than rest of the world.
unless you live there.
And they're down again!
Mirror, anyone? I can't get to it on Comcast.
Was this Dennis Rodman's idea?
This is so fantastic.
the enemy of my enemy is my friend
the site isn'r working for me...
Most likely your ISP is censoring you.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18833060
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7770456.stm
Posts like this show that however smart we generally believe HN users to be, on some fronts it is a bag full of stupid.
I realize this is propaganda but it's working on me. I'm starting to like Kim Jong-Un. First Eric Schmidt, then Dennis Rodman and now TPB. If these are the kinds of friends he wants to make, I'm a fan.
This is a masterful 'fuck you' to the establishment and at the same time an olive branch to the internet generation all over the World. The people who will be running the World in 20, 30, 40 years - when he is still in power.
The only two things I dislike about HN:
-It's a crapshoot or manipulation game to hit the front page
-People downvote logical arguments they simply disagree with
wat.
My first reaction: GET OUTTA HERE!! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING!
but oh well, I have a wiggly feeling in my mouth each time I read this, I don't know, whether this is funny or world changing or ironic or god knows what. The internet has melted a new barrier.
Cheers to THE BAY!