thepiratebay: Circumventing Censorship
Recently, a court in the Netherlands has ordered ISPs to begin censoring thepiratebay. Many courts across the European Union have made similar decisions but each to a different degree of severity, and each requiring a different method of circumvention. Censorship in Denmark, Ireland, the UK, Italy, and Belgium is being delivered with a simple DNS block. DNS filters are easy to get around, and are more a symbolic annoyance than anything. However the censorship attempts in Finland, Holland, and China are using both IP and DNS blocks, which requires a little more technical involvement to get around.For both Belgium and Italy, thepiratebay has setup alternative domains which are not previously listed in the DNS blockades. These new domains still point to the same IP where thepiratebay is hosted; therefore places that have an IP block will have no luck using these domains. In Belgium and Italy, the music industry must take the issue back to court to get thepiratebay's new domains included on the blacklist.. Holland has taken this one step further and said that new piratebay domains can simply be added without any further review from the courts. Depending on how this is interpreted, millions of innocent sites could be censored for the simple goal of blacklisting one site.
It is not clear to me, if these newly added domains are to include only domains that link to thepiratebay, or if they can simply blacklist any domain in the world that makes access to thepiratebay possible. If the former is true than people can avoid the blockade simply by using a piratebay mirror. Sites like http://tpb.piratenpartij.nl and http://malaysiabay.org which mirror thepiratebay, but have absolutely no association to it. Scam sites like thepiratebay.ee could possibly be immune to the block. According to TimKuik at thepiratebay, they will begin blacklisting CGI proxies, which have thousands of legitimate uses other than providing access to thepiratebay. If this is true than the latter is possible.
If Holland is infact blacklisting any site that makes access to thepiratebay possible, they could be taking out half the internet.. and I'm sorry to say, as in China there is no simple 1 click answer to avoid this.
Here I will review some censorship evasion methods:
Alternative DNS Servers
For those facing a DNS block, simply switching your DNS server from you ISP provided one to a better one will fix your problems. This has been covered countless times since the initial censorship in Denmark, but I will just cover the basics of it one more time. To make your computer use an alternative DNS server, first you need to find your 'Network Connections' folder (instructions for windows because Linux users should know this stuff already and mac users suck). The folder is in a different location depending which flavor of windows you have, but it should look something like this:
Once you have found it, just right click on your connection, and select properties. In the properties window, find the box in the middle and scroll down to find 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)' click on that and click the properties button.
Check the radio button that says Use the following DNS server address: and put this IP as preferred 91.191.136.152 (telecomix) and this one 208.67.220.220 (open dns) as your alternate. And.. that's all, if you can figure out how to use bittorrent, you can do this. This helps for blocks in Denmark, Belgium, ect, but this will not help Holland.
Alternative Piratebay Domains
The Pirate Bay has created the domain 'depiraatbaai.be' which still points to the same IP as the original site, this is the easiest possible solution for people behind a DNS block; however it's become somewhat ineffective. The blockades eventually expand to include these domains, and are a temporary fix at best.
Using an IP instead of a DNS Request
Many people have suggested just using the sites IP instead of even putting the url, which probably started with a popular zeropaid post. However, sometimes this doesn't work because many servers host more than one site at the same ip. In that situation, putting the ip into your browser will pull up only the default site. Luckily, thepiratebay's server does host more than one site, and the default site is thepiratebay.. so this will work in that instance for avoiding DNS filters.
However the proper way to do this is to insert the IP into your host file next to the name of the website you intend to visit. The host file is located at ' %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts ', and it can be edited with notepad. If you are using windows XP, you can simply open the file, if you are using windows 7, you will have to first run notepad as administrator and then select file>open and then go to the host file. Once you have accessed the host as admin, scroll down to the bottom of it and insert this line:
194.71.107.15 thepiratebay.org
Then just reset your browser (open and close it), and this will over-ride any DNS request your computer wants to make and direct you to the correct IP with the correct website url. This also will not help with IP blocking countries.
Mirror Sites
http://tpb.piratenpartij.nl and http://malaysiabay.org are absolutely, in no way associated with the piratebay, but they mirror all its contents. Using one of these can help you avoid censorship in some countries, it is not clear if they will work in Holland. It is probably not possible to login and upload .torrents from mirror sites.
CGI-Proxies
CGI-Proxies are pretty cool and easy to use, one example is this (many more will be listed in the comments at the bottom of this page). It's a browser based proxy server that lets you connect to the site from where ever the proxy is located. If a proxy is located in Canada, and Canada is not blocking the piratebay, than you will be able to access thepiratebay this way. Most CGI-Proxies are ad supported.
They can be used to avoid both DNS and IP censorship. Holland may be blocking all of these soon, although it isn't certain. Another problem with CGI-Proxies is that many of them have been abused by spammers and virus uploaders on thepiratebay, which means their IPs are banned. This means people using CGI-Proxies will be able to visit thepiratebay and download .torrents, but they will be unable to login, to comment, upload, or view the porn category.
TOR
Tor is free anonymizing software which will bring your connection into a network, and exit that network at another random IP (exit node). This is meant for privacy but it can also be used to circumvent censorship. Tor is an excellent method for evading both types of censorship. The problem with tor on thepiratebay, and also many other sites is the RBL blocklists. Tor users are effectively blocked from uploading or commenting to sites like thepiratebay. This is also to help manage spam and malicious uploads.
Free Proxies
Free proxy servers can get around DNS/IP censorship by tunneling your browsers connection through a computer some where outside the block. Lists of free proxy servers can be found here, here, and here. There is also free software somewhere out there that will scan the internet for working proxies, but the websites can help get you started. To insert a proxy server into your browser (example firefox), first go to tools>options.
Then select the advanced tab, and where it says "configure how firefox connects to the internet" click settings. Select manual proxy configuration and input the IP and port in the appropriate box for the type of proxy you intend to use, then select the type of proxy at the bottom if it's a socks proxy.
The free proxy sites will mostly be directing you to http, socks 4 and socks 5 proxies, make sure to put the right one. For different browsers, try to google 'how to put a proxy into (insert your browsers name here)'.
The problem with free proxy sites, is that sometimes they list proxies that aren't working at all, and you have to try more than one, some days you have to try many before you get one to work. Sometimes they're extremely slow... you never know what you're going to get. Another problem again is many proxy IPs are banned on thepiratebay if they've already been abused by spammers, which means commenting, porn, and uploading won't be possible; however if you're willing to spend a few hours trying different ones you can almost always find one that works. Also some proxy servers could possibly leave you vulnerable to having your password hacked, however, often times it is simple paranoia worrying too much about this. Either way you should change your password regularly.
MAFIAAFire: ThePirateBay Dancing!
"MAFIAAFire: ThePirateBay Dancing!" is a firefox plugin that can be found here. It "Automatically routes your website request via a random proxy for some (that you choose) sites." Um, it should probably work, uploading to thepiratebay through it may be difficult as with other proxies. Another plugin called Soapy, claims to avoid SOPA censorship; but it claims to only over-ride a dns request and direct people to the direct IP, this again will help people with DNS problems but not people with IP blocks.
Paid VPNs
A VPN (virtual private network) works kind of like a proxy. Except instead of plugging a single application into it such as a browser, your entire internet connection is funneled through the network. VPNs are also encrypted. With a VPN you can visit and upload on sites that are blocked in your area, and also remain untraceable when downloading torrents which is another popular feature. This option will probably be mostly for the uploaders, because it seems ridiculous to have to pay just to browse a site (something that hollywood wants); but I suppose it depends on just how far the censorship goes.
It's important to select a good VPN provider, because some of them like hidemyass.com have been a little too co-operative with the police in some matters. One good one is ipredator, which is provided by thepiratebay. Ipredator keeps no logs of what you do when your on their network, and will not hand your info over to the authorities. It costs 5 euros a month and solves all your problems. There are other good VPN providers out there.. I'm sure, I just don't know who they are, make sure to do some research on google before selecting one.
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