DailyTech - DDOS Attack Cripples The Pirate Bay

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Internet DDOS Attack Cripples The Pirate Bay
Jason Mick (Blog) - May 16, 2012 1:42 PM

16 comment(s) - last by Silent-Ninja.. on May 17 at 6:26 PM

(Source: Techno360)

Origin of the attack remains a mystery

The Pirate Bay, the largest torrent and magnet link site on the internet, is down.

The site appears have been undergoing a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack since early this morning. The culprit is unclear, but the attack's timing raises several interesting possibilities.

On the one hand, it comes at a time when numerous international court systems are looking to force internet service providers to ban the site. Of course such bans are mediocre, at best, in effect, as users can easily circumvent them via the site's numerous proxy servers. But the idea, ostensibly, is to drive away casual users and minimize the site.

With UK High Court orders forcing Virgin Media Inc. (LON:VMED) to black out the site last week, many will likely suspect a government hand in the attack.

_{The Pirate Bay was unreachable as of 1:40 p.m. EST in the U.S.}

Ironically, some are also suggesting it could be members of Anonymous -- most of whom typically firmly support the torrent site -- who could be to blame.

The Pirate Bay allegedly offended some members of the hacker collective when it denounced their DDoS attacks on Virgin. Administrators of The Pirate Bay's Facebook page wrote last Thursday:

We do NOT encourage these actions. We believe in the open and free internets, where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us.

So don’t fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship.

If you want to help; start a tracker, arrange a manifestation, join or start a pirate party, teach your friends the art of bittorrent, set up a proxy, write your political representatives, develop a new p2p protocol, print some pro piracy posters and decorate your town with, support our promo bay artists or just be a nice person and give your mom a call to tell her you love her.

Some believe that the DDoS on The Pirate Bay may come from members of Anonymous who are upset at the site's accusations of censorship. Unlike The Pirate Bay's administrators, Anonymous' members largely believe that DDoS attacks are a valid for of digital protest, analogous to picketing in the real world.

_{Some believe Anonymous may be behind the attack, upset at criticism from The Pirate Bay admins. [Image Source: Jason Mick/DailyTech]}

Whoever is behind the attack, they've achieved what copyright watchdogs have long tried unsuccessfully to do -- take down The Pirate Bay.

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this sucks...

By xti on 5/16/2012 2:16:11 PM , Rating: 3

I haven't downloaded how I met your mother for a few weeks...

List of proxy servers

By danwat12345 on 5/16/2012 7:02:44 PM , Rating: 3

You can easily access thepiratebay through this proxy; http://eclair4151.appspot.com/piratebay.se/

If that doesn't work for some reason then here is a big list of other proxies.
http://about.piratereverse.info/proxy/list.html

Peculiar

By hughlle on 5/16/2012 2:28:41 PM , Rating: 2

I thoguht it was inaccessible for me due to the recent ruling in the UK forcing ISP's to restrict access to the site, so i tried to access it via TOR to see what was up and i could use it just dandy. This was this afternoon.

What irony

By Beenthere on 5/16/12, Rating: 0

Actually

By TSS on 5/16/12, Rating: -1

RE: Actually

By Solandri on 5/16/2012 4:49:29 PM , Rating: 4

quote:
It has been down for a day around now. I know cause i tried to acces it ~20 hours ago to see if diablo 3 was already available, instead i found the entire TPB down.

Maybe it's down because of all the people trying to find Diablo 3 torrents?

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RE: Actually

By heffeque on 5/16/2012 5:34:27 PM , Rating: 2

Pirate Bay's other locations are accessible, it's just the main one that's down.

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RE: Actually

By tayb on 5/17/2012 12:09:44 AM , Rating: 1

quote:
I know cause i tried to acces it ~20 hours ago to see if diablo 3 was already available, instead i found the entire TPB down. Tried isohunt, only fake files found.

I am struggling to think of a legitimate reason to be pirating Diablo 3 when it was released yesterday.

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RE: Actually

By yomamafor1 on 5/17/12, Rating: 0

RE: Actually

By messyunkempt on 5/17/2012 5:51:26 PM , Rating: 2

Actually, from what i hear on forums, and a bunch of posts on metacritic, lots who bought it legitimately couldn't play it due to it requiring server authentification for even the single player and they couldnt get on the game after buying it as the servers were down so a lot were downloading the crack to play the game they'd spent 50 pounds on. Havent got any intention of playing it myself, but I'd say it was a legitimate reason.

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Anonymous.....get a ****ing life

By Chaser on 5/16/12, Rating: -1

RE: Anonymous.....get a ****ing life

By Kyuu on 5/16/2012 4:15:17 PM , Rating: 5

First, you're right, it's news, and it was reported on. No "glamorization" is going on here. Do you suggest that news organization pretend it's not happening?

Second, save your arm-chair psycho-analysis. You say "sociopaths", I say a group of people who have strong feelings about censorship and a broken patent/copyright/political system that supports draconian DRM and panders to wealthy corporations that are buying laws and they are using their skill-set to protest such. Their methods may be ethically questionable at times (such as releasing names, addresses, email addresses, passwords and such), but all-in-all I can sympathize with their aims.

People like you strike me as the sort that would have sided with the Brits during the Revolutionary War. Britain's governorship of the colonies was "legal", after all, while the actions of the revolutionaries were "illegal".

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RE: Anonymous.....get a ****ing life

By tastyratz on 5/16/2012 4:45:25 PM , Rating: 2

Hate to say it, but he's right.
Anonymous is not a well organized group of people with morals fighting the good fight they represent. I love many things they have done, and yes their methods can be questionable... but in the end they look like terrorists. ddosing virgin for complying with a government order, THAT is acting like a petulant child. Had they acted PRIOR to being told to do so BY LAW then it might have been justified, but they were barking up the wrong tree.

I think Anonymous is great provided they can form more strategic attacks on themed problems.. but they are reckless and their casualty rate soils their actions. Releasing SOME names is ok, but endangering the plebeian cogs in the machine at low level positions by blasting them too?
They need direction, and the pirate bay's statement could not be more tasteful and accurate. The world needs action, and appropriate action.

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RE: Anonymous.....get a ****ing life

By Samus on 5/16/2012 4:45:29 PM , Rating: 2

As of right now, TPB is down. So true story.

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RE: Anonymous.....get a ****ing life

By Chaser on 5/16/12, Rating: -1

RE: Anonymous.....get a ****ing life

By Silent-Ninja on 5/17/2012 6:26:17 PM , Rating: 2

The only thing that is being done is allowing rules to kick into place and federal obligations.

"I say a group of people who have strong feelings about censorship and a broken patent/copyright/political system that supports draconian DRM and panders to wealthy corporations that are buying laws and they are using their skill-set to protest such."

Are you only that stupid? A group of lost cause, morons that have no true ambition -- Other then to cry online and use a few java exploits to spam.

Pirate bay was only migrating hosts. The annoying part about that group of losers... They take their movies they get and how they edit them in adobe premier, to make it look like they are cam seated. I hope what happen to Mega Upload happens to them. Placed on the news for everyone to see how moronic they are.

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"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." -- Robert Heinlein