14 ms·

Swedish ISP Protests ‘Site Blocking’ by Blocking Rightsholders Website Too

455 points by kawera 8y ago

raverbashing 8y ago
Good As Elsevier is behind the copyright lobby I really hope they enjoy being blocked.
- janoc 8y ago
  Well, given the market size of that ISP, I am sure Elsevier has noticed and are running scared already ... Sadly the only people being hurt by this sort of protest are researchers that happen to use the same network (i.e. Bahnhof's own customers) and now are unable to access neither the legit website nor the pirate one. And no, as a researcher you rarely have a choice to not publish in Elsevier ran journals and conferences when your university/department is evaluated (and funding assigned) based on number of publications in these venues. This is often imposed by the government, the uni and even less the individual researchers have pretty much zero say in it. I have worked at a uni in Denmark where the government literally had lists of "approved" journals and conferences. If you have published there, you have got a score weighed by the importance of the publication. If you have published elsewhere, you got nothing and were effectively working for free because the university funding was directly tied to those scores. For some fields this was pretty much a death sentence because the "approved" publications were either stuff where most people never manage to get a paper in (like Nature) or most of their usual conferences/journals were not on the list (a lot of humanities and arts where otherwise producing an artwork or composing a piece of music counts as a publication).
  - buboard 8y ago
    > neither the legit website nor the pirate one. Most articles are indexed elsewhere, and besides Elsevier's websites are mostly just a paywall. They are not missing much > where the government literally had lists of "approved" journals and conferences. Scientists can certainly lobby as a group to change that. I have not seen much of that, except from rhetoric, sadly. Sci-hub currently makes the most fierce case for open access.
  - askmike 8y ago
    The "Elsevier block" is just a PR stunt, there is a button on the bottom of the page that directs to the (unblocked) Elsevier website.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > The "Elsevier block" is just a PR stunt, there is a button on the bottom of the page that directs to the (unblocked) Elsevier website. Better would have been to provide instructions on how to evade the Elsevier block using general purpose anti-censorship tools.
      - qilo 8y ago
        On that same "blocked" page there's also this: Would you like some tips about avoiding DNS blocking? Take a look at our practical guide about VPN and DNS blocking here! Which links to this (in swedish): https://www.bahnhof.se/press/press-releases/2018/11/01/bara-patent-och-marknadsdomstolen-verkar-tro-att-blockering-av-sidor-fungerar https://www.bahnhof.se/press/press-releases/2018/11/01/bara-... Google DNS and its IP addresses are mentioned, so they are probably enforcing just DNS blocking.
- buboard 8y ago
  > they enjoy being blocked. They won't give a shit. They make their billions from university subscriptions not home-users.
hadrien01 8y ago
This is just a rewording of https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-isp-protest-site-blocking-by-blocking-rightsholders-website-and-more-181102/ https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-isp-protest-site-blocking-b...
- sctb 8y ago
  Thanks! We've updated the link from https://boingboing.net/2018/11/03/balkanizing-the-balkanizers.html https://boingboing.net/2018/11/03/balkanizing-the-balkanizer....
- JacobJans 8y ago
  Irony!
lostmyoldone 8y ago
As a Banhof subscriber I'm a bit saddened that they have to engage with blocking any sites at all, but since they do, I'm happy that I'm paying an ISP with some sense of courage and integrity. As with all copyright related issues, the application of hilariously outdated rules onto modern situations never cease to amaze.
- imhoguy 8y ago
  But as usual such ridiculous rulings "help" to push forward the adoption of encryption and distributed web. Is there sci-hub on IPFS?
  - ricardobeat 8y ago
    Until everyone is running their own IPFS nodes ISPs can block the content just the same.
- tzs 8y ago
  > As with all copyright related issues, the application of hilariously outdated rules onto modern situations never cease to amaze. What do you view as the justification for having copyright before modern situations, and what about modern situations makes that justification no longer applicable? Most of the time I hear arguments that some older law is outdated in modern times, the underlying human and economic relations that the law is dealing with have not changed. All that has usually changed is that it is now easier to violate the law. That usually strengthens the case for the law, not weakens it. For example, I've seen arguments that libel laws are outdated when applied to online forums, comment sections, mailing lists, and similar. (Reminder: libel is written defamation, as opposed to slander, which is spoken defamation). Due to those outlets, compared to a few decades ago a much bigger fraction of our communication is in writing. It's also much more informal now, more off the cuff, and more often with people we do not have an in person relationship with. This makes it a lot easier to commit libel. If the basis of libel laws is that it is wrong to intentionally falsely damage the reputation of someone else, then the technology changes over the last few decades do not change that. If it was wrong to make some accusation in a printed flyer posted around your town, it is is wrong to make the same accusation posted to Facebook. On the other hand, we might justify libel law as a way to limit the power that comes with access to printing presses. When producing and distributing printed material was expensive, those who owned the presses or those wealthy enough to afford to hire them would have a lot of influence over public opinion. Libel laws would put some restraint on that power. If that is how we justify libel, then you can make a case that it should not apply online because there is much more equal access. (I'm not sure, but I think historically the justification for libel law is the "wrong to intentionally falsely damage" justification, not the "power restraint" justification).
buboard 8y ago
OTOH, maybe blocking sci-hub is for the best. Blocking sci-hub is a bigger inconvenience to scientists, who often take it for granted and use it as a cop out to keep publishing with closed access. Oh , and maybe google should consider pushing Elsevier's websites down in their search ? I mean almost all articles are indexed in pubmed which even loads faster.
- janoc 8y ago
  90% of scientists have no choice. Your funding and career as a scientist are directly linked to where you publish (impact factors and so on). So if you have a "choice" between publishing in a major journal published by Elsevier and a no-name but open journal, guess where you send your paper ... And the "open access" options offered by Elsevier and others are just an insult added to injury - "pay $4000 for making your work publicly accessible" or "pay nothing but then we put your work behind a paywall, will own the copyright on it and will charge you exorbitant subscription fee to access it". Unless universities and governments start to actually boycott this and outlaw these practices, nothing will change. That's really not in the hands of the individual researchers that are pressed to publish publish publish and collect "points" for their departments by doing so.
  - crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
    Unless scientists start collectively taking responsibility for the state of the world in which they live, I don't anticipate quick change. Everyone has a choice, even scientists who disempower themselves by telling themselves they don't. Learning to stand up for one's self, individually and collectively, can be much harder work than ins and outs of everyday living, especially when it comes to standing up to authoritarian states/industries. I can trust my fellow scientists to pull together. We shall overcome.
    - dorchadas 8y ago
      I mean, if your future career and livelihood depends on you doing something, odds are you don't really have a choice. Now, maybe the few tenure professors can do something, but non-tenured ones don't really have many options.
wolco 8y ago
What a great way to fight back. I hope other ips take notice and block elsevier elsewhere. If someone put another domain up could the court be unable to assess whether it breaks the law with the court blockage? More interestingly could the isp put a rule in there terms forbidding anyone employed or hired by Elsevier from assessing the isp services so anything submitted by this company becomed null and void?
- TheAceOfHearts 8y ago
  Discriminating against someone because of their employer sounds like a very dangerous precedent to set. I don't understand what you mean by "assessing the isp services". Could you clarify?
  - abricot 8y ago
    It's hardly a precedent.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    > I don't understand what you mean by "assessing the isp services". Could you clarify? I suspect he means "accessing the ISP's services".
  - mrmanner 8y ago
    > Discriminating against someone because of their employer sounds like a very dangerous precedent to set. The court employees are still free to surf Bahnhof's web site from their own Internet connections. They don't discriminate against individuals, they block traffic from an institution.
  - forevertogether 8y ago
    Is it though? It is always interesting to me how some seem to not be concerned with their employers' conduct, isn't that what led Adolf Eichmann to do the bureaucratic work for concentration camps in World War 2? How is this different to engineers writing the code for drones that murders children in Yemen? Does anyone have any thoughts on this, or if they see it differently? What is a government or corporation but a group of individuals? What about the collective behaviors and values? Should we not use our human empathy and evolve them? I've come to think about it as American imperialist/colonialist/domination thinking. It reminds me of some American's attitudes to non-Americans - the dehumanization used by it's corporate controlled media, e.g. 'terrorist'/'thugs'. Black Mirror has a great episode on dehumanization called 'Men Against Fire', for me the eye lens tech is a metaphor for being in control of the narrative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WkiZaWvE4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WkiZaWvE4Q If you're not following me, check out the book 'Columbus and Other Cannibals' by Jack D. Forbes to understand where I'm coming from. Or anything by Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky.
dscpls 8y ago
How do we feel about this with regard to net neutrality? Are we ok with the blocking they choose to do here because we agree with them ethically in this case?
- hbaum 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure that this is not in line with EU NN law where blocking access to sites is only allowed for security, legal reasons, or to preventing impending network congestion (Article 3(3) of Regulation 2015/2120) Blocking arbitrary websites out of spite is probably neither of these reasons and therefore not justified.
  - crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
    Protest is legal.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      Particular methods of protest, not always.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      Presumes corporations have free speech rights.
      - crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
        shudder This is the closest I've come to identifying with the Mitt Romney quote "Corporations are people, my friend." I recognize corporations are a collective entity comprised of people and people have free speech rights. I'm trying to figure out for myself where the boundaries of those rights are, since a collective naturally has more power to impact others than an individual, simply because it takes less individual energy for a collective action than it does for an individual action of the same magnitude. I have to meditate on this. Anyone have thoughts to share on this to help me find clarity?
pm24601 8y ago
A taste of their own medicine. I wonder if the court will try to order Bahnhof to unblock Elsevier?
- jaimex2 8y ago
  They cant without a legal reason. It's quite brilliant.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
daxterspeed 8y ago
So am I understanding correctly that this is just DNS blocking? Surely this court-ordered blocking can be trivially bypassed by switching your DNS server.
- stordoff 8y ago
  Depends on the method used. Virgin Media in the UK intercept HTTP requests (and send resets to HTTPS connections), so even tunneling my DNS traffic over a VPN doesn't help.
  - imrehg 8y ago
    Is Virgin blocking SciHub in the UK? I'm on a Virgin connection, and can use it. Or that technique is just in general for sites that Virgin is blocking? (I wonder if there's a list)
    - Deathmax 8y ago
      https://www.blocked.org.uk/ https://www.blocked.org.uk/ has a list
    - stordoff 8y ago
      As far as I can tell, SciHub is not blocked, but try something like yts.am Over HTTP, you get redirected to http://assets.virginmedia.com/site-blocked.html http://assets.virginmedia.com/site-blocked.html Over HTTPS, you get ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (Chrome)
  - manquer 8y ago
    For dns blocks, DNS over HTTPS should work Firefox supports it, or you could run a local DNS resolver, or use host file for domains that you use and are blocked. Also I am not even sure it is possible to intercept any traffic over VPN without having the keys, so not sure why tunneling over VPN is a problem , DPI and MITM techniques are not even used by the Chinese government for the most part and people can generally VPN out if they want to.
0xfaded 8y ago
I wonder if the order was vague enough that it would allow them to comply by blocking the scihub domains but resolving elsevier to a scihub ip I mean technically the requested URL was blocked, right?
- gpm 8y ago
  That sounds like a good way to go from "block $x" to a new judgment that says "pay $y".
- calcifer 8y ago
  As the article says, they have also blocked Elsevier's website :)
  - natch 8y ago
    Whoosh...
jerkstate 8y ago
Sounds like a pretty significant violation of net neutrality to be blocking companies that they don't "like" out of spite. Doesn't Sweden have NN laws?
- drb91 8y ago
  This seems to be a different conception of net neutrality than we have in the US where registrars have a right to terminate service at will.
  - jerkstate 8y ago
    I just find it ironic that in NN threads here, the prevailing thought is "NN is necessary to prevent censorship!" and then in censorship/deplatforming threads like this one, the prevailing thought is "this is a good thing and actually necessary"
    - ferongr 8y ago
      People are biased even if they claim to not be.
    - tjoff 8y ago
      I don't. The isp is forced to censor, so they choose to also censor the entity that abused the system. The difference is astronomical. The purpose is also to send a signal...
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > I don't. The isp is forced to censor, so they choose to also censor the entity that abused the system. Exactly. There is a huge difference between wanting to censor your enemies and not wanting to censor anybody but being forced to, and then responding by doing so in a balanced rather than asymmetric way. It would be best for the ISP not to be blocking anything, but given that is not a permitted option...
    - drb91 8y ago
CGamesPlay 8y ago
Blocking the court from accessing the company’s own website seems like a strange move. Do the courts in Sweden write laws or regulations, or are they enforcing the laws and regulations that were already written? Does anyone with the power to change the decision even see the company’s protest?
- abricot 8y ago
  Did you read the article? Otherwise try again.
- larkeith 8y ago
  Courts establish precedents in how they rule cases. While they don't write regulations per se, they certainly clarify and establish how far they reach.
Illniyar 8y ago
Let me get this straight an ISP is choosing to censor a website of it's own volition out of spite, and people are cheering for it? This is a protest move, and arguably political. I don't want my ISP to have a tantrum. What if next time it decides that some party or movement doesn't fit it's views and block that?
- Zofren 8y ago
  I think the context matters here. The ISP is demonstrating the dangers you've pointed out in site blocking by blocking a site that opposes site blocking -- that's genius. Why wouldn't people cheer? Clearly this is indicative that the ISP wouldn't support any kind of block in the future, even for material that doesn't support its views. If your argument is that this should be put into law and enforced, I imagine this ISP would also agree with you.
- mrmanner 8y ago
  Well, it's a small ISP and they've always been involved in Internet politics. Their customers know that, and probably chose them (at least in part) because they are political.
garaetjjte 8y ago
In case of DNS blocking, I'm always wondering what would happen if ISP wouldn't provide DNS resolver? Instead recursive resolvers could be run on customers routers. Would they still be obliged to block it, even as this is not their resolver?
writepub 8y ago
I'm sympathetic towards the ISP and the readers of academic journals. However, this is also a gross violation of net neutrality. The ISP's power over a website is evident from their ability to block a website they have differences with. This is both encouraging (that the ISP cares) & frightening (that the ISP has total control)
- bigiain 8y ago
  Seems eminently fair and reasonable to me. Elsever got a court to order a gross violation of net neutrality. The ISP had no interest or desire to implement blocking of any sort. Once it's hand is forced via legal means, it needs to obtain that capability - and using it with discretion as a protest is a perfect demonstration as to why they should _not_ have that capability.
  - writepub 8y ago
    About ideals and philosophies - they only matter when pushed to their limits. Free speech only matters when the said speech is disagreeable, ISP power only matters when the ISP disagrees with a website. Yes - we all approve of the ISP's action, but this instance was in our favor. Will the next be against? Power begets corruption.
    - stale2002 8y ago
      Then perhaps ISPs shouldn't be blocking any websites at all. Unfortunately the courts have made this impossible though. In order to get net neutrality back, they would have to reverse that court decision that forced websites to be blocked.
    - bigiain 8y ago
      "The next"? How about "one of the previous"??? https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/03/07/comcast-xfinity-paypal-net-neutrality/ https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/03/07/comcast-xfinity-... https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080213/133855251.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080213/133855251.shtml Banhof's stance is that they do not even want the capability to block websites. This is something I wholeheartedly agree with. It certainly means some speech with which I strongly disagree is protected as well as speech with which I do agree. ISPs should _not_ have this kind of power. Banhof do not want it, but since they're being forced into acquiring and using that capability, using it to protest against it seems eminently reasonable.
SwellJoe 8y ago
That's funny as hell. I dunno about the effectiveness of the tactic, but, the comedy is top-notch.

455 points by kawera 8y ago

raverbashing 8y ago

Good As Elsevier is behind the copyright lobby I really hope they enjoy being blocked.

janoc 8y ago
Well, given the market size of that ISP, I am sure Elsevier has noticed and are running scared already ... Sadly the only people being hurt by this sort of protest are researchers that happen to use the same network (i.e. Bahnhof's own customers) and now are unable to access neither the legit website nor the pirate one. And no, as a researcher you rarely have a choice to not publish in Elsevier ran journals and conferences when your university/department is evaluated (and funding assigned) based on number of publications in these venues. This is often imposed by the government, the uni and even less the individual researchers have pretty much zero say in it. I have worked at a uni in Denmark where the government literally had lists of "approved" journals and conferences. If you have published there, you have got a score weighed by the importance of the publication. If you have published elsewhere, you got nothing and were effectively working for free because the university funding was directly tied to those scores. For some fields this was pretty much a death sentence because the "approved" publications were either stuff where most people never manage to get a paper in (like Nature) or most of their usual conferences/journals were not on the list (a lot of humanities and arts where otherwise producing an artwork or composing a piece of music counts as a publication).
- buboard 8y ago
  > neither the legit website nor the pirate one. Most articles are indexed elsewhere, and besides Elsevier's websites are mostly just a paywall. They are not missing much > where the government literally had lists of "approved" journals and conferences. Scientists can certainly lobby as a group to change that. I have not seen much of that, except from rhetoric, sadly. Sci-hub currently makes the most fierce case for open access.
- askmike 8y ago
  The "Elsevier block" is just a PR stunt, there is a button on the bottom of the page that directs to the (unblocked) Elsevier website.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > The "Elsevier block" is just a PR stunt, there is a button on the bottom of the page that directs to the (unblocked) Elsevier website. Better would have been to provide instructions on how to evade the Elsevier block using general purpose anti-censorship tools.
    - qilo 8y ago
      On that same "blocked" page there's also this: Would you like some tips about avoiding DNS blocking? Take a look at our practical guide about VPN and DNS blocking here! Which links to this (in swedish): https://www.bahnhof.se/press/press-releases/2018/11/01/bara-patent-och-marknadsdomstolen-verkar-tro-att-blockering-av-sidor-fungerar https://www.bahnhof.se/press/press-releases/2018/11/01/bara-... Google DNS and its IP addresses are mentioned, so they are probably enforcing just DNS blocking.
buboard 8y ago
> they enjoy being blocked. They won't give a shit. They make their billions from university subscriptions not home-users.

hadrien01 8y ago

This is just a rewording of https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-isp-protest-site-blocking-by-blocking-rightsholders-website-and-more-181102/ https://torrentfreak.com/swedish-isp-protest-site-blocking-b...

sctb 8y ago
Thanks! We've updated the link from https://boingboing.net/2018/11/03/balkanizing-the-balkanizers.html https://boingboing.net/2018/11/03/balkanizing-the-balkanizer....
JacobJans 8y ago
Irony!

lostmyoldone 8y ago

As a Banhof subscriber I'm a bit saddened that they have to engage with blocking any sites at all, but since they do, I'm happy that I'm paying an ISP with some sense of courage and integrity. As with all copyright related issues, the application of hilariously outdated rules onto modern situations never cease to amaze.

imhoguy 8y ago
But as usual such ridiculous rulings "help" to push forward the adoption of encryption and distributed web. Is there sci-hub on IPFS?
- ricardobeat 8y ago
  Until everyone is running their own IPFS nodes ISPs can block the content just the same.
tzs 8y ago
> As with all copyright related issues, the application of hilariously outdated rules onto modern situations never cease to amaze. What do you view as the justification for having copyright before modern situations, and what about modern situations makes that justification no longer applicable? Most of the time I hear arguments that some older law is outdated in modern times, the underlying human and economic relations that the law is dealing with have not changed. All that has usually changed is that it is now easier to violate the law. That usually strengthens the case for the law, not weakens it. For example, I've seen arguments that libel laws are outdated when applied to online forums, comment sections, mailing lists, and similar. (Reminder: libel is written defamation, as opposed to slander, which is spoken defamation). Due to those outlets, compared to a few decades ago a much bigger fraction of our communication is in writing. It's also much more informal now, more off the cuff, and more often with people we do not have an in person relationship with. This makes it a lot easier to commit libel. If the basis of libel laws is that it is wrong to intentionally falsely damage the reputation of someone else, then the technology changes over the last few decades do not change that. If it was wrong to make some accusation in a printed flyer posted around your town, it is is wrong to make the same accusation posted to Facebook. On the other hand, we might justify libel law as a way to limit the power that comes with access to printing presses. When producing and distributing printed material was expensive, those who owned the presses or those wealthy enough to afford to hire them would have a lot of influence over public opinion. Libel laws would put some restraint on that power. If that is how we justify libel, then you can make a case that it should not apply online because there is much more equal access. (I'm not sure, but I think historically the justification for libel law is the "wrong to intentionally falsely damage" justification, not the "power restraint" justification).

buboard 8y ago

OTOH, maybe blocking sci-hub is for the best. Blocking sci-hub is a bigger inconvenience to scientists, who often take it for granted and use it as a cop out to keep publishing with closed access. Oh , and maybe google should consider pushing Elsevier's websites down in their search ? I mean almost all articles are indexed in pubmed which even loads faster.

janoc 8y ago
90% of scientists have no choice. Your funding and career as a scientist are directly linked to where you publish (impact factors and so on). So if you have a "choice" between publishing in a major journal published by Elsevier and a no-name but open journal, guess where you send your paper ... And the "open access" options offered by Elsevier and others are just an insult added to injury - "pay $4000 for making your work publicly accessible" or "pay nothing but then we put your work behind a paywall, will own the copyright on it and will charge you exorbitant subscription fee to access it". Unless universities and governments start to actually boycott this and outlaw these practices, nothing will change. That's really not in the hands of the individual researchers that are pressed to publish publish publish and collect "points" for their departments by doing so.
- crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
  Unless scientists start collectively taking responsibility for the state of the world in which they live, I don't anticipate quick change. Everyone has a choice, even scientists who disempower themselves by telling themselves they don't. Learning to stand up for one's self, individually and collectively, can be much harder work than ins and outs of everyday living, especially when it comes to standing up to authoritarian states/industries. I can trust my fellow scientists to pull together. We shall overcome.
  - dorchadas 8y ago
    I mean, if your future career and livelihood depends on you doing something, odds are you don't really have a choice. Now, maybe the few tenure professors can do something, but non-tenured ones don't really have many options.

wolco 8y ago

What a great way to fight back. I hope other ips take notice and block elsevier elsewhere. If someone put another domain up could the court be unable to assess whether it breaks the law with the court blockage? More interestingly could the isp put a rule in there terms forbidding anyone employed or hired by Elsevier from assessing the isp services so anything submitted by this company becomed null and void?

TheAceOfHearts 8y ago
Discriminating against someone because of their employer sounds like a very dangerous precedent to set. I don't understand what you mean by "assessing the isp services". Could you clarify?
- abricot 8y ago
  It's hardly a precedent.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > I don't understand what you mean by "assessing the isp services". Could you clarify? I suspect he means "accessing the ISP's services".
- mrmanner 8y ago
  > Discriminating against someone because of their employer sounds like a very dangerous precedent to set. The court employees are still free to surf Bahnhof's web site from their own Internet connections. They don't discriminate against individuals, they block traffic from an institution.
- forevertogether 8y ago
  Is it though? It is always interesting to me how some seem to not be concerned with their employers' conduct, isn't that what led Adolf Eichmann to do the bureaucratic work for concentration camps in World War 2? How is this different to engineers writing the code for drones that murders children in Yemen? Does anyone have any thoughts on this, or if they see it differently? What is a government or corporation but a group of individuals? What about the collective behaviors and values? Should we not use our human empathy and evolve them? I've come to think about it as American imperialist/colonialist/domination thinking. It reminds me of some American's attitudes to non-Americans - the dehumanization used by it's corporate controlled media, e.g. 'terrorist'/'thugs'. Black Mirror has a great episode on dehumanization called 'Men Against Fire', for me the eye lens tech is a metaphor for being in control of the narrative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WkiZaWvE4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WkiZaWvE4Q If you're not following me, check out the book 'Columbus and Other Cannibals' by Jack D. Forbes to understand where I'm coming from. Or anything by Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky.

dscpls 8y ago

How do we feel about this with regard to net neutrality? Are we ok with the blocking they choose to do here because we agree with them ethically in this case?

hbaum 8y ago
I'm pretty sure that this is not in line with EU NN law where blocking access to sites is only allowed for security, legal reasons, or to preventing impending network congestion (Article 3(3) of Regulation 2015/2120) Blocking arbitrary websites out of spite is probably neither of these reasons and therefore not justified.
- crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
  Protest is legal.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Particular methods of protest, not always.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Presumes corporations have free speech rights.
    - crawfordcomeaux 8y ago
      shudder This is the closest I've come to identifying with the Mitt Romney quote "Corporations are people, my friend." I recognize corporations are a collective entity comprised of people and people have free speech rights. I'm trying to figure out for myself where the boundaries of those rights are, since a collective naturally has more power to impact others than an individual, simply because it takes less individual energy for a collective action than it does for an individual action of the same magnitude. I have to meditate on this. Anyone have thoughts to share on this to help me find clarity?

pm24601 8y ago

A taste of their own medicine. I wonder if the court will try to order Bahnhof to unblock Elsevier?

jaimex2 8y ago
They cant without a legal reason. It's quite brilliant.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

daxterspeed 8y ago

So am I understanding correctly that this is just DNS blocking? Surely this court-ordered blocking can be trivially bypassed by switching your DNS server.

stordoff 8y ago
Depends on the method used. Virgin Media in the UK intercept HTTP requests (and send resets to HTTPS connections), so even tunneling my DNS traffic over a VPN doesn't help.
- imrehg 8y ago
  Is Virgin blocking SciHub in the UK? I'm on a Virgin connection, and can use it. Or that technique is just in general for sites that Virgin is blocking? (I wonder if there's a list)
  - Deathmax 8y ago
    https://www.blocked.org.uk/ https://www.blocked.org.uk/ has a list
  - stordoff 8y ago
    As far as I can tell, SciHub is not blocked, but try something like yts.am Over HTTP, you get redirected to http://assets.virginmedia.com/site-blocked.html http://assets.virginmedia.com/site-blocked.html Over HTTPS, you get ERR_CONNECTION_RESET (Chrome)
- manquer 8y ago
  For dns blocks, DNS over HTTPS should work Firefox supports it, or you could run a local DNS resolver, or use host file for domains that you use and are blocked. Also I am not even sure it is possible to intercept any traffic over VPN without having the keys, so not sure why tunneling over VPN is a problem , DPI and MITM techniques are not even used by the Chinese government for the most part and people can generally VPN out if they want to.

0xfaded 8y ago

I wonder if the order was vague enough that it would allow them to comply by blocking the scihub domains but resolving elsevier to a scihub ip I mean technically the requested URL was blocked, right?

gpm 8y ago
That sounds like a good way to go from "block $x" to a new judgment that says "pay $y".
calcifer 8y ago
As the article says, they have also blocked Elsevier's website :)
- natch 8y ago
  Whoosh...

jerkstate 8y ago

Sounds like a pretty significant violation of net neutrality to be blocking companies that they don't "like" out of spite. Doesn't Sweden have NN laws?

drb91 8y ago
This seems to be a different conception of net neutrality than we have in the US where registrars have a right to terminate service at will.
- jerkstate 8y ago
  I just find it ironic that in NN threads here, the prevailing thought is "NN is necessary to prevent censorship!" and then in censorship/deplatforming threads like this one, the prevailing thought is "this is a good thing and actually necessary"
  - ferongr 8y ago
    People are biased even if they claim to not be.
  - tjoff 8y ago
    I don't. The isp is forced to censor, so they choose to also censor the entity that abused the system. The difference is astronomical. The purpose is also to send a signal...
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > I don't. The isp is forced to censor, so they choose to also censor the entity that abused the system. Exactly. There is a huge difference between wanting to censor your enemies and not wanting to censor anybody but being forced to, and then responding by doing so in a balanced rather than asymmetric way. It would be best for the ISP not to be blocking anything, but given that is not a permitted option...
  - drb91 8y ago

CGamesPlay 8y ago

Blocking the court from accessing the company’s own website seems like a strange move. Do the courts in Sweden write laws or regulations, or are they enforcing the laws and regulations that were already written? Does anyone with the power to change the decision even see the company’s protest?

abricot 8y ago
Did you read the article? Otherwise try again.
larkeith 8y ago
Courts establish precedents in how they rule cases. While they don't write regulations per se, they certainly clarify and establish how far they reach.

Illniyar 8y ago

Let me get this straight an ISP is choosing to censor a website of it's own volition out of spite, and people are cheering for it? This is a protest move, and arguably political. I don't want my ISP to have a tantrum. What if next time it decides that some party or movement doesn't fit it's views and block that?

Zofren 8y ago
I think the context matters here. The ISP is demonstrating the dangers you've pointed out in site blocking by blocking a site that opposes site blocking -- that's genius. Why wouldn't people cheer? Clearly this is indicative that the ISP wouldn't support any kind of block in the future, even for material that doesn't support its views. If your argument is that this should be put into law and enforced, I imagine this ISP would also agree with you.
mrmanner 8y ago
Well, it's a small ISP and they've always been involved in Internet politics. Their customers know that, and probably chose them (at least in part) because they are political.

garaetjjte 8y ago

In case of DNS blocking, I'm always wondering what would happen if ISP wouldn't provide DNS resolver? Instead recursive resolvers could be run on customers routers. Would they still be obliged to block it, even as this is not their resolver?

writepub 8y ago

I'm sympathetic towards the ISP and the readers of academic journals. However, this is also a gross violation of net neutrality. The ISP's power over a website is evident from their ability to block a website they have differences with. This is both encouraging (that the ISP cares) & frightening (that the ISP has total control)

bigiain 8y ago
Seems eminently fair and reasonable to me. Elsever got a court to order a gross violation of net neutrality. The ISP had no interest or desire to implement blocking of any sort. Once it's hand is forced via legal means, it needs to obtain that capability - and using it with discretion as a protest is a perfect demonstration as to why they should _not_ have that capability.
- writepub 8y ago
  About ideals and philosophies - they only matter when pushed to their limits. Free speech only matters when the said speech is disagreeable, ISP power only matters when the ISP disagrees with a website. Yes - we all approve of the ISP's action, but this instance was in our favor. Will the next be against? Power begets corruption.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    Then perhaps ISPs shouldn't be blocking any websites at all. Unfortunately the courts have made this impossible though. In order to get net neutrality back, they would have to reverse that court decision that forced websites to be blocked.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    "The next"? How about "one of the previous"??? https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/03/07/comcast-xfinity-paypal-net-neutrality/ https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/03/07/comcast-xfinity-... https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080213/133855251.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080213/133855251.shtml Banhof's stance is that they do not even want the capability to block websites. This is something I wholeheartedly agree with. It certainly means some speech with which I strongly disagree is protected as well as speech with which I do agree. ISPs should _not_ have this kind of power. Banhof do not want it, but since they're being forced into acquiring and using that capability, using it to protest against it seems eminently reasonable.

SwellJoe 8y ago

That's funny as hell. I dunno about the effectiveness of the tactic, but, the comedy is top-notch.