6 ms·

The Pirate Bay Dancing for Firefox Bypasses National IP & DNS Blocks

94 points by jasontraff 15y ago

est 15y ago
Am I the only one that worries them solving a OSI layer 4 problem with a layer 7 application? I mean Firefox is nice in all but what about the rest of client apps relies on a traditional DNS gateway?
- notatoad 15y ago
  no, it's not an ideal solution. but i don't see why you're worried. if you want to worry, worry about the governments and/or corporations censoring the DNS system. this is a hack to get around a shitty situation, but it works.
- vidarh 15y ago
  It's a stopgap. The underlying problem of securing IP/TCP and DNS against government tampering is much harder. People are working on it, but meantime it's great that there are workarounds.
  - rmc 15y ago
    People are working on it Oh? What's the state of the art about this now? What are some good projects?
    - vidarh 15y ago
      I don't follow it closely enough to say. Check out http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan - while they're mostly talking about it and not doing much, there's regularly links there to other various projects. I don't expect much to come out of the Reddit discussions directly, but it's a useful place to keep an eye on what is happening elsewhere. Don't expect a quick solution - until/unless censorship in more places get significantly worse, this is still largely fringe stuff that doesn't see a huge amount of real work invested in it. And don't necessarily expect a single solution. It'll be years before we get to a stage where there's anything resembling a "standard" system for this.
      - rmc 15y ago
        I think this comment on that subreddit reflect my opinion of the 'darknetplan': What I think you have here is a group of kids with a very very basic entry level knowledge of networking let along WAN routing and network topologies. Maybe some of them have loaded ddwrt or tomato onto a wrt54g and thought they were a ccie, but it looks like a lot of 'hey woman this is a good idea to stick it to comcast and verizon!' and not a whole lot of actual engineering or planning.
        vidarh 15y ago
        That's what you get when you have an open community that thousands of people sign up to. That is why I think it is more interesting as a place that aggregates links about other projects than as a project in itself. It's a decent place for getting an idea what is going on elsewhere (in the open at least). Not so much if you're looking for a community that's actually implementing something.
tomjen3 15y ago
Or you could change your DNS server to point to 8.8.8.8. Half the geeks in Denmark have done so, since they instituted our national Child Porn filter* here a couple of years ago. *Despite the name the filter does not block Child Porn, at least people get caught with it all the time. It does however block the Pirate Bay as well as Dutch company leasing fork lifts, to be fair they are no doubt under the age of 18 and they are some very, very sexy fork lifts.
- darklajid 15y ago
  If you value privacy this is maybe not the best route to take. You're using GMail/G+, I assume. Now a machine that might very well be easily identified (probably with some heuristics, the harder the more people share your address) as belonging to a specific google user id. And you just started telling Google _every single domain you visit_. Maybe they throw it away. Maybe you've got nothing to hide (..). I wouldn't recommend that as a decent option to any geek or non-geek though.
  - fauigerzigerk 15y ago
    That's true, and I have been concerned about that too. On the other hand, unless you block doubleclick, AdSense, Google analytics, G+ and whatnot, Google can track you across most sites anyway, apart from analyzing your Gmail content. Google's DNS service at least makes pretty strict privacy promises that are easier to believe and easier to understand than all the incredibly complicated advertising related don't track stuff. And their DNS servers are really fast.
- davedx 15y ago
  My Dutch gf has a forklift license. It is pretty hot watching her in action.
- skymt 15y ago
  That's not going to work if SOPA passes.
johnx123-up 15y ago
TL;DR: Automatic proxy extension for FF https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-piratebay-dancing/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-pi... Note that extension page has poor feedback.
runn1ng 15y ago
What are the upsides and/or downside of using this instead of just using Tor?
- bcl 15y ago
  No encryption or anonymity. It should be faster than Tor though.

94 points by jasontraff 15y ago

est 15y ago

Am I the only one that worries them solving a OSI layer 4 problem with a layer 7 application? I mean Firefox is nice in all but what about the rest of client apps relies on a traditional DNS gateway?

notatoad 15y ago
no, it's not an ideal solution. but i don't see why you're worried. if you want to worry, worry about the governments and/or corporations censoring the DNS system. this is a hack to get around a shitty situation, but it works.
vidarh 15y ago
It's a stopgap. The underlying problem of securing IP/TCP and DNS against government tampering is much harder. People are working on it, but meantime it's great that there are workarounds.
- rmc 15y ago
  People are working on it Oh? What's the state of the art about this now? What are some good projects?
  - vidarh 15y ago
    I don't follow it closely enough to say. Check out http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan - while they're mostly talking about it and not doing much, there's regularly links there to other various projects. I don't expect much to come out of the Reddit discussions directly, but it's a useful place to keep an eye on what is happening elsewhere. Don't expect a quick solution - until/unless censorship in more places get significantly worse, this is still largely fringe stuff that doesn't see a huge amount of real work invested in it. And don't necessarily expect a single solution. It'll be years before we get to a stage where there's anything resembling a "standard" system for this.
    - rmc 15y ago
      I think this comment on that subreddit reflect my opinion of the 'darknetplan': What I think you have here is a group of kids with a very very basic entry level knowledge of networking let along WAN routing and network topologies. Maybe some of them have loaded ddwrt or tomato onto a wrt54g and thought they were a ccie, but it looks like a lot of 'hey woman this is a good idea to stick it to comcast and verizon!' and not a whole lot of actual engineering or planning.
      - vidarh 15y ago
        That's what you get when you have an open community that thousands of people sign up to. That is why I think it is more interesting as a place that aggregates links about other projects than as a project in itself. It's a decent place for getting an idea what is going on elsewhere (in the open at least). Not so much if you're looking for a community that's actually implementing something.

tomjen3 15y ago

Or you could change your DNS server to point to 8.8.8.8. Half the geeks in Denmark have done so, since they instituted our national Child Porn filter* here a couple of years ago. *Despite the name the filter does not block Child Porn, at least people get caught with it all the time. It does however block the Pirate Bay as well as Dutch company leasing fork lifts, to be fair they are no doubt under the age of 18 and they are some very, very sexy fork lifts.

darklajid 15y ago
If you value privacy this is maybe not the best route to take. You're using GMail/G+, I assume. Now a machine that might very well be easily identified (probably with some heuristics, the harder the more people share your address) as belonging to a specific google user id. And you just started telling Google _every single domain you visit_. Maybe they throw it away. Maybe you've got nothing to hide (..). I wouldn't recommend that as a decent option to any geek or non-geek though.
- fauigerzigerk 15y ago
  That's true, and I have been concerned about that too. On the other hand, unless you block doubleclick, AdSense, Google analytics, G+ and whatnot, Google can track you across most sites anyway, apart from analyzing your Gmail content. Google's DNS service at least makes pretty strict privacy promises that are easier to believe and easier to understand than all the incredibly complicated advertising related don't track stuff. And their DNS servers are really fast.
davedx 15y ago
My Dutch gf has a forklift license. It is pretty hot watching her in action.
skymt 15y ago
That's not going to work if SOPA passes.

johnx123-up 15y ago

TL;DR: Automatic proxy extension for FF https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-piratebay-dancing/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-pi... Note that extension page has poor feedback.

runn1ng 15y ago

What are the upsides and/or downside of using this instead of just using Tor?

bcl 15y ago
No encryption or anonymity. It should be faster than Tor though.