10 ms·

Google Drive Blackout in Italy After Another Major Anti-Piracy Blunder

141 points by gslin 2y ago

alebaffa 2y ago
Crazy.
yunohn 2y ago
This feels very similar to the Indian government constantly blocking and unblocking GitHub’s “raw” content domain. https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/act-fibernet-unblocks-github-content-domain/article66361444.ece/amp/ https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/act-fibernet-un...
sjamaan 2y ago
Let's hope they just keep doing what they're doing, it's a great way to get the public to call for tearing down this ugly censorship^Wanti-piracy system.
jeisc 2y ago
The cloud is unreliable for mission critical systems
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  More like crazy censorship that masquerades as anti piracy measures are incredibly short sighted measures by dumb governments that just hurt the honest users. Pretty sure the pirates are all laughing their ass cheeks off right now.
  - namaria 2y ago
    Yes this sort of thing makes public cloud unreliable for mission critical systems
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      Why? Dumb government censorship could also block your private cloud as well.
      - hexo 2y ago
        not really
        bayindirh 2y ago
        If your connection to your private cloud passes through public internet, all bets are off. I don't think all companies have their private clouds at the basement level, completely owned data centers, connected via edge switches near the water cooler.
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        Unless you uses Onion routing, yes
      - ta1243 2y ago
        You're a shared tenant on a shared system. You are at the mercy of what other tenants do.
      - josefx 2y ago
        It could, but it currently doesn't. Regulating and enforcing censorship is a lot harder when the offending material is not publicly accessible / easy to find. So even if you have offending content on your own private cloud, as opposed to have someone elses offending content on a shared public cloud, the censors would first have to find out about it.
- ta1243 2y ago
  In my experience, a specific service in "The cloud" has an uptime similar to a single raspberry pi. Some services are more reliable, maybe upto three-nines. If you design your systems as such - expecting them to fail, then using "the cloud" is fine. If a VM running in AWS goes down, fine, the ones in hertzner continue to work. There's levels of availability you need -- what services can go down, in what geographic location, and for how long (do you need to go sub-second from all geographic locations? Because I'm not sure you can do that in any situations. On the other extreme are you happy with a TTL of 60 and failover to another IP, which barely counts as available in my book)
- tomjen3 2y ago
  Seems more to be the case that the internet will have to route around Italy.
palla89 2y ago
Students (at least in Italy) often relies on notes on Google Drive, I laughed hard when on reddit one commenter said: "too bad I can't study this weekend, but fortunately I enjoyed watching a pirate soccer streaming!"
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  [flagged]
DataDaemon 2y ago
This is just the beginning. Read the DSA (Digital Services Act), where private companies will be able to take down any content or comment.
- jampekka 2y ago
  There's been surprisingly little discussion about the DSA. The brussels corporate lobbyists really earned their salaries with that one.
  - sunaookami 2y ago
    Because people critizing it get labeled as a right-wing nut or similar. Currently happens in Germany because a "trusted flagger" organization (whose job is to delete so called "hatespeech") is being criticized by being directly funded by the state and the media is shielding it and deflecting criticism on behalf of the government.
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      >a "trusted flagger" organization (whose job is to delete so called "hatespeech") is being criticized by being directly funded by the state and the media What's the name of that org?
      - jampekka 2y ago
        There are multiple "accredited organizations". Most seem to be copyright trolls that now get a semi-official status in law enforcement. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/trusted-flaggers-under-dsa https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/trusted-fl...
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        Jesus. The biggest issue I see is who keeps these so called "trusted flaggers" in check? What accountability mechanism exists for them? What prevents people working at those trusted flaggers from abusing the org's position and just banning stuff they don't personally like or for malicious actors to infiltrate the orgs to ban stuff? Kind of like a rogue Reddit/Discord mod on steroids. Since people who actively seek out power, are exactly the ones who shouldn't have it, according to Plato. As all these orgs aren't elected like our politicians that we can change through votes yet they seem to have gotten the keys to online speech.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] Earlier: Italy's Piracy Shield just blocked one of Google's CDN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41890460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41890460
y0ned4 2y ago
You don't block an entire tram line just because there are pickpockets on board some trams The "solutions" implemented here in Italy are not solutions, but abominations imho
- masklinn 2y ago
  Nah you fill it up with poison gas because you don’t negotiate with terrorists.
  - SSLy 2y ago
    If anyone misses the reference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis
    - stavros 2y ago
      What the fuck
      - bitcharmer 2y ago
        [flagged]
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - lupusreal 2y ago
        It was pretty fucked up for the government to not coordinate an antidote with hospitals, but other than that, can anybody really be sure that another approach would have resulted in fewer hostage casualties? The terrorists had the whole place rigged with bombs. Considering the circumstance I think the gas was a pretty good idea with a poor followup.
        Y-bar 2y ago
iamcalledrob 2y ago
Relatedly, Backblaze b2 is routinely blocked by corporate IT (and even Chrome's anti-malware list from time to time) for similar "bad neighbour" reasons. It's bad enough that you basically have to stick a reverse proxy in front of it to reliably serve content at scale.
red_admiral 2y ago
At some point google should consider offering a VPN service :)
- esnard 2y ago
  I just discovered that they discontinued their VPN back on June 20th. Somehow, I am not surprised.
  - wildrhythms 2y ago
    It's still there, they changed the name to "VPN by Google". I'm sure some director got celebrated for that exciting 'new' product launch.
seper8 2y ago
Italy (and many other European countries) could be great and wealthy countries once again, if only it wasn't for the witless bureaucrats in charge. The only thing we seem to be innovative at is coming up with ridiculous amounts of useless regulation.
- Zafira 2y ago
  Isn't Italy also the poster child for an unstable parliamentary system?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- emptyfile 2y ago
  [dead]
- meindnoch 2y ago
  There's a reason they are called the least of the great powers.
- lifestyleguru 2y ago
  You don't like your bottle cap attached to a bottle?
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  >Italy (and many other European countries) could be great and wealthy countries once again How? That's like a dad telling his son "you can achieve anything you want" when the reality is he's already capped his max achievement potential with his barista job while still dreaming he's gonna make it big in Hollywood. You're not gonna see an Italian/European flag on the moon anytime soon just because they did cool stuff in the past. A country is not some tiny ship you can turn around at a whim and become a US/Switzerland powerhouse overnight via some magic algorithm that the people in power were too stupid to see, the inertia of the status quo of a nation is insanely large. So the bureaucrats in charge aren't the only reason Italy and the EU is falling behind the US at the economy and innovations. Also, speaking of the devil, those bureaucrats in charge are elected by the people and therefore a direct reflection of the population they serve, they're not some strange creatures shoehorned by aliens to rules us poorly, they're cut form the same cloth and are only doing what will get people to keep voting for them. So if people vote trash candidates to power why are they surprised they get trash results? Stop rewarding bad behavior, and vote for someone else better. Now if all your candidates are trash, what does that say about the population and the culture as a whole? In this case do you think there's some redemption waiting around the corner for them for a spectacular turn-around or is simply the entire population as a collective at fault as well for their current situation?
_factor 2y ago
This is how we get to big brother 1984 status. Slowly and gradually in the name of public safety. First you limit information deemed “harmful”, next you make it illegal, then you use your powers to make your own rules. With the corporate control structure, it looks like we’re heading more towards Neuromancer or Brave New World than 1984. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
- 421ewafsrewfad 2y ago
  Your comment is hyperbolic. I don't think we're sliding into 1984, and saying we are became cliche at least a few years ago. This isn't information being limited in the name of some shadowy "public safety" to dumb down the proles, it's limiting access to free entertainment to protect shareholder's profits with a shitty implementation (see: capitalism). Big brother would be very happy if the proles did nothing but watch pirated content made by the ministry of handball. The people in power aren't going to start making rules that benefit themselves- that's what being in power has meant since the dawn of man. If you haven't read either of those two books I'd advise you to do so. I don't see how either relate to your concern about censorship. I'll be very impressed when the corporations usher in a singular world state. And maybe a few more years of LLM research and we'll get neuromancer working!
  - freedomben 2y ago
    You're not necessarily wrong, but GP did say "slowly and gradually" and "in the name of public safety." They weren't saying we're there now, or that this step is equivalent to big brother.
dexen 2y ago
>government getting private property snatched in transit by extending letters of marque to ISPs Yep, that is piracy indeed, even if done under the figleaf of "privateering".
wvh 2y ago
Governments and ISPs should focus on improving how things work for the public and not make things worse. Seriously. Who are you working for?
- Yeul 2y ago
  The rich?
thefz 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
eemil 2y ago
Malicious compliance at its best :)
yupyupyups 2y ago
>Italy has an administrative blocking mechanism and a technical blocking platform, Piracy Shield, operated by rightsholders in the private sector. >There’s almost zero transparency and any information of any use is routinely withheld from the public, even when that information relates directly to the public. People who demand access to information are routinely ignored, even punished. Imagine selling out your country this bad.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  Well, they gave the key to their country to facism yet again so there is that.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  >Imagine selling out your country this bad. Selling out your country is literally the default modus operandi in most places on the planet. In fact, not selling your country, like the Nordics for example, is the rare exception to the rule.
0x_rs 2y ago
"Piracy Shield" is an unmitigated disaster, a terrible idea everyone knew would be useless and harmful, but Serie A bribes make up for it. The next step has already been announced, going after VPNs. Yeah, you read that right, because of a stupid football league there's attempts undergoing to block commercial VPNs and managers instigating against them without even knowing what they are. Italy is diving into the Internet dark ages, the past few years have been a disaster after another. Another recent ruling will attempt to limit access to adult-content and unrestricted social media usage only by using the government-mandated, privately-owned identification system (SPID) and sites not complying will be blocked. Europe as a whole is heading in this direction with other things such as ChatControl too.
- lifestyleguru 2y ago
  I love how the largest IT innovation coming from Italy is internet gambling and sports betting. It's a lost case, let the payday loan predators and mafia rule their digital infrastructure as an anti example for everyone else.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    >let the payday loan predators and mafia rule their digital infrastructure as an anti example for everyone else Why would you assume it would be an anti-example for everyone else? If other see this works in Italy with no backlash what's gonna stop them implementing it in other places?
    - lifestyleguru 2y ago
      Italy might be indeed the pilot project in implementing the vision of Idiocracy. Looking at popularity of lotteries and sport betting in other countries like e.g. Spain or Poland, I'm not joking at all.
- yard2010 2y ago
  It wouldn't be Italy without a few dark ages here and there, historically speaking
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lifestyleguru 2y ago
I live in Linux bubble which gives me decent freedom and I don't follow the hopeless privacy wars. Now I feel I woke up from few decades of coma. What what?! FOOTBALL lobbyists set up DNS filter for an entire country?! How about we cancel this mafia-drugs-hooligan industry on the entire continent? There is nothing good coming out of them.
d3bunker 2y ago
"You give a calculator to a fucking retard he's gonna try to turn off a TV with it". Or Internet.
Brett_Riverboat 2y ago
Google is nothing but blinded by greed at this point, they are so shortsightedly chasing a dollar that they can't seem to recognize this behavior is exactly what is losing the money. They are inconveniencing paying customers to combat pirates who don't care and will only double down on their efforts and incidentally expose all of this for the brain dead blunder that it is.
- sunaookami 2y ago
  You might want to re-read the article. This has nothing to do with Google, it's Italy to blame.
  - Brett_Riverboat 2y ago
    Shame on me, Its so easy to assume google did another stupid thing that I just skimmed it and made an assumption. My bad.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
freedomben 2y ago
For those of us outside of Italy that might be worried that our government (and powerful corporations, which increasingly seem to be merging) isn't protecting us like the Italian government is, don't worry, pretty soon the "rightsholders" worldwide will be able to ensure we can't even browse most websites unless we're running an "authorized" OS, let alone access our cloud storage. Apple and Google are full along implementing that, which when complete will cover a huge percentage of the population. Then many more popular sites will start blocking (or, more likely, heavily degrading the experience with CAPTCHAs and the like) the "unknown" clients, at which point I have no doubt that Microsoft will finish any work to get Windows to that point. Then 98% of the population is covered and even very sympathetic engineers will have to block these dangerous "unknown" clients because justifying to management why you wouldn't block these clients will require arguing that availability is more important than security, an argument that (at least in the current culture of safety being more important than everything else) is career suicide. Then us long time Linux people who have been fighting this crap since the early 00s will sit around and reminisce about the good 'ol days when you could run uMatrix or uBlock Origin in your browser, save important youtube videos and webpages offline, or even control when your software got updated. The kids will look at us the same way we looked at the old guys reminiscing about the simplicity and fixability/upgradability and ability to tinker with the cars of the 60s and 70s. Admittedly not quite the same thing, but this feels like part of the overall trend. Happy Monday everyone!

141 points by gslin 2y ago

Crazy.

This feels very similar to the Indian government constantly blocking and unblocking GitHub’s “raw” content domain. https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/act-fibernet-unblocks-github-content-domain/article66361444.ece/amp/ https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/act-fibernet-un...

sjamaan 2y ago

Let's hope they just keep doing what they're doing, it's a great way to get the public to call for tearing down this ugly censorship^Wanti-piracy system.

jeisc 2y ago

The cloud is unreliable for mission critical systems

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
More like crazy censorship that masquerades as anti piracy measures are incredibly short sighted measures by dumb governments that just hurt the honest users. Pretty sure the pirates are all laughing their ass cheeks off right now.
- namaria 2y ago
  Yes this sort of thing makes public cloud unreliable for mission critical systems
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    Why? Dumb government censorship could also block your private cloud as well.
    - hexo 2y ago
      not really
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        If your connection to your private cloud passes through public internet, all bets are off. I don't think all companies have their private clouds at the basement level, completely owned data centers, connected via edge switches near the water cooler.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        Unless you uses Onion routing, yes
    - ta1243 2y ago
      You're a shared tenant on a shared system. You are at the mercy of what other tenants do.
    - josefx 2y ago
      It could, but it currently doesn't. Regulating and enforcing censorship is a lot harder when the offending material is not publicly accessible / easy to find. So even if you have offending content on your own private cloud, as opposed to have someone elses offending content on a shared public cloud, the censors would first have to find out about it.
ta1243 2y ago
In my experience, a specific service in "The cloud" has an uptime similar to a single raspberry pi. Some services are more reliable, maybe upto three-nines. If you design your systems as such - expecting them to fail, then using "the cloud" is fine. If a VM running in AWS goes down, fine, the ones in hertzner continue to work. There's levels of availability you need -- what services can go down, in what geographic location, and for how long (do you need to go sub-second from all geographic locations? Because I'm not sure you can do that in any situations. On the other extreme are you happy with a TTL of 60 and failover to another IP, which barely counts as available in my book)
tomjen3 2y ago
Seems more to be the case that the internet will have to route around Italy.

palla89 2y ago

Students (at least in Italy) often relies on notes on Google Drive, I laughed hard when on reddit one commenter said: "too bad I can't study this weekend, but fortunately I enjoyed watching a pirate soccer streaming!"

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
[flagged]

DataDaemon 2y ago

This is just the beginning. Read the DSA (Digital Services Act), where private companies will be able to take down any content or comment.

jampekka 2y ago
There's been surprisingly little discussion about the DSA. The brussels corporate lobbyists really earned their salaries with that one.
- sunaookami 2y ago
  Because people critizing it get labeled as a right-wing nut or similar. Currently happens in Germany because a "trusted flagger" organization (whose job is to delete so called "hatespeech") is being criticized by being directly funded by the state and the media is shielding it and deflecting criticism on behalf of the government.
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    >a "trusted flagger" organization (whose job is to delete so called "hatespeech") is being criticized by being directly funded by the state and the media What's the name of that org?
    - jampekka 2y ago
      There are multiple "accredited organizations". Most seem to be copyright trolls that now get a semi-official status in law enforcement. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/trusted-flaggers-under-dsa https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/trusted-fl...
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        Jesus. The biggest issue I see is who keeps these so called "trusted flaggers" in check? What accountability mechanism exists for them? What prevents people working at those trusted flaggers from abusing the org's position and just banning stuff they don't personally like or for malicious actors to infiltrate the orgs to ban stuff? Kind of like a rogue Reddit/Discord mod on steroids. Since people who actively seek out power, are exactly the ones who shouldn't have it, according to Plato. As all these orgs aren't elected like our politicians that we can change through votes yet they seem to have gotten the keys to online speech.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] Earlier: Italy's Piracy Shield just blocked one of Google's CDN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41890460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41890460

y0ned4 2y ago

You don't block an entire tram line just because there are pickpockets on board some trams The "solutions" implemented here in Italy are not solutions, but abominations imho

masklinn 2y ago
Nah you fill it up with poison gas because you don’t negotiate with terrorists.
- SSLy 2y ago
  If anyone misses the reference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis
  - stavros 2y ago
    What the fuck
    - bitcharmer 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      It was pretty fucked up for the government to not coordinate an antidote with hospitals, but other than that, can anybody really be sure that another approach would have resulted in fewer hostage casualties? The terrorists had the whole place rigged with bombs. Considering the circumstance I think the gas was a pretty good idea with a poor followup.
      - Y-bar 2y ago

iamcalledrob 2y ago

Relatedly, Backblaze b2 is routinely blocked by corporate IT (and even Chrome's anti-malware list from time to time) for similar "bad neighbour" reasons. It's bad enough that you basically have to stick a reverse proxy in front of it to reliably serve content at scale.

red_admiral 2y ago

At some point google should consider offering a VPN service :)

esnard 2y ago
I just discovered that they discontinued their VPN back on June 20th. Somehow, I am not surprised.
- wildrhythms 2y ago
  It's still there, they changed the name to "VPN by Google". I'm sure some director got celebrated for that exciting 'new' product launch.

seper8 2y ago

Italy (and many other European countries) could be great and wealthy countries once again, if only it wasn't for the witless bureaucrats in charge. The only thing we seem to be innovative at is coming up with ridiculous amounts of useless regulation.

Zafira 2y ago
Isn't Italy also the poster child for an unstable parliamentary system?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
emptyfile 2y ago
[dead]
meindnoch 2y ago
There's a reason they are called the least of the great powers.
lifestyleguru 2y ago
You don't like your bottle cap attached to a bottle?
FirmwareBurner 2y ago
>Italy (and many other European countries) could be great and wealthy countries once again How? That's like a dad telling his son "you can achieve anything you want" when the reality is he's already capped his max achievement potential with his barista job while still dreaming he's gonna make it big in Hollywood. You're not gonna see an Italian/European flag on the moon anytime soon just because they did cool stuff in the past. A country is not some tiny ship you can turn around at a whim and become a US/Switzerland powerhouse overnight via some magic algorithm that the people in power were too stupid to see, the inertia of the status quo of a nation is insanely large. So the bureaucrats in charge aren't the only reason Italy and the EU is falling behind the US at the economy and innovations. Also, speaking of the devil, those bureaucrats in charge are elected by the people and therefore a direct reflection of the population they serve, they're not some strange creatures shoehorned by aliens to rules us poorly, they're cut form the same cloth and are only doing what will get people to keep voting for them. So if people vote trash candidates to power why are they surprised they get trash results? Stop rewarding bad behavior, and vote for someone else better. Now if all your candidates are trash, what does that say about the population and the culture as a whole? In this case do you think there's some redemption waiting around the corner for them for a spectacular turn-around or is simply the entire population as a collective at fault as well for their current situation?

_factor 2y ago

This is how we get to big brother 1984 status. Slowly and gradually in the name of public safety. First you limit information deemed “harmful”, next you make it illegal, then you use your powers to make your own rules. With the corporate control structure, it looks like we’re heading more towards Neuromancer or Brave New World than 1984. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

421ewafsrewfad 2y ago
Your comment is hyperbolic. I don't think we're sliding into 1984, and saying we are became cliche at least a few years ago. This isn't information being limited in the name of some shadowy "public safety" to dumb down the proles, it's limiting access to free entertainment to protect shareholder's profits with a shitty implementation (see: capitalism). Big brother would be very happy if the proles did nothing but watch pirated content made by the ministry of handball. The people in power aren't going to start making rules that benefit themselves- that's what being in power has meant since the dawn of man. If you haven't read either of those two books I'd advise you to do so. I don't see how either relate to your concern about censorship. I'll be very impressed when the corporations usher in a singular world state. And maybe a few more years of LLM research and we'll get neuromancer working!
- freedomben 2y ago
  You're not necessarily wrong, but GP did say "slowly and gradually" and "in the name of public safety." They weren't saying we're there now, or that this step is equivalent to big brother.

dexen 2y ago

>government getting private property snatched in transit by extending letters of marque to ISPs Yep, that is piracy indeed, even if done under the figleaf of "privateering".

wvh 2y ago

Governments and ISPs should focus on improving how things work for the public and not make things worse. Seriously. Who are you working for?

Yeul 2y ago
The rich?

thefz 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

eemil 2y ago

Malicious compliance at its best :)

yupyupyups 2y ago

>Italy has an administrative blocking mechanism and a technical blocking platform, Piracy Shield, operated by rightsholders in the private sector. >There’s almost zero transparency and any information of any use is routinely withheld from the public, even when that information relates directly to the public. People who demand access to information are routinely ignored, even punished. Imagine selling out your country this bad.

prmoustache 2y ago
Well, they gave the key to their country to facism yet again so there is that.
FirmwareBurner 2y ago
>Imagine selling out your country this bad. Selling out your country is literally the default modus operandi in most places on the planet. In fact, not selling your country, like the Nordics for example, is the rare exception to the rule.

0x_rs 2y ago

"Piracy Shield" is an unmitigated disaster, a terrible idea everyone knew would be useless and harmful, but Serie A bribes make up for it. The next step has already been announced, going after VPNs. Yeah, you read that right, because of a stupid football league there's attempts undergoing to block commercial VPNs and managers instigating against them without even knowing what they are. Italy is diving into the Internet dark ages, the past few years have been a disaster after another. Another recent ruling will attempt to limit access to adult-content and unrestricted social media usage only by using the government-mandated, privately-owned identification system (SPID) and sites not complying will be blocked. Europe as a whole is heading in this direction with other things such as ChatControl too.

lifestyleguru 2y ago
I love how the largest IT innovation coming from Italy is internet gambling and sports betting. It's a lost case, let the payday loan predators and mafia rule their digital infrastructure as an anti example for everyone else.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  >let the payday loan predators and mafia rule their digital infrastructure as an anti example for everyone else Why would you assume it would be an anti-example for everyone else? If other see this works in Italy with no backlash what's gonna stop them implementing it in other places?
  - lifestyleguru 2y ago
    Italy might be indeed the pilot project in implementing the vision of Idiocracy. Looking at popularity of lotteries and sport betting in other countries like e.g. Spain or Poland, I'm not joking at all.
yard2010 2y ago
It wouldn't be Italy without a few dark ages here and there, historically speaking

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lifestyleguru 2y ago

I live in Linux bubble which gives me decent freedom and I don't follow the hopeless privacy wars. Now I feel I woke up from few decades of coma. What what?! FOOTBALL lobbyists set up DNS filter for an entire country?! How about we cancel this mafia-drugs-hooligan industry on the entire continent? There is nothing good coming out of them.

d3bunker 2y ago

"You give a calculator to a fucking retard he's gonna try to turn off a TV with it". Or Internet.

Brett_Riverboat 2y ago

Google is nothing but blinded by greed at this point, they are so shortsightedly chasing a dollar that they can't seem to recognize this behavior is exactly what is losing the money. They are inconveniencing paying customers to combat pirates who don't care and will only double down on their efforts and incidentally expose all of this for the brain dead blunder that it is.

sunaookami 2y ago
You might want to re-read the article. This has nothing to do with Google, it's Italy to blame.
- Brett_Riverboat 2y ago
  Shame on me, Its so easy to assume google did another stupid thing that I just skimmed it and made an assumption. My bad.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

freedomben 2y ago

For those of us outside of Italy that might be worried that our government (and powerful corporations, which increasingly seem to be merging) isn't protecting us like the Italian government is, don't worry, pretty soon the "rightsholders" worldwide will be able to ensure we can't even browse most websites unless we're running an "authorized" OS, let alone access our cloud storage. Apple and Google are full along implementing that, which when complete will cover a huge percentage of the population. Then many more popular sites will start blocking (or, more likely, heavily degrading the experience with CAPTCHAs and the like) the "unknown" clients, at which point I have no doubt that Microsoft will finish any work to get Windows to that point. Then 98% of the population is covered and even very sympathetic engineers will have to block these dangerous "unknown" clients because justifying to management why you wouldn't block these clients will require arguing that availability is more important than security, an argument that (at least in the current culture of safety being more important than everything else) is career suicide. Then us long time Linux people who have been fighting this crap since the early 00s will sit around and reminisce about the good 'ol days when you could run uMatrix or uBlock Origin in your browser, save important youtube videos and webpages offline, or even control when your software got updated. The kids will look at us the same way we looked at the old guys reminiscing about the simplicity and fixability/upgradability and ability to tinker with the cars of the 60s and 70s. Admittedly not quite the same thing, but this feels like part of the overall trend. Happy Monday everyone!