20 ms·

Thepiratebay.se is back online

238 points by jeena 12y ago

syoc 12y ago
http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-forever/ http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-foreve... I guess the golden calf is back.
nickthemagicman 12y ago
That makes me happy that people are still fighting authoritarian governments with their time instead of watching football. Panem et Circenses!
- geekam 12y ago
  I have become so cynical and scared that I usually do not even click on such websites and links. Can the US police arrest you to visit just the web page and search on it? I wonder how it is back? Aren't Sunde et. al. in jail for this?
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    It's about as likely as police arresting you because they feel like it. Which I guess happens, but there is little that can be done personally to guard against it. (I'm trying to draw a distinction between actions that protect an individual and actions that encourage a fair society there, it's the protecting just yourself against corrupt police that isn't particularly possible)
    - jeffreyrogers 12y ago
      Yeah, there is a strange misconception on HN that the US legal system is totally broken and that everyone is out to get you. I don't think the data support this. Actually, I believe there is legal precedent that you can't be prosecuted for downloading something from a site like TPB, only from uploading to others (the reasoning is that when you upload you're a distributor).
      - geekam 12y ago
        > I believe there is legal precedent that you can't be prosecuted for downloading something from a site like TPB, only from uploading to others I did not know that's the case. Do you have a source to confirm this?
        gpvos 12y ago
        This used to be the case in the Netherlands, until an EU directive overrode it. No idea about the US, sorry.
      - gizmo686 12y ago
        This is mostly true; it is perfectly legal to download copyrighted material. The crime is in distributing copyrighted material that you do not have any rights to. This means that I do not need to worry about if Hulu, Funimation, or whatever streaming service I am using is complying with the law and obtained the rights to stream their content. However, in the case of torrents you are also uploading the content, which is illegal; and I believe there is precedent that you can be charged (although I do not have a case handy).
        zanny 12y ago
        So just go set upload speed to 0 and enjoy the 4k game of thrones?
        cdh 12y ago
        I'm not familiar with the specifics of the protocol, but your download speeds would be much slower without uploading. I believe that with BitTorrent, you are penalized/rewarded somehow for not uploading vs. uploading.
        zanny 12y ago
        Not really, trackers will impose restrictions on users based on seeding ratios, but if you just DHT a random torrent whoever gets bandwidth is more down to random luck than priority towards other seeders. There is just no protocol level mechanism that prioritizes seeding to someone with a higher upload - the choice of who to seed to is up mostly to the implementation.
  - teamhappy 12y ago
    I don't think you need to worry about that. We live in a world where web browsers implement prefetching to improve overall performance, which means your browser "clicks" links for you in the background all the time. This may or may not end up looking like you visited the website yourself. I'm not sure if they're distinguishable, but you get the point. Aside from that, I don't think visiting The Pirate Bay is illegal in the first place, the same way that talking to a drug dealer isn't necessarily illegal either. Anyway, if you're still worried, I suggest you use the Tor Browser and stop worrying about these things all together. https://www.torproject.org/ https://www.torproject.org/ (no affiliation)
    - Dylan16807 12y ago
      >I don't think visiting The Pirate Bay is illegal in the first place, the same way that talking to a drug dealer isn't necessarily illegal either. You'd think that, but stop and remember what the pirate bay actually does, again. They don't have copyrighted files. They used to but no longer keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files. All they have is descriptions of files and ID numbers. Plus comments and a search engine. So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it.
      - teamhappy 12y ago
        > They don't have copyrighted files. True. > They used to [...] keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files Did they get rid of their tracker? I don't know actually, but that's not important. Running a torrent tracker is considered very legal in most places (similar to running a Tor exit node or something like that). > Plus comments and a search engine. That's the tricky bit. > So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it. I'd rather you wouldn't just say stuff like that. You're basically spreading FUD. There is no sane reason to believe anybody will ever be arrested (in western countries, that is) for visiting a site like TPB. Which law would you like to stretch in order to make that happen? Using their indexer is similar to getting a menu from your drug dealer. You haven't even attempted to do anything illegal yet. What you'd need is a law that allows you to arrest people for something they haven't even attempted to do (some people call that pre-crime). What happens in reality instead is governments blocking sites like TPB and that's the end of that.
  - unicornporn 12y ago
    Sunde and the guys haven't been affiliated with the site for years and they just want to see it dead.
    - r3bl 12y ago
      I think that it is important to emphasize is that the reason why they want to see it dead is because they want the community to build something new and better instead of relying on an over 10 year old service. They want to see some innovation. Further reading (by Peter Sunde himself): [1] http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-forever/ http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-foreve... [2] http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/11/peter-sunde http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/11/peter-sunde
  - hnnewguy 12y ago
    >Can the US police arrest you to visit just the web page and search on it? I'm going to sound like a paranoid nut (and I can assure you I'm not), but the reality is, if you get a target on your back the "US police" will find a way to arrest you[1]. This is the scary thing about mass data collection; they can concoct any story they want from the breadcrumbs of personal data. [1] a fun documentary about someone getting railroaded when the police needed a suspect: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/anthrax-files/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/anthrax-files/
- StevePerkins 12y ago
  I mostly just lurk on HN... but occasionally I wish I had the time to post more regularly. Just so I could build up enough karma points to have downvote privileges for stuff like this.
  - henpa 12y ago
    Ditto, but on your post.
  - skrebbel 12y ago
    Consider saying why you'd downvote this instead of bitching and maybe you'd actually get those karma points.
    - StevePerkins 12y ago
      There was a very active thread yesterday (400+ comments), titled "Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8972179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8972179). TL;DR: The article was basically a critique of people like the parent commenter. In the thread that followed, I came down on the side of those who agreed with the article. So I would downvote parent for two reasons: (1) Attempting to twist a thread about the Pirate Bay into a thread about the Super Bowl and "'Murica" is pretentious in the extreme even without Latin, and (2) I disagree with the popular premise that downloading Game of Thrones and porn == "fighting authoritarian governments". I realize that this makes me a minority here, to the point of possibly being considered a troll for admitting it. Which is one reason why I don't bother posting more, which in turn is one reason why HN is so "hivemind-ish" on many subjects.
      - vezzy-fnord 12y ago
        I realize that this makes me a minority here, to the point of possibly being considered a troll for admitting it. You do come off as a troll, not so much because you oppose TPB, but because of the blatant straw man you use to characterize it. The main advantage that permissive torrent trackers carry is that they serve as vast cultural archives. No, consuming media is not necessary for survival, but should poverty condemn you to cultural illiteracy?
- enqk 12y ago
  Isn't more "Panem et Circenses" the practical result of something like the pirate bay? The large majority of the content there is entertainment of all forms produced by the high-class members of the powerful states.
  - tomp 12y ago
    I understand "Panem et Circenses" as "let the authoritarians and libertarians fight each other, while I watch and enjoy the benefits of their fight".
- geographomics 12y ago
  Pirating movies, music, software and so on strikes me as a mostly selfish act, and only loosely related to being anti-government due to there being laws against stealing (in the copyright infringement sense). Also I don't really see the distinction between watching football, and watching whatever movie one has pirated via sites such as TPB.
  - jMyles 12y ago
    The health of high-bandwidth, distributed systems of content delivery is a vital part of resisting censorship.
  - genofon 12y ago
    and what about the injustice of governments (at least in Europe, don't know elsewhere) that make you pay extra-taxes on any digital support with the excuse that people use them to store pirated material. I'm pretty pissed off that I have to pay this tax despite storing only legitimate material, but not enough to do something directly. I cheer if someone else is fighting against the way the copyright industry works right now.
    - geographomics 12y ago
      The blank media levy may well be unfair, but I don't see how enabling or engaging in widespread piracy helps fight against that. It probably does the opposite, given the rationale behind such taxes.
    - tokenizerrr 12y ago
      Living in the Netherlands, I used to be fine with this. It used to be that you'd pay a bit extra for storage media, but that piracy was tolerated. Downloading, that is. But recently the government caved to EU influences and now downloading content is also enforced to be illegal, yet the storage media taxes remain.
    - sergiosgc 12y ago
      >... pay extra-taxes on any digital support with the excuse that people use them to store pirated material. That's not what the blank media levy is for. It is a compensation for the right copyright law gives you to copy works you bought in one format to a different format. Think buying conversion of an audio CD into mp3 for listening in your car. Not that the real justification makes sense, but please stop associating it with piracy: it is wrong and serves to perpetuate this levy.
- aaronbrethorst 12y ago
  It's funny you'd say that, seeing how NFL players, just last month, were protesting racial disparities in our policing system: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/07/nfl-i-cant-breathe_n_6285526.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/07/nfl-i-cant-breathe_...
- Dan_Nguyen 12y ago
  I never understood comments like this. Whoever said it's either/or? Watching a football game is about three hours out of your week, and that's only for 1/3 of the year when it actually is football season. Less than that if your team doesn't make it to the playoffs. I've spent a considerable amount of time volunteering in my past while being able to enjoy football all the same. The same can be said about any number of hobbies. Comments like this do nothing but create a false dichotomy.
- anonbanker 12y ago
  But now, you can fight your government WITH entertainment. Rome would've found this brilliant. But try telling the plebs that the revolution won't be a twitter hashtag. They won't listen.
colinbartlett 12y ago
Does not work for me here in Buenos Aires. Edit: Works with VPN via USA.
- _lce0 12y ago
  thepiratebay.se was blocked[1] at ISP-level by CAPIF request You can still access the site thru thepiratebay.vu 1: http://www.scribd.com/doc/232015119/CAPIF-CAMARA-ARG-DE-PRODUCTORES-DE-FONOGRAMAS-Y-OTROS-c-THE-PIRATE-BAY-s-MEDIDAS-PRECAUTORIAS http://www.scribd.com/doc/232015119/CAPIF-CAMARA-ARG-DE-PROD...
  - sanbor 12y ago
    Works for me here in Buenos Aires without VPN. I'm using Google Public DNS https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/ https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/
jkaljundi 12y ago
Greetings to all the "Not available in your country" folks at major movie, TV and music companies. The Pirate Bay is what you should do.
- vegedor 12y ago
  How would that work? Release material only after a successful round of pledges? When it's legally on TPB, basically all copyrights had to be waived.
- deleted 12y ago
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- deleted 12y ago
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jstalin 12y ago
The logo inspires me.
- vidarh 12y ago
  With the way it's styled, it reminds me of when Firefox was named Phoenix (though that Phoenix logo was very different)
- w4rh4wk5 12y ago
  looks to me like a typical phoenix "decal", made one[1] myself a few years ago which is quite similar to this one. [1]: http://www.bluephoenix.at/bp5/assets/gfx/logo.png http://www.bluephoenix.at/bp5/assets/gfx/logo.png
vidarh 12y ago
The most fascinating part of all this is that the shutdown have had the effect of spawning a large number of alternative sites. If the people going after TPB succeeded at anything, it is making the cost and effort to get rid of the now multiple Pirate Bays massively harder.
- seanp2k2 12y ago
  It's like they'll never learn from Suprnova, IsoHunt, OiNK, etc. All have replacements which are lots better than the original. The communities even stay somewhat together in some cases where there's a clear migration path from one just-shutdown site to another with the same ideology. The software also improves in an evolutionary response to law enforcement, so the effect they're actually driving is exactly the opposite of what they want. On the other hand, things like Spotify show that overwhelmingly, people would rather pay for awesome convenience vs even the minimal effort of something like Popcorn Time. It's been the same story for decades now, from ftp dumps and warez channels to Usenet and torrents to rapidshare and magnet links, they'll never succeed in stamping out piracy.
  - dfc 12y ago
    I wish the same thing could be said for demonoid. I have yet to find a replacement for demonoid let alone a replacement that is a lot better.
    - tern 12y ago
      FWIW, it still exists: http://www.demonoid.pw/ http://www.demonoid.pw/. I missed it dearly at first, but I'm currently satisfied between The Pirate Bay, gen.lib.rus.ec, aaaaarg, Monoksop, UbuWeb, Internet Archive, are.na, what.cd, and Karagarga.
      - anonbanker 12y ago
        Relying as breadcrumbs for when I need to reference.
pierrec 12y ago
As of now there's still no article about the "incident" in their blog[1], but I'm sure there will be one soon. At first glance, users, comments, etc. appear to be working, though there aren't many new uploads yet. [1]: https://thepiratebay.se/blog https://thepiratebay.se/blog
azmenak 12y ago
I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be any more banner ads, or any tracking libraries. I wonder if TPB will continue like this.
- somesay 12y ago
  Having ads means you're acting commercially which is a very bad idea if you already in a semi-legal area. Besides from that it's far away from their initially spread ideology to make a lot of money or show porn ads. I mean TPB users always argue with not wanna seeing ads on DVDs and being enforced to anything and then their website is just unusable without ad blocker.
_lce0 12y ago
thepiratebay.se is blocked at ISP-level on my country, and we need to access using thepiratebay.vu are those the same site/mirror? do you see any difference?
- Buge 12y ago
  They're not the same. se does not have a facebook thing on the front page, it has more links on the bottom of the front page (including a login). Their logos are different. Search results are different (vu seems more up to date). se uses https.
- sjustinas 12y ago
  Looks different: tbp.se currently has a pheonix logo instead of the pirate ship. Tpb.vu is probably an independent mirror.
skrause 12y ago
It even supports IPv6.
- finnn 12y ago
  It uses CloudFlare, which is presumably added anything in the way of IPv6 and SSL
mstade 12y ago
Not sure if this is common knowledge, but I was told a few weeks ago from a friend with insight into the bust that TPB servers were located by law enforcement who analyzed clips from a documentary. Not sure if it was TBP AFK or some other video, but it doesn't matter. The point is that you shouldn't let any random ol' folks take footage of sensitive locations. You never know what'll end up happening.
- atian 12y ago
  I thought it was common knowledge that their servers were in a particular datacenter underground.
- johansch 12y ago
  That would literally be the most impressive thing performed by the swedish police the past year, if true :). Which would be kind of sad.
- ta75757 12y ago
  Can someone explain why you can't just use the IP address to track it down? I mean some ISP somewhere must control it, and they must know what physical link it's bound to, etc...
  - charlysisto 12y ago
    yes, would love to have some comments on that too
  - newaccountfool 12y ago
    I believe from what I have read, that they have multiple servers that all mirror each other all around the world in run of the mill hosting. They also have load balancers that are in places more secure, all that will be taken down is the load balancers.
codefisher 12y ago
I am in Europe (Italy) right now and before it was taken down thepiratebay.se was blocked. But now I can access it directly. Interesting.
- thameera 12y ago
  Maybe they had blocked the IP instead of the domain name? They surely have a different IP address now.
- atmosx 12y ago
  I wonder, in Italy blocked just the PB blocked or other torrent websites as well?
  - bonif 12y ago
    This happens all the time, http://torrentfreak.com/tag/italy/ http://torrentfreak.com/tag/italy/
- sanbor 12y ago
  Same here! It was banned in Argentina and now I can access to it without problem. My guess is that they are using a new IP (pinging thepiratebay.se gives me the IP 104.28.5.42, which seems to be part of CloudFare network). I'm reading the legal order (http://www.scribd.com/doc/232031432/cnc-tpb-argentina-pdf http://www.scribd.com/doc/232031432/cnc-tpb-argentina-pdf) and they not only ask to ban IPs from 194.71.107.0 to 194.1.107.255, they also ask ISP DNS resolvers to ban thepiratebay.se (an related domains). Good thing I'm not using my ISP DNS :)
- Sami_Lehtinen 12y ago
  Still blocked in Finland. Tested using two major ISPs.
- mcjiggerlog 12y ago
  Same here in the UK. Looks like before my ISP had blocked the specific IPs AND the domain at the DNS level. Obviously now TPB is using a different IP, so if you use Google's DNS servers instead of your ISP's then you should be able to access the site just fine.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Nice logo.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jusstthisguy 12y ago
Honeypot, anyone?
- Karunamon 12y ago
  No need, honestly. Clicking a link on TPB isn't against any laws that I'm aware of. If you want to nail someone for infringement, you watch them on the swarm, not the site.
  - navait 12y ago
    Well, what's someone going to use the site for other than getting the torrent files?
    - hayksaakian 12y ago
      maybe i just want to know what's popular so i can watch it on netflix/etc? no better metric for popularity than seeders/peers
      - click170 12y ago
        Netflix actually watches/watched torrents for popularity and based some of their decision making on it. http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/netflix-uses-torrent-sites-to-decide-which-shows-to-pick-up-next-1181157 http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/netflix-uses-torr...
    - totony 12y ago
      Not all torrent files are illegal
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- task_queue 12y ago
  Why run a tracker when the operator makes for a nice "organized cybercrime mastermind" to nail after you extort and put away seeders?
1111112222 12y ago
how do you fine the site
1111112222 12y ago
how do you fine the site?
lxoliva 12y ago
if you want to access it anonymously, beware. with cookies disabled, NoScript enabled and behind Tor, it asks me to prove I'm a trackable human with no less that Google recaptcha. WTF?
amarty72 12y ago
movie intrests are extorting theie viewers, the movie stars are buying million dollar mansions and are still gready for more
kayoone 12y ago
Be careful with torrents. For the first time in my life i just got sued for downloading a torrent. More specifically i was downloading an episode of a TV series that is only available in german in my country, but since i much prefer the original voices,i always resorted to just downloading it. I thought i was save, because it's just a TV show after all, also i was downloading a version not available here anyway, so i wouldn't impact any sales in my country. How wrong i was... You should really be careful with torrenting these days, in some countries at least. Maybe disabling upload altogether helps, but i wouldn't try it.
- path411 12y ago
  Just look into using a proxy or VPN.

238 points by jeena 12y ago

syoc 12y ago

http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-forever/ http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-foreve... I guess the golden calf is back.

nickthemagicman 12y ago

That makes me happy that people are still fighting authoritarian governments with their time instead of watching football. Panem et Circenses!

geekam 12y ago
I have become so cynical and scared that I usually do not even click on such websites and links. Can the US police arrest you to visit just the web page and search on it? I wonder how it is back? Aren't Sunde et. al. in jail for this?
- maxerickson 12y ago
  It's about as likely as police arresting you because they feel like it. Which I guess happens, but there is little that can be done personally to guard against it. (I'm trying to draw a distinction between actions that protect an individual and actions that encourage a fair society there, it's the protecting just yourself against corrupt police that isn't particularly possible)
  - jeffreyrogers 12y ago
    Yeah, there is a strange misconception on HN that the US legal system is totally broken and that everyone is out to get you. I don't think the data support this. Actually, I believe there is legal precedent that you can't be prosecuted for downloading something from a site like TPB, only from uploading to others (the reasoning is that when you upload you're a distributor).
    - geekam 12y ago
      > I believe there is legal precedent that you can't be prosecuted for downloading something from a site like TPB, only from uploading to others I did not know that's the case. Do you have a source to confirm this?
      - gpvos 12y ago
        This used to be the case in the Netherlands, until an EU directive overrode it. No idea about the US, sorry.
    - gizmo686 12y ago
      This is mostly true; it is perfectly legal to download copyrighted material. The crime is in distributing copyrighted material that you do not have any rights to. This means that I do not need to worry about if Hulu, Funimation, or whatever streaming service I am using is complying with the law and obtained the rights to stream their content. However, in the case of torrents you are also uploading the content, which is illegal; and I believe there is precedent that you can be charged (although I do not have a case handy).
      - zanny 12y ago
        So just go set upload speed to 0 and enjoy the 4k game of thrones?
        cdh 12y ago
        I'm not familiar with the specifics of the protocol, but your download speeds would be much slower without uploading. I believe that with BitTorrent, you are penalized/rewarded somehow for not uploading vs. uploading.
        zanny 12y ago
        Not really, trackers will impose restrictions on users based on seeding ratios, but if you just DHT a random torrent whoever gets bandwidth is more down to random luck than priority towards other seeders. There is just no protocol level mechanism that prioritizes seeding to someone with a higher upload - the choice of who to seed to is up mostly to the implementation.
- teamhappy 12y ago
  I don't think you need to worry about that. We live in a world where web browsers implement prefetching to improve overall performance, which means your browser "clicks" links for you in the background all the time. This may or may not end up looking like you visited the website yourself. I'm not sure if they're distinguishable, but you get the point. Aside from that, I don't think visiting The Pirate Bay is illegal in the first place, the same way that talking to a drug dealer isn't necessarily illegal either. Anyway, if you're still worried, I suggest you use the Tor Browser and stop worrying about these things all together. https://www.torproject.org/ https://www.torproject.org/ (no affiliation)
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    >I don't think visiting The Pirate Bay is illegal in the first place, the same way that talking to a drug dealer isn't necessarily illegal either. You'd think that, but stop and remember what the pirate bay actually does, again. They don't have copyrighted files. They used to but no longer keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files. All they have is descriptions of files and ID numbers. Plus comments and a search engine. So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it.
    - teamhappy 12y ago
      > They don't have copyrighted files. True. > They used to [...] keep track of the people that do have copyrighted files Did they get rid of their tracker? I don't know actually, but that's not important. Running a torrent tracker is considered very legal in most places (similar to running a Tor exit node or something like that). > Plus comments and a search engine. That's the tricky bit. > So while I'm pretty sure you won't get arrested for visiting today, I'm less confident the current law won't become stretched enough to cover it. I'd rather you wouldn't just say stuff like that. You're basically spreading FUD. There is no sane reason to believe anybody will ever be arrested (in western countries, that is) for visiting a site like TPB. Which law would you like to stretch in order to make that happen? Using their indexer is similar to getting a menu from your drug dealer. You haven't even attempted to do anything illegal yet. What you'd need is a law that allows you to arrest people for something they haven't even attempted to do (some people call that pre-crime). What happens in reality instead is governments blocking sites like TPB and that's the end of that.
- unicornporn 12y ago
  Sunde and the guys haven't been affiliated with the site for years and they just want to see it dead.
  - r3bl 12y ago
    I think that it is important to emphasize is that the reason why they want to see it dead is because they want the community to build something new and better instead of relying on an over 10 year old service. They want to see some innovation. Further reading (by Peter Sunde himself): [1] http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-forever/ http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-foreve... [2] http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/11/peter-sunde http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/11/peter-sunde
- hnnewguy 12y ago
  >Can the US police arrest you to visit just the web page and search on it? I'm going to sound like a paranoid nut (and I can assure you I'm not), but the reality is, if you get a target on your back the "US police" will find a way to arrest you[1]. This is the scary thing about mass data collection; they can concoct any story they want from the breadcrumbs of personal data. [1] a fun documentary about someone getting railroaded when the police needed a suspect: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/anthrax-files/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/anthrax-files/
StevePerkins 12y ago
I mostly just lurk on HN... but occasionally I wish I had the time to post more regularly. Just so I could build up enough karma points to have downvote privileges for stuff like this.
- henpa 12y ago
  Ditto, but on your post.
- skrebbel 12y ago
  Consider saying why you'd downvote this instead of bitching and maybe you'd actually get those karma points.
  - StevePerkins 12y ago
    There was a very active thread yesterday (400+ comments), titled "Cultivated Disinterest in Professional Sports" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8972179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8972179). TL;DR: The article was basically a critique of people like the parent commenter. In the thread that followed, I came down on the side of those who agreed with the article. So I would downvote parent for two reasons: (1) Attempting to twist a thread about the Pirate Bay into a thread about the Super Bowl and "'Murica" is pretentious in the extreme even without Latin, and (2) I disagree with the popular premise that downloading Game of Thrones and porn == "fighting authoritarian governments". I realize that this makes me a minority here, to the point of possibly being considered a troll for admitting it. Which is one reason why I don't bother posting more, which in turn is one reason why HN is so "hivemind-ish" on many subjects.
    - vezzy-fnord 12y ago
      I realize that this makes me a minority here, to the point of possibly being considered a troll for admitting it. You do come off as a troll, not so much because you oppose TPB, but because of the blatant straw man you use to characterize it. The main advantage that permissive torrent trackers carry is that they serve as vast cultural archives. No, consuming media is not necessary for survival, but should poverty condemn you to cultural illiteracy?
enqk 12y ago
Isn't more "Panem et Circenses" the practical result of something like the pirate bay? The large majority of the content there is entertainment of all forms produced by the high-class members of the powerful states.
- tomp 12y ago
  I understand "Panem et Circenses" as "let the authoritarians and libertarians fight each other, while I watch and enjoy the benefits of their fight".
geographomics 12y ago
Pirating movies, music, software and so on strikes me as a mostly selfish act, and only loosely related to being anti-government due to there being laws against stealing (in the copyright infringement sense). Also I don't really see the distinction between watching football, and watching whatever movie one has pirated via sites such as TPB.
- jMyles 12y ago
  The health of high-bandwidth, distributed systems of content delivery is a vital part of resisting censorship.
- genofon 12y ago
  and what about the injustice of governments (at least in Europe, don't know elsewhere) that make you pay extra-taxes on any digital support with the excuse that people use them to store pirated material. I'm pretty pissed off that I have to pay this tax despite storing only legitimate material, but not enough to do something directly. I cheer if someone else is fighting against the way the copyright industry works right now.
  - geographomics 12y ago
    The blank media levy may well be unfair, but I don't see how enabling or engaging in widespread piracy helps fight against that. It probably does the opposite, given the rationale behind such taxes.
  - tokenizerrr 12y ago
    Living in the Netherlands, I used to be fine with this. It used to be that you'd pay a bit extra for storage media, but that piracy was tolerated. Downloading, that is. But recently the government caved to EU influences and now downloading content is also enforced to be illegal, yet the storage media taxes remain.
  - sergiosgc 12y ago
    >... pay extra-taxes on any digital support with the excuse that people use them to store pirated material. That's not what the blank media levy is for. It is a compensation for the right copyright law gives you to copy works you bought in one format to a different format. Think buying conversion of an audio CD into mp3 for listening in your car. Not that the real justification makes sense, but please stop associating it with piracy: it is wrong and serves to perpetuate this levy.
aaronbrethorst 12y ago
It's funny you'd say that, seeing how NFL players, just last month, were protesting racial disparities in our policing system: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/07/nfl-i-cant-breathe_n_6285526.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/07/nfl-i-cant-breathe_...
Dan_Nguyen 12y ago
I never understood comments like this. Whoever said it's either/or? Watching a football game is about three hours out of your week, and that's only for 1/3 of the year when it actually is football season. Less than that if your team doesn't make it to the playoffs. I've spent a considerable amount of time volunteering in my past while being able to enjoy football all the same. The same can be said about any number of hobbies. Comments like this do nothing but create a false dichotomy.
anonbanker 12y ago
But now, you can fight your government WITH entertainment. Rome would've found this brilliant. But try telling the plebs that the revolution won't be a twitter hashtag. They won't listen.

colinbartlett 12y ago

Does not work for me here in Buenos Aires. Edit: Works with VPN via USA.

_lce0 12y ago
thepiratebay.se was blocked[1] at ISP-level by CAPIF request You can still access the site thru thepiratebay.vu 1: http://www.scribd.com/doc/232015119/CAPIF-CAMARA-ARG-DE-PRODUCTORES-DE-FONOGRAMAS-Y-OTROS-c-THE-PIRATE-BAY-s-MEDIDAS-PRECAUTORIAS http://www.scribd.com/doc/232015119/CAPIF-CAMARA-ARG-DE-PROD...
- sanbor 12y ago
  Works for me here in Buenos Aires without VPN. I'm using Google Public DNS https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/ https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/

jkaljundi 12y ago

Greetings to all the "Not available in your country" folks at major movie, TV and music companies. The Pirate Bay is what you should do.

vegedor 12y ago
How would that work? Release material only after a successful round of pledges? When it's legally on TPB, basically all copyrights had to be waived.
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jstalin 12y ago

The logo inspires me.

vidarh 12y ago
With the way it's styled, it reminds me of when Firefox was named Phoenix (though that Phoenix logo was very different)
w4rh4wk5 12y ago
looks to me like a typical phoenix "decal", made one[1] myself a few years ago which is quite similar to this one. [1]: http://www.bluephoenix.at/bp5/assets/gfx/logo.png http://www.bluephoenix.at/bp5/assets/gfx/logo.png

vidarh 12y ago

The most fascinating part of all this is that the shutdown have had the effect of spawning a large number of alternative sites. If the people going after TPB succeeded at anything, it is making the cost and effort to get rid of the now multiple Pirate Bays massively harder.

seanp2k2 12y ago
It's like they'll never learn from Suprnova, IsoHunt, OiNK, etc. All have replacements which are lots better than the original. The communities even stay somewhat together in some cases where there's a clear migration path from one just-shutdown site to another with the same ideology. The software also improves in an evolutionary response to law enforcement, so the effect they're actually driving is exactly the opposite of what they want. On the other hand, things like Spotify show that overwhelmingly, people would rather pay for awesome convenience vs even the minimal effort of something like Popcorn Time. It's been the same story for decades now, from ftp dumps and warez channels to Usenet and torrents to rapidshare and magnet links, they'll never succeed in stamping out piracy.
- dfc 12y ago
  I wish the same thing could be said for demonoid. I have yet to find a replacement for demonoid let alone a replacement that is a lot better.
  - tern 12y ago
    FWIW, it still exists: http://www.demonoid.pw/ http://www.demonoid.pw/. I missed it dearly at first, but I'm currently satisfied between The Pirate Bay, gen.lib.rus.ec, aaaaarg, Monoksop, UbuWeb, Internet Archive, are.na, what.cd, and Karagarga.
    - anonbanker 12y ago
      Relying as breadcrumbs for when I need to reference.

pierrec 12y ago

As of now there's still no article about the "incident" in their blog[1], but I'm sure there will be one soon. At first glance, users, comments, etc. appear to be working, though there aren't many new uploads yet. [1]: https://thepiratebay.se/blog https://thepiratebay.se/blog

azmenak 12y ago

I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be any more banner ads, or any tracking libraries. I wonder if TPB will continue like this.

somesay 12y ago
Having ads means you're acting commercially which is a very bad idea if you already in a semi-legal area. Besides from that it's far away from their initially spread ideology to make a lot of money or show porn ads. I mean TPB users always argue with not wanna seeing ads on DVDs and being enforced to anything and then their website is just unusable without ad blocker.

_lce0 12y ago

thepiratebay.se is blocked at ISP-level on my country, and we need to access using thepiratebay.vu are those the same site/mirror? do you see any difference?

Buge 12y ago
They're not the same. se does not have a facebook thing on the front page, it has more links on the bottom of the front page (including a login). Their logos are different. Search results are different (vu seems more up to date). se uses https.
sjustinas 12y ago
Looks different: tbp.se currently has a pheonix logo instead of the pirate ship. Tpb.vu is probably an independent mirror.

skrause 12y ago

It even supports IPv6.

finnn 12y ago
It uses CloudFlare, which is presumably added anything in the way of IPv6 and SSL

mstade 12y ago

Not sure if this is common knowledge, but I was told a few weeks ago from a friend with insight into the bust that TPB servers were located by law enforcement who analyzed clips from a documentary. Not sure if it was TBP AFK or some other video, but it doesn't matter. The point is that you shouldn't let any random ol' folks take footage of sensitive locations. You never know what'll end up happening.

atian 12y ago
I thought it was common knowledge that their servers were in a particular datacenter underground.
johansch 12y ago
That would literally be the most impressive thing performed by the swedish police the past year, if true :). Which would be kind of sad.
ta75757 12y ago
Can someone explain why you can't just use the IP address to track it down? I mean some ISP somewhere must control it, and they must know what physical link it's bound to, etc...
- charlysisto 12y ago
  yes, would love to have some comments on that too
- newaccountfool 12y ago
  I believe from what I have read, that they have multiple servers that all mirror each other all around the world in run of the mill hosting. They also have load balancers that are in places more secure, all that will be taken down is the load balancers.

codefisher 12y ago

I am in Europe (Italy) right now and before it was taken down thepiratebay.se was blocked. But now I can access it directly. Interesting.

thameera 12y ago
Maybe they had blocked the IP instead of the domain name? They surely have a different IP address now.
atmosx 12y ago
I wonder, in Italy blocked just the PB blocked or other torrent websites as well?
- bonif 12y ago
  This happens all the time, http://torrentfreak.com/tag/italy/ http://torrentfreak.com/tag/italy/
sanbor 12y ago
Same here! It was banned in Argentina and now I can access to it without problem. My guess is that they are using a new IP (pinging thepiratebay.se gives me the IP 104.28.5.42, which seems to be part of CloudFare network). I'm reading the legal order (http://www.scribd.com/doc/232031432/cnc-tpb-argentina-pdf http://www.scribd.com/doc/232031432/cnc-tpb-argentina-pdf) and they not only ask to ban IPs from 194.71.107.0 to 194.1.107.255, they also ask ISP DNS resolvers to ban thepiratebay.se (an related domains). Good thing I'm not using my ISP DNS :)
Sami_Lehtinen 12y ago
Still blocked in Finland. Tested using two major ISPs.
mcjiggerlog 12y ago
Same here in the UK. Looks like before my ISP had blocked the specific IPs AND the domain at the DNS level. Obviously now TPB is using a different IP, so if you use Google's DNS servers instead of your ISP's then you should be able to access the site just fine.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Nice logo.

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jusstthisguy 12y ago

Honeypot, anyone?

Karunamon 12y ago
No need, honestly. Clicking a link on TPB isn't against any laws that I'm aware of. If you want to nail someone for infringement, you watch them on the swarm, not the site.
- navait 12y ago
  Well, what's someone going to use the site for other than getting the torrent files?
  - hayksaakian 12y ago
    maybe i just want to know what's popular so i can watch it on netflix/etc? no better metric for popularity than seeders/peers
    - click170 12y ago
      Netflix actually watches/watched torrents for popularity and based some of their decision making on it. http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/netflix-uses-torrent-sites-to-decide-which-shows-to-pick-up-next-1181157 http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/netflix-uses-torr...
  - totony 12y ago
    Not all torrent files are illegal
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task_queue 12y ago
Why run a tracker when the operator makes for a nice "organized cybercrime mastermind" to nail after you extort and put away seeders?

1111112222 12y ago

how do you fine the site

1111112222 12y ago

how do you fine the site?

lxoliva 12y ago

if you want to access it anonymously, beware. with cookies disabled, NoScript enabled and behind Tor, it asks me to prove I'm a trackable human with no less that Google recaptcha. WTF?

amarty72 12y ago

movie intrests are extorting theie viewers, the movie stars are buying million dollar mansions and are still gready for more

kayoone 12y ago

Be careful with torrents. For the first time in my life i just got sued for downloading a torrent. More specifically i was downloading an episode of a TV series that is only available in german in my country, but since i much prefer the original voices,i always resorted to just downloading it. I thought i was save, because it's just a TV show after all, also i was downloading a version not available here anyway, so i wouldn't impact any sales in my country. How wrong i was... You should really be careful with torrenting these days, in some countries at least. Maybe disabling upload altogether helps, but i wouldn't try it.

path411 12y ago
Just look into using a proxy or VPN.