Privacy News Steam Bans All Links to TorrentFreak News as “Potentially Malicious”

upnorth

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Jul 27, 2015
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Steam users who want to keep up with the latest news in the file-sharing, copyright, and game cheating lawsuit arenas are not currently free to do so via Steam. For reasons best known to the gaming platform, all links to TorrentFreak.com news articles posted by users are banned by the platform and wrongfully labeled as "potentially malicious".

Once upon a time, Internet users were free to look at whatever content they liked. There was an almost complete absence of intervention from third-parties, which was mostly a good thing. However, after the number of Internet users rocketed, more threats began to emerge. Viruses and other types of malware became pervasive, aiming to abuse users’ computers in various ways, from creating botnets to simple vandalism. As a result, the security market has boomed. Barely a week goes by without some website or piece of software triggering an alert on a machine protected by good anti-virus and anti-malware tools. They don’t always get it right but most interventions are welcomed when the intention is to keep us safe. On top, however, Internet users are finding online resources censored. Nation states sometimes decide what citizens can and cannot read, while corporate firewall products and network routers often act as over-protective nannies, blocking content based on non-transparent, non-public rules.

Here at TorrentFreak we’re used to censorship. Every few months we’re contacted by readers trying to access our news articles on public WiFi, only to find that the site is blocked alongside various warnings, none of which are true. It’s almost as if the word ‘torrent’ in our URL has been blindly blacklisted for some reason. Sadly, this week we’ve discovered that Steam, the popular digital game distribution and social networking platform, has jumped on the “let’s censor TorrentFreak” bandwaggon. A tip from a TF reader and Steam user highlighted the problems he’d experienced when trying to read TF articles via Steam’s chat interface.
 
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Eddie Morra

All you should have to do is shorten the URL with any free online URL shortening service and then send over the shortened URL via chat to a friend. They'll then be able to access the news website through the link because it'll redirect in-browser. I really doubt Steam has a system to scan the true URL for shortened URLs as well and includes that with URL blocking, but if this is indeed the case, then hmmm.... interesting.
 
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Local Host

All you should have to do is shorten the URL with any free online URL shortening service and then send over the shortened URL via chat to a friend. They'll then be able to access the news website through the link because it'll redirect in-browser. I really doubt Steam has a system to scan the true URL for shortened URLs as well and includes that with URL blocking, but if this is indeed the case, then hmmm.... interesting.
Steam hasn't allowed any shorten links for years now, exactly to avoid people from exploiting the system and sending blocked URLs.
 
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Eddie Morra

Steam hasn't allowed any shorten links for years now, exactly to avoid people from exploiting the system and sending blocked URLs.
Thanks for letting me now. I didn't think they would block shortened URLs... makes sense though.

Well, I guess you could always put the original link but break it up with spaces... or do they also try and block this?

What about a Pastebin with the real link within, or do they block that too? LOL
 
L

Local Host

Thanks for letting me now. I didn't think they would block shortened URLs... makes sense though.

Well, I guess you could always put the original link but break it up with spaces... or do they also try and block this?

What about a Pastebin with the real link within, or do they block that too? LOL
It blocks links with spaces too, even without the http:// it gets blocked.
I don't know about pastebin at the moment, but in the past it used to work (although it was a chore to send links that way).
There are ways to bypass the blocks (sending the blocked link directly), but people would still fail to open the link directly, as steam would block the connection saying it's a malicious link.
 

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