TorrentFreak is Blocked as a Pirate Site and Hacking Resource

[upnorth]

Content source

https://torrentfreak.com/torrentfreak-is-blocked-as-a-pirate-site-and-hacking-resource-180825/

From Australia to Sweden, all around the world courts have ordered ISPs to block access to pirate sites. This usually happens after a careful review by a judge, who weighs the arguments from copyright holders and Internet providers before a final decision is made. That’s a fair process. However, these court-ordered blockades are only the tip of the iceberg. Much more common are private blocking efforts where local WiFi providers use broad blocklists to shield people from visiting dangerous sites, including the one you’re on now. This problem is not new but the lack of improvement has become increasingly frustrating. Earlier this month a reader informed us that he was unable to read our news while staying at a Premier Inn in Croydon. Apparently, the hotel’s Virgin WiFi network banned us for our “Criminal Skills/Hacking, News.”

This is no temporary or local mistake. In recent months we’ve received several reports of similar Virgin WiFi blockades, including from our colleagues at ISPreview. They ran into the same TorrentFreak blockade while conducting a study of WiFi performance in UK hotels. And it’s not just Virgin that’s doing the blocking here. This week another reader alerted us that he was unable to access TorrentFreak on a GovWifi connection. This network is used by many government institutions and managed by the Government Digital Service. Apparently, they, or their blocklist provider, has classified our news site in the “Piracy and Copyright infringement” category, and accessing it would be a violation of the acceptable use policy.

 

[jogs]

 

[Brie]

try opera browser. use the VPN.

 

[TairikuOkami]

They usually pick DNS filter to block those (like UK blocking 18+), so no problem there, unless some ISP is more conscious. Neustar is the same.

 

[Arequire]

For some context, the warning displayed only appears when you have Virgin Media's Child Safe parental controls turned on, which looks like this:


These are the categories and their descriptions:

The categories on the right are automatically blocked (with no ability to deactivate them) and the categories on the left are optional filters that can be activated/deactivated at will.

These parental controls can be turned off via your Virgin Media account here:
Virgin Media | Sign in to My Virgin Media
You can also activate/deactivate their Virus Safe malicious site protection here too.

 

[Moonhorse]

Well torrentfreak isnt blocked for me, just the proxies/p2p sites that actually have illegal content

TorrentFreak ⋆ Breaking File-sharing, Copyright and Privacy News

risk rating : 0

 

[Atlas147]

Technically true that their site is full of "hacking news" but I don't see how that would be harmful? It's good to know what's going on around the world, if torrentfreak is blocked then shouldn't blogs from AVs be blocked too since they are also of "hacking news"?

 

[Windows Defender Shill]

The only thing copyright should protect is the ability to profit from.