The Pirate Bay Pledges ISPs to Block Sweden
Written by Ernesto on June 22, 2008In an response to the new wiretapping law that was introduced in Sweden this week, The Pirate Bay will ask international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden, to protect their customers. In addition, the BitTorrent tracker will add SSL encryption to their site, and roll out a new VPN service.
Earlier this week, Swedish parliament had voted in favor of a new “wiretapping” law which invades the privacy of its citizens by allowing the government to monitor Internet traffic and phone calls, without the need for court orders.
Before the law was passed, The Pirate Bay crew spoke out against it, and now they are upping the ante. In an initial response they went out putting “wanted posters” up, of politicians who voted in favor of the law. Their next move is to ask international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden, according to Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.
“Together with other people that work against this law we’ve talked about asking international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden,” Peter writes on his blog. “Yes, that’s right! We want Sweden to be banned from the Internet. The ISPs need to block Sweden in order to protect their own customers integrity since everything they do on Swedish ISPs networks will be logged and searched.”
That is not all though. In addition to these lobbying efforts The Pirate bay will also add SSL encryption to their site, and they will inform their users on how to protect their privacy. For Swedes they already have a VPN solution up and running, which they will open up to international users in the near future.
“We’re going to help out in any way we can with fighting the law,” Peter writes. “This week we’re going to add SSL to The Pirate Bay. We’re also going to help out making a website about easy encryption - both for your harddrives and your net traffic.”
It’s good to see that The Pirate Bay team will not give up their privacy as easy as some of the politicians. “Trust me, this war is not lost,” Peter told TorrentFreak. “We will win. We have many aces up our sleeves and we’re gonna use them. No worries.”
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81 Responses
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Fuck yeah!
A VPN service?!?!?
This is a group I would actually trust with my traffic…
TPB FTW!
It’s probably not going to work, though, right? I mean, it’s not in the ISPs’ interests in any way to block a country… especially one with as good a backbone as Sweden…
Am I missing something?
Yeah, ISPs could care less about their customers, Swedish or not. If they block access, they start losing money. So why would they? TPB better pull off those other “aces up their sleeves” quick.
they should start blocking traffic from sweden. also doing it themselves… shit
The Pirate Bay is truly king.
Where others would drop out, they keep fighting.
Go Pirate Bay!
well there will be legal implications regarding privacy if ISPs allow traffic through Sweden thereby subjecting it unsolicited scrutiny.
However, there are already many ways of encrypting your BT/P2P traffic such that the Swedes wouldn’t be able to do anything with it anyway. Just enabling encryption on most BT clients would be a good start (azureus offers several different types of encryption). But alternatively you could use something like ants or mute which are very secure, or alternatively route all your BT traffic through ToR or something similar.
Even if TPB did nothing in response to this law then Swedes would have lots of options left. Obviously the best solution is to seriously punish the govt by getting foreign ISPs on their side, a TPB is doing. Good for them!
that ace “ISPs need to block Sweden” is not the answer, if nobody blocks China why they should block Sweden!?
Why would traffic to Sweden be blocked? That’s ridiculous and probably illegal.
Oh well, cheers to TPB. I respect them a lot.
There’s no doubt that TPB are spearheading the fight against these injustices against file-sharing, however I can’t help thinking they are the underdogs here.
GO TPB GO ! ! !
We count on you guys :-)
Kick some arse :))))))))
it’s not ridiculous I find it to be quite smart… if sweden gets banned from the intertubes all the politicians will quickly review their vote… :)
I don’t think he meant it in a literal way, I’m pretty sure it’s just making a statement to draw attention to the issue. Even if there *were* legal implications, ISPs wouldn’t do anything about it. After all, it’s The Pirate Bay complaining to ISPs about the legality of some law. I don’t think that clicks with most ISPs.
Just my 2 cents.
I agree with donkey. The foreign ISP’s will know within a few weeks at most the block would be lifted (causing little loss in revenue if any at all) once the Sweedish pollitians retract the law. The ISP’s are at risk aswell Sweedish surfers as any of their customers commiting crimes through the Sweedish network could land them as liable.
If we could only have a TPB in every country …. no more twat politician would be able to open his/her filthy mouth!
RESPECT!
Well, i dont think it is the ISP’s interest, but the customers. You see, if sweden starts spying on us, we could always take action against it. But then again, in america, where they already do illegal spying, things would probably work hand in hand. The lobbyists here would probably send data to the lobbyists over there and make a hole ring of gay lobbyists.
Just shows the power of those damn copyrights… Those useless fucking copyrights….
@ 6
“there are already many ways of encrypting your BT/P2P traffic such that the Swedes wouldn’t be able to do anything with it anyway. Just enabling encryption on most BT clients would be a good start”
The ‘Swedes’ (or anyone else logged on to your swarm) can still see what you are uploading/downloading and your IP address with this method. Quite what they would want with the encrypted data I don’t know, unless they want all those 24 episodes for themselves?
^^ @ 7 not 6
@16:
This is true, however there’s a hell of a difference between proving that someone is dling a file by dling the same file, and being able to see, all the time, exactly who the person is communicating with, and exactly what they are sending/receiving…
so, when it’s copyright stuff, they say that “oh sweden doesn’t have laws that apply.” but, even when there are laws that apply, pb doesn’t give a shit? good luck when the cops come knocking on their door this time.
Though I would miss the bay, it would make sense. The problem is that is exactly what the mafiaa would love to see. Can’t shut down the bay? Try invoking terrorism/national security and dissolve all personal privacy, that’ll solve it. It’s been said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but it’s useless if the enemy/government does not give a damn about what the population says.
Hard to believe someone passed up dubya in terms of invasive big brother tactics against their citizens.
any clue as to what this is going to cost?
As #7 said, sending traffic through Sweden with this law, will probably breech the Data Protection Acts of many countries, meaning sending traffic into Sweden would be illegal.
Yeh it costs $6.50 per month atm. But I imagine that will change when they open it up to the rest of the world
Well, banning theirselves from the internet is a quite “last resort” style action, but when hearing about SSL and VPN my Pirate heart beats even faster…
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