Torrentfreak blocked, Sky on blocking spree

Seems like Sky is on a website blocking spree at the moment. The latest website to get the chop by Sky is torrentfreak, a news site.

Seems unlikely, but does anyone know if this is the subject of a court order?

Tracing route to torrentfreak.com [85.195.84.42]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms SkyRouter.Home [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 28 ms 31 ms 34 ms ip-84-38-37-34.easynet.co.uk [84.38.37.34]
4 26 ms 24 ms 25 ms ip-89-200-134-174.ov.easynet.net [89.200.134.174]
5 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms out0.pi0.bllon.isp.sky.com [90.223.205.130]
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.

http://thenextweb.com/uk/2013/06/03/sky-broadband-qu...

In reply to a post by shaneosborne:

http://thenextweb.com/uk/2013/06/03/sky-broadband-qu...

It's not a torrent site proxy, it's a news website.

Contact them and try and find out if it is being intentionally blocked or not, And you should also ask for comphensation as your access is being blocked to legal web sites therefore you aren't receiving the service you are paying for

This will be all too comon place if dim wit's camercon and co get their way with there walled garden for everyone ideas, it's time people stood upto government and told them no

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 08-Aug-13 12:04:59)

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Contact them and try and find out if it is being intentionally blocked or not

This is done regularly on the official forum. Typically it takes a tedious amount of prodding for a few days before a proper answer is given, usually ending up in the site being unblocked after a couple of weeks.

It's unacceptable that this happens at all, though.

Their filtering has always been clumsy to say the least, they would be frequently blocking file hosts in the name of the IWF, because they couldn't block only the links to the offending content as per IWF's url blocklists that i think always has been a draw back their broken filtering systems that they refuse to update or sort out

Yeah. Blocking a high profile, legitimate site such as Torrentfreak should attract Sky some heat.

Hopefully ,torentfreak are aware BTW

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Hopefully ,torentfreak are aware BTW

Perhaps someone not on Sky can tell them!

Edit: you mean they are aware?

Edited by Oliver341 (Thu 08-Aug-13 12:40:05)

Doesn't seem to be blocked for me... Is it still blocked your end?

In reply to a post by shaneosborne:

Doesn't seem to be blocked for me... Is it still blocked your end?

Nope, unblocked as of now. I'm guessing Sky wanted to avoid that can of worms asap.

"the service you are paying for"

Is access to the internet in general, NOT access to specific sites. More rubbish!

You seem to hate O2/Be and now slagging off Sky.

Edited by broadband66 (Thu 08-Aug-13 12:58:05)

No we all pay for internet access, that is suposed to mean access to all legal web sites and that are not part of a court order, what they are providing is a limited access (walled garden)internet conection, therefore the services provided are not as described ,
so a refund or part refund is due, this is i think a good stratergy for customers if this proposed censorship that the tories see as an election winner ever get's implemented, because there will be lots of sites like torrentfreak getting blocked intentionally or otherwise as a result , but if ISP's are forced to pay out each time they get it wrong maybe they will take more care as to how they implement filtering of sites, or maybe they will announce that they only want to provide a full uncensored internet service, basically telling camercon to take a long walk of a short pier at low water

I haven't read the Sky contract - I am assuming you have and can confirm that there are no potential terms in there that would allow them to block sites as they see fit?

Net neutrality as far as I am aware doesn't exist yet (at least enshrined in law) and as long as an ISP includes in their contract/Ts&Cs that they may block access to some things then you would have agreed to that on signup.

Saying what it is supposed to mean is irrelevant if the contract says otherwise unless you can take them to court and get a net neutrality clause enshrined in case law (which then presumably would also have to be signed off by Parliament - the same Parliament that are potentially looking at blocking more sites).

Customers don't need to take their isp to court, they make threats to leave and see what they do then, if still no refund carry out the threat and leave them ,ad go to an isp who doesn't block half of the interenet I think most isp's don't give any info regarding blocking apart from making reference that they subscibe to the IWF and will block websites if they are required to block as per court order, in which case they shouldn't be blocking legit web sites and if they do it could represent a breech of contract maybe

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 08-Aug-13 13:35:29)

Unfortunatly this is a problem which we will all have to get use to...

only if the people voters accept this nonsense from government who have no clue about anything apart from how they can line their own pockets (noses firmly in the trough) we can stop things like this we are said to live in a democratic society , but no it's a case of well that web site being blocked bothers me non i never use it, ect ect, but if you sleepwalk into this censorship plan it one day could be your own web site that gets blocked for no good reason and if youre a buisness think of all the lost trade . or it maybe a news web site that gets blocked because camercon doesn't want you to know the truth about something that may affect how many votes he gets at the next election (which he ain't going to win)

You specifically state earlier forcing ISPs to pay out. The only way I know of to do that is legal action - they aren't going to pay our regularly to users without something legally binding making them do it.

If people left them in their droves then they would stand to loose more than if they refunded part of the monthly subs, enough to cover the cost of a cheap VPN would sufice i'm sure, And it wouldn't take long before they stopped blocking incorrectly

Edited by tommy45 (Thu 08-Aug-13 15:37:54)

I fully agree, we shouldn't have to put up with it but the problem with the people of this country is that they do nothing... We rant and race but don't stick to our guns. Of course a few will stand ground but not enough unfortunatly....

Torrentfreak blocked again as of 14:47

Tracing route to torrentfreak.com [85.195.84.42]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms SkyRouter.Home [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 29 ms 31 ms 31 ms ip-84-38-37-34.easynet.co.uk [84.38.37.34]
4 63 ms 53 ms 50 ms ip-89-200-134-174.ov.easynet.net [89.200.134.174]
5 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms out0.pi0.bllon.isp.sky.com [90.223.205.130]
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.

Yup! Same here.....

Presumably you know how to access the TF site Oliver?

There is an explanation as to why this is happening on the site with the finger being pointed at EZTV changing DNS entries.

Reply from Sky...

We would only block access to a particular website if it was subject of a court order...

Try the following to rule out an issue with your local DNS cache as the fact not everyone is having the same issue suggests something rather more local to you.

Press the Windows key and R
Type cmd and click OK
At the prompt type ipconfig /flushdns and press enter
Windows should confirm the cache has been flushed.
Close and reopen the browser
When you request the site Windows will query the Sky DNS resolvers rather than relying on its own cache.

Mac

Access Terminal using Spotlight
At the prompt type dscacheutil -flushcache and press enter
Try the site again.

The fact packets are dropped at a certain point in the traceroute doesn't automatically mean it's blocked, it probably just means the router or firewall is set to drop ICMP Echo request packets or simply not respond which means a bot running a port scan may just move on.

No , but googling the IP 90.223.205.130 Results show Sky blocking other web sites,

It's definitely not a DNS cache problem, as the site cannot be accessed (by anyone using Sky as their ISP) by its IP address either. Because Sky have blackholed it.

Edited by deleted (Fri 09-Aug-13 17:43:11)

Extract from TorrentFreak website

...it appears that Sky�s filtering system blocks any and all IP-addresses that EZTV adds to their DNS. This essentially means that EZTV, or any other blocked site, has the power to render entire websites inaccessible to Sky subscribers. Luckily we were the target and not Google...

Update: Sky isn�t in a hurry to fix the flaw, but EZTV said it will remove the TorrentFreak IP address from its DNS so the site should be accessible again soon.

But it is only able to effect sky customers due to how they filter web sites such as eztv ,or should we say how sky's broken filtering works

Fair enough, just a suggestion.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

But it is only able to effect sky customers due to how they filter web sites such as eztv ,or should we say how sky's broken filtering works

In that case, can someone persuade eztv to add Sky.com to their DNS

In reply to a post by IanBB:

Extract from TorrentFreak website

...it appears that Sky�s filtering system blocks any and all IP-addresses that EZTV adds to their DNS. This essentially means that EZTV, or any other blocked site, has the power to render entire websites inaccessible to Sky subscribers. Luckily we were the target and not Google...

Update: Sky isn�t in a hurry to fix the flaw, but EZTV said it will remove the TorrentFreak IP address from its DNS so the site should be accessible again soon.

Thanks for that. Interesting that Sky have given blacklisted sites power to block any site they want for Sky users.

And in case EZTV are reading this, the IP addresses for www.sky.com are 176.255.202.50 and 176.255.202.67

Just saying...

http://torrentfreak.com/skys-court-ordered-piracy-fi...
The beauty of anything driven by software, is that there is always a way in!
https://immunicity.org/getstarted

Edited by professor973 (Sat 10-Aug-13 16:21:35)

As highlighted in the BE forum, radiotimes.com has now got the blocking treatment:

Tracing route to radiotimes.com [96.45.82.132]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms SkyRouter.Home [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 31 ms 31 ms 35 ms ip-84-38-37-34.easynet.co.uk [84.38.37.34]
4 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms ip-89-200-134-174.ov.easynet.net [89.200.134.174]
5 26 ms 27 ms 25 ms out0.pi0.bllon.isp.sky.com [90.223.205.130]
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 * * * Request timed out.

thats funny, but does show how bad these filtering systems can be.

there tends to be a priority of blocking the bad boys over avoiding false positives.

This block has also knocked out the non-www versions of several Football League websites, including:

http://readingfc.co.uk
http://brentfordfc.co.uk
http://cpfc.co.uk
http://seagulls.co.uk

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

This block has also knocked out the non-www versions of several Football League websites, including:

http://readingfc.co.uk
http://brentfordfc.co.uk
http://cpfc.co.uk
http://seagulls.co.uk

These are not blocked to me and I'm on Sky Fibre

Users who are blocked from using certain websites may find this link interesting.
immunicity.org

A Novel way to use the true web!

Edit: professor973 beat me to it, lol

Edited by majika2007 (Sun 25-Aug-13 15:43:27)

especially the way I see it been spammed everywhere.

In reply to a post by Nervous:

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

This block has also knocked out the non-www versions of several Football League websites, including:

http://readingfc.co.uk
http://brentfordfc.co.uk
http://cpfc.co.uk
http://seagulls.co.uk

These are not blocked to me and I'm on Sky Fibre

It has been 17 days since I started the thread, and those domains have since been unblocked.

Also, Sky have switched to URL blocking now rather than IP address blocking, probably largely as a result of this type of incident.

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband-Setup-Connecti...

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

especially the way I see it been spammed everywhere.

I agree.. I'm guilty as charged. This is not something which I often do.

If it were to go down twenty more would pop up. A simple whack-a-mole situation !!

there is already 20+ such services, even using a basic proxy evades the blocking and proxies have been around for eternity.

even using a basic proxy evades the blocking and proxies have been around for eternity.

Sure, but router based implementations which specifically aim at censorship?

Anyway, here is a router based implementation of Immunicity Proxy PAC by-pass.

It is based on top of Merlin Firmware. IMO Merlin has produced an excellent custom F/W.

My SmallNetBuilders Post for this method can be found here

This has been tested on Asus rt-n66u and also in conjunction with DNSCrypt via Entware package setup.
It's very interesting to see what the Asus WRT based devices are capable of in terms of customisation and functionality..

Helpful reading can also be found on Merlins Github Wiki

Edited by majika2007 (Sat 31-Aug-13 12:11:07)