TorrentReactor Launches Proxy to Circumvent Torrent Site Censorship

[nsane.forums]

TorrentReactor is making a stand against the increasing censorship efforts targeted at BitTorrent sites. Less than two days after an Italian court ordered local ISPs to censor the popular torrent site, they have launched a free proxy to circumvent the blockade. The proxy, operating from the fitting domain “come.in,” works not only with TorrentReactor, but also with The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents and Torrents.net.

This week an Italian court ordered all Internet providers to block access to the domain names and IP-addresses of both TorrentReactor.net and Torrents.net

The verdict follows a police investigation that was initiated after complaints by the local music industry. Previously, courts had already ordered similar blockades against The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents.

The TorrentReactor team are not amused by the blockade and have quickly taken action to allow their Italian users to regain access to the site.

“It is really sad to see authorities intervene with the free and open internet. Pressure from media conglomerates is not doing any good and people should definitely defend their rights and freedoms,” the TorrentReactor team tells TorrentFreak.

Over the past 24 hours the site’s operators have worked hard to get a proxy service operational and it eventually went live a few hours ago. The proxy site “Come.in” allows people to access TorrentReactor when it’s blocked, and it also works with the three other BitTorrent sites that are currently censored in Italy.

TorrentReactor is one of the most popular torrent sites in the country. According to the Italian prosecution 600,000 locals visit TorrentReactor each month, generating 4 millions page views. In total 14% of the site’s users come from Italy.

For the time being these users can still reach the site through Come.in and other proxies, but the TorrentReactor crew is encouraging the public to speak out against such censorship efforts.

“When a ruling like this is made the public should oppose it and have their voice heard. We hope those in Italy and other countries can stand up and change the situation for the better,” they say.

The music industry won’t be very happy with TorrentReactor’s move, and they are likely to ask for an injunction against Come.in as well. The same happened last year when the authorities shut down the general purpose proxy site proxyitalia.com, because it allowed Italians to access The Pirate Bay

And so the whack-a-mole continues…

View: Original Article

[Devinliabox]

Excellent news :D

[Shadowx]

S**t just got real

[DKT27]

They will block it too. Simple.

Reason? Linking to blocked site.

[nIGHT]

Instead of fighting in courts, why not the italians revolt against these oppressors! hehe!

[shought]

They will block it too. Simple.

Reason? Linking to blocked site.

Blocking proxies is a slippery slope though:

everyone can understand a (reverse) proxy which only leads to one source: a blocked website should be blocked (if it is legal to block the website, so is blocking this proxy). But what if a proxy lead to two sources: a blocked website and a non-blocked website? One could argue that 50% of the proxy is still illegal, so it has to be blocked.

Now what if a proxy leads to 2.000.000 sources of which one is blocked? Could you reasonably argue that this proxy should be blocked? I would say you can't and exactly because of this (you can't put a reasonable number or definition on when a proxy is illegal (except for when it links to just one website)) proxies should not be blocked.

Reverse proxies are an exception to this rule, obviously.