91–100 of 301 posts
This makes me upset. Its upsetting because while yes, information freedom is a very important topic and needs to happen, but it does not trump human freedom. I'm not sure if this is a straw man or not - but how can they justify working with an entity that has such a horrid human rights record?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but how can they justify working with an entity that has such a horrid human rights record? As pointed out yesterday on the Bradley Manning discussion, the US is starting to get to the point where it can't credibly criticize other countries for their human rights abuses, given what goes on in this country. I don't want this to turn into a discussion of whether the US is worse than North Korea, but both have abused…
Wow. I'm happy to turn this into a discussion. North Korea has it worse. There is no way in hell, you are going to convince me that the US is a bigger domestic human rights violator.
Good, because the grand-parent wasn't trying to.
Isn't it one month early for April fools? Oh wait... Seriously this is mind boggling! I can't believe it has come to that!
I guess that's the modern difference between "rogue" and "first world" as far as censorship goes. The former block because of threats to the political regime. The latter because of threats to corporate profits.
So North Korea will now have access to the entire Western World's culture catalog? For Free?! I wonder how Kim Jong Un will exploit that.
And now anyone who downloads a torrent from TPB has potentially been compromised? Or is that alarmist?
So. A traceroute to thepiratebay.se is kind of amusing. From my home (Sweden), the packets seem to go to Frankfurt, then New York, take a link via an ip which reverses to intelsatone.net to a cambodgian ip (500ms latency right here), then reach the ip 175.45.177.217, assigned to Star Joint Venture Co Ltd. Who seem to be a legitimate North Korea internet provider (or, well, as legitimate as it gets, coming from North…
... 2914 39138 22351 131279 51040
... [NTT America/ARIN] [rrbone/RIPE] [Intelsat/ARIN] [STAR JOINT VENTURE/APNIC] [The Pirate Bay/RIPE]
Apart from that /24, STAR JOINT VENTURE only advertises 175.45.176.0/22 (albeit as four /24, idiotically enough). What's kind of interesting is that this /22 is visible with a much shorter AS path:
... 3257 4837 131279
... [Tinet/RIPE] [China Netcom/APNIC] [STAR JOINT VENTURE/APNIC]
The question is: Is is deliberate that the Chinese don't allow transit of the Pirate Bay /24 through their network? (As opposed to Intelsat, a Washington-based American company.)
So. A traceroute to thepiratebay.se is kind of amusing. From my home (Sweden), the packets seem to go to Frankfurt, then New York, take a link via an ip which reverses to intelsatone.net to a cambodgian ip (500ms latency right here), then reach the ip 175.45.177.217, assigned to Star Joint Venture Co Ltd. Who seem to be a legitimate North Korea internet provider (or, well, as legitimate as it gets, coming from North…
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the ICMP responses are forged - It seems disadvantageous for the site to have such a long path, since each hop has the potential for attack. http://www.thoughtcrime.org/software/fakeroute/ can be seen as previous work that it is practical to do something like this.
Altering routing companies sending traffic through in bulk from Germany-NY-Satellite is far more difficult, but we may see them do this anyway. Time will tell.
Holy Crap. This is... unprecedented. So North Korea will now have access to the entire Western World's culture catalog? For Free?! I wonder how Kim Jong Un will exploit that. And now anyone who downloads a torrent from TPB has potentially been compromised? Or is that alarmist?
Understand the difference between the torrent file and the actual data and all shall be revealed.
This is a pretty interesting bit of gamesmanship. In a single stroke it ties together what is perhaps the greatest threat to global stability today (PRK) and where is perhaps the most ridiculous non-threat to global stability (pirated movies) and sets them as equals. By doing that, it illustrates just how ridiculous the current copyright situation is. Nicely played Piratebay, nicely played.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They acknowledge the irony in their own post - the only way that they can promote freedom of speech is by forming a partnership with the least free country in the world, not by forming an alliance with the supposedly 'free' countries in Western Europe/North America. In other words, the Western countries' belief in 'freedom of speech' is starting to seem as shallow as the word 'Democratic' in the 'Democratic People's…
Piracy is not freedom of speech. It is the copying and syndication of the intellectual works of others. I suspect more HNers would be upset about piracy, if they weren't using SaaS business models which are not as vulnerable to it. It's really easy to brush off the fact that hundreds of people worked to make that movie you downloaded for free, especially when you never have to look any one of them in the eye. These d…
Of course it is. It's the free exchange of information. If you don't support piracy you don't support absolute free speech.
For the record, I do not support absolute free unrestricted speech as it applies to exchange of (for instance) child pornography. I am happy to admit this.