Comments:Australian Federal Court orders ISPs to block copyright infringing sites

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Hey,

Of course those websites do offer a lot of illegal pirated copies and hacking work, sometimes even really bad pornography. But I, for example, have got very bad internet connection and Torrent downloads for freeware (non-pirated) software are a true blessing.

Also, talking effectiveness, it will just make it harder for people like me to access those sites, you can't remove a website like that. If you do it, then do it properly, and I bet they do not have the resources to do that, like it was done with other websites from which only old backups exist on the internet atm. I think it's good that they try to make sure that the internet becomes a fair marketplace, but if I would want to access illegal copies I could still do that, there are millions of huge websites which offer them, not that I would ever download a pirated copy of anything unless it's freeware anyways. I don't think that this will have any big effect, only good ol' grandma can't download her pirated copy of MW3 anymore. For anyone who has the time and the understanding to make a few searches on google, duckduckgo, bing (as if) or whatever else there is no real blockage possible.

The best example for that is WikiLeaks, which has gone a long way of literally bering raided by the US and pretty much every big company on earth; but guess what's still accessible, even trough a simple google search; WikiLeaks. Of course, for example KickAssTorrents has been downed, but even then, there are still copies of the whole website online, not that I would visit those, they're probably infected with all kinds of malware, maybe even AIDS, man, who knows.

I know it does not really come across like it, but I'm being serious. I think that blocking these Websites is b******t. Not only because I am using those more or less legally to improve download speed, but also because it does nothing really.

Have a nice day and stay warm everyone!

I wonder if anybody has published research yet into the effectiveness of these blocks? We've been doing it in the UK for a little while now, but bypassing them is trivial. Site mirrors are everywhere, and the technologically adept (i.e. not me) can always use VPNs. That doesn't mean people will, however; some will give up remarkably easily, just as some will go to remarkable lengths to carry on as normal. I'm left deeply dissatisfied with the numbers game; how many are actually deterred?

Yes, siphoning might help the "leeches" to access the content. Let's ask editors from Australia about the situation.

I believe that even if in the short term these blocks will be effective, the internet will find a way to route around them.

Remember that the first file sharing technologies didn't rely on web sites and where not susceptible to such blocks. I expect that if push really comes to shove, we'd see something like that (only much better) come back, and torrents on the web will remain the exclusive domain of Linux distributions.