The Pirate Bay Now Works On Many UK ISPs

The Torrent news site TorrentFreak is reporting that The Pirate Bay is now available on ISPs that had previously blocked it. The reason, according to the site is a combination of two factors.

The first of which is the switch to Cloudflare for hosting. This was a controversial move, because many thought using a US host to handle The Pirate Bay amounted to the whole thing being a sting operation by the FBI.

The second, and more crucial, factor is the move to a secure server with a valid certificate. This, in combination with using a flag "https strict" means that the information your ISP uses to block secure sites isn't available to them, so it simply fails.

It's quite unlikely your ISP really cares all that much about you using The Pirate Bay. They are not, after all, liable for what you do. Virgin simply maintains that it conforms to any court orders as required. This is reasonable enough, the argument against ISP blocking must be leveled at the British courts, who are bowing to the will of the entertainment industry.

For now though, it seems like there might not be all that much anyone can do about this. It's worth remembering though that when you get to The Pirate Bay, anything you download which is protected by copyright law can be monitored and letters sent to your ISP asking for your details.

:story: PC Magazine