Non-Transparency Resumed After Pirate Site Blacklist Publicly Exposed in Error * TorrentFreak
torrentfreak.com
After a German ISP accidentally exposed the country's secret pirate site blocking list to the public, non-transparency was swiftly restored.

Since shutting down most pirate sites is impossible, Germany’s ISPs are given a secret list of pirate domains to block, which in theory hides the existence of the pirate sites from internet users. After it emerged that a local ISP had accidentally exposed the list to the public for the last 10 months, the unintended transparency was quietly yet swiftly reversed. This response provides another point for debate as site-blocking proposals heat up in the United States.

    • Crotaro@beehaw.orgEnglish
      4·
      7 days ago

      Not only is it voluntary (can confirm that 1&1 doesn’t block the subset of sites I just now tried out which are on the list) but Germany’s approach seems to be pretty tame in comparison, still. Doesn’t make it good, but a lot less bad than it seems by just reading the highlighted section.

      While the CUII website lists 24 platforms for blocking, at last count the exposed list contained well over ten times more domains/subdomains, over 300 in total. For perspective, Germany’s site-blocking program is very modest when compared to schemes in the UK, France, Italy, and Spain, for example, where thousands of sites are blocked with information on domains mostly restricted.

    • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      18·
      8 days ago

      That’s like the least noteworthy aspect of German anti-piracy action out there tbh.

      There’s an entire industry around identifying people who torrent and fining them 4 digit amounts as well as forcing them to sign a declaration never to pirate again in their lifetime (which, when broken, results in contractual fines a magnitude larger). Don’t want to sign? Tough luck, have fun losing a lawsuit forcing you to sign it.