Italian court orders Google to block IPTV pirate sites at DNS level
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"Just last year, Italian ISPs briefly blocked the entire Google Drive domain because someone, somewhere used it to share copyrighted material."
Will have to say - this class warfare in the privacy realm is massively, grossly, obscenely one-sided.
TV can spy, Thermostats can spy, Cars can spy - corporations can seemingly do anything they want with individual's data in both gathering an brokering.
But god forbid the peasantry tries to watch a sports match they can't otherwise afford to!
Will have to say - this class warfare in the privacy realm is massively, grossly, obscenely one-sided.
TV can spy, Thermostats can spy, Cars can spy - corporations can seemingly do anything they want with individual's data in both gathering an brokering.
But god forbid the peasantry tries to watch a sports match they can't otherwise afford to!
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Another reminder that the internet is still fairly young and a lot of geopolitical-technical elements are still being worked out.
What is a public space, what is a private space, where are national borders. Cultures across the globe are still being shocked that other cultures have different moral views.
I hope not, but one version of the future is with every country having a Chinese-style great firewall.
What is a public space, what is a private space, where are national borders. Cultures across the globe are still being shocked that other cultures have different moral views.
I hope not, but one version of the future is with every country having a Chinese-style great firewall.
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...we aren't talking a private DNS server that you're hosting in your bedroom. We are talking public-facing DNS servers that communicate with the rest of the world. The impact is worldwide.
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It's not trivial for the world's most widely-used DNS service to be legally ordered to block domains whole cloth.
Yes, you and I and the Ars readership can probably spin up local, resolving DNS servers that go root-down, but MOST people are not that savvy. And they shouldn't have to be.
This is a blunt instrument to solve a precise problem. It seems like Italy wanted an easy answer, but this wasn't it.
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Let them block it for Italian IPs , and then , since they’re not obligated to serve them , block ALL requests from Italian isps “just to be sure they’re in compliance”.
Have all the major DNS servers and players refuse to play this game and refuse to serve DNS records to Italy if this is what they want .
They will capitulate so quick it’s not even funny when they get stonewalled out of the public commons. They want the Internet turned off ? Turn it off , point the finger at the law , and say , change the law or no DNS.
Sometimes “take the ball and go home” is the right way to deal with stupid bullies.. it turns out they want to play with the ball more than they want to bully usually .
Would it briefly punish everyone in Italy ? Yes. Am I ok with that to effect a policy change and warning to others who would try and do this for such obscenely stupid reasons ? Yes. Public outcry would immediately and irrevocably change the politicians minds and get them out of the pocket of some random lobbyists.
If Italy wants to run their own private nanny DNS , then they should do so , but they shouldn’t do it with the cooperation and help of the rest of the world . I think they’ll find it hard , and that’s fine by me. Bullies endangering public goods for their own profits need a swift kick in the ass. The harsher the punishment for being a bully the less likely to engage in such destructive policy making.
Have all the major DNS servers and players refuse to play this game and refuse to serve DNS records to Italy if this is what they want .
They will capitulate so quick it’s not even funny when they get stonewalled out of the public commons. They want the Internet turned off ? Turn it off , point the finger at the law , and say , change the law or no DNS.
Sometimes “take the ball and go home” is the right way to deal with stupid bullies.. it turns out they want to play with the ball more than they want to bully usually .
Would it briefly punish everyone in Italy ? Yes. Am I ok with that to effect a policy change and warning to others who would try and do this for such obscenely stupid reasons ? Yes. Public outcry would immediately and irrevocably change the politicians minds and get them out of the pocket of some random lobbyists.
If Italy wants to run their own private nanny DNS , then they should do so , but they shouldn’t do it with the cooperation and help of the rest of the world . I think they’ll find it hard , and that’s fine by me. Bullies endangering public goods for their own profits need a swift kick in the ass. The harsher the punishment for being a bully the less likely to engage in such destructive policy making.
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Cloudflare DNS and Google DNS not working in Italy would not stop the internet in Italy, the ISP DNSs would still access the TLD DNS and people would still be able to resolve urls in Italy. You are just going to be using a DNS that is worse than Cloudflare's.
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One easy way to prevent pirated streaming, don't allow any TV broadcast at all. Turn off/block any cell tower around. Everyone must sit in stadium to see sport event.
And enjoy the consequences.
And enjoy the consequences.
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Gern Blaanston
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Google probably has more money than the Italian government, so good luck getting Google to do anything they don't want to do.
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Easy solution. Simply geoblock all of Italy from Google DNS and wait for the people to solve the problem. Be ashamed if their officials can't access the Internet either....
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No no , I think you misunderstand. Have the root servers also cut them off . Have all the major providers stop serving them . Create the “no DNS bullies” working group of all the major providers and administrators to facilitate an assured destruction of laws like this , to protect the public good. They want compliance , give them compliance (just not the way they want).
Literally allow the internet to go back to the dark ages in Italy because that’s what they want . Malicious compliance is the best compliance in these cases . “We’re just ensuring we catch all the cases”
It’s especially effective when a bully is demanding something that’s just not theirs or in their ability to control. Nobody is obligated to serve Italian block IPs with DNS information. They take it for granted that they’ll be served .. show them the cost of losing the common good is more than the stupid fight is worth.
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YetAnotherAnonymousAppellation
Ars Tribunus Militum
I find it amusing that the country that spawned the DMCA has the temerity to label another country's policies as "draconian."
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Are ISPs there similar to the ones here that also provide broadcast TV?
If so that would be what they want…. ISPs can use this same thing to inject ads into the content you view, at least US ones do (did?) and take over those urls to show an ad to sign up for their service to view the game. Like they probably really really want public dns providers to do exactly that.
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Given the tribal nature of mankind, it's highly likely, actually. Until the last 50 years, ordinary citizens had no ability to do reliable, real-time, anytime communication with someone residing in a different county, let alone continent. Today, we do.
The tribal nature of humans was shot in the face by this, and reacted badly. The cases in point are the online/Internet policies of repressive nations. But because humans are a tribal species, we have a difficult time regarding someone who doesn't look, act, speak, eat or play like we do as a "potential friend". We usually saw them more like a potential threat. (And usually still do.)
Throwing up firewalls cuts off the "differences" that trigger our divisive instincts, but it also magnifies the apparent bias toward our own viewpoints, and allows for a more captured audience to subject to indoctrination and propaganda.
So while we get the clash of the cultures today because anyone can talk with anyone else anywhere else anytime else (if the two want to talk), we also are exposed to new ideas and traditions, cultures and languages that expand our tribal scope, and begin to see others for who they are, rather than what they are.
In THEORY (not that I think it will happen), if we expose enough people to enough "other" cultures and peoples for a long enough time for bonds to form, we'd have a better chance of including them in our own "tribe", and getting along with each other better.
I can't say it's happening, or that it will. Only that as long as those lines of communication with the "everyman" people outside of one's tribe remain open, the possibility for a more enlightened approach to how we parse our individual tribes exists. Take away the Internet connection, and you have an grunch of isolated societies very much susceptible to some malignant policy or ideology infesting their groupthink.
And that's always been very bad for humanity, no matter how you slice it.
So the ills of the Internet are largely offset if one can better parse the bullshit that liberally flies across it per microsecond by having more varied points of contact to establish its veracity, or lack thereof.
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SubWoofer2
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I go with the sovereignty line of reasoning on this.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
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Meloni and Trump get on rather well, so Italy may feel emboldened to go after US big tech, and US big tech may prefer to capitulate than risk their inauguration fund donations going to waste.
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Another way - be less greedy and sell the rights at reasonable rates to network TV channels.
Yes, naive I know, but I still remember a world where that was how it worked. I'm not even a sports fan but it was nice to catch the odd game when I was in the mood. These days I'm glad I'm not bothered because it seems like an expensive PITA to follow a sport seriously
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This is the future of the EU. I'm sure China will give them a great deal to license their firewall software.
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This was exactly my first thought. Cut Italy off from all Google and Cloudflare traffic then take a week to dial it back to just public DNS and Warp. I don't think the world should care if Italy never capitulates.
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Someone's operating a pirate stream, so we... harass the phone book until they remove the pirate's contact information, apparently. This has, of course, always worked in the past and is not at all trivial to work around. 
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Way to cherrypick a partial quote and act like the American government is saying it. It's opponents in Italy calling it that.
Even if Ars staffers in America were saying it, it's also a bold presumption that they like the DMCA. Or that most Americans do.
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Unless I'm mixing up the story, you just change dns. I use opendns and as a bonus it includes phishing filters (which I guess you could say is good dns poisoning ).
Or use a vpn.
).Or use a vpn.
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The point of the story is that, if your ISP is screwing with DNS, you might change to Google's 8.8.8.8 DNS. But now the Italians are trying to order Google to screw with that DNS in the same way. And they will do the same to CloudFlare and OpenDNS.Unless I'm mixing up the story, you just change dns. I use opendns and as a bonus it includes phishing filters (which I guess you could say is good dns poisoning
Or use a vpn.
It's a violation of the technical standards for DNS, which require that the records be consistent and correct throughout the network.
And it's ineffective, because pirates can just say "what used to be piratefootballstreamsformilano.it is now x.x.x.x" and everyone with numbers on their keyboard can just go straight to that.
Personally, I tried OpenDNS years ago, but dropped them because they imposed their own morality-based censorship on the DNS server itself. (OMG there might be sexual content on this domain? Better throw an error as if it didn't exist!) I understand that's still part of their product offering, but may not be the default anymore. But I prefer an unadulterated DNS.
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In Spain we have nowadays exactly the same fight between judges under request from big companies with broadcasting rights of football ordering ISPs deactivate of big swathes of DNSs when football games are online regardless of the collateral damage.
Here also news media and ISP have big stakes in football broadcasting and so they hiding this behaviour from the public.
Here also news media and ISP have big stakes in football broadcasting and so they hiding this behaviour from the public.
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It’s true. This is all over a sport. Italians take soccer seriously.
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