Court Orders Cloudflare's DNS Resolver 1.1.1.1 To Block Pirate Sites In Italy (torrentfreak.com) 36
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: An Italian court has ordered Cloudflare to block three torrent sites on its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. The anti-piracy measures were requested by local music industry group FIMI and anti-piracy group FPM. [...] Rightsholders agree that there's no silver bullet to stop piracy, but they argue that Cloudflare can and should do more to address the problem. In a case before the Court of Milan, they argued that Cloudflare should go even further. In court, anti-piracy outfit FPM and the music group FIMI pointed out that Cloudflare's DNS resolver is problematic too. This DNS resolver helps people to access pirate sites, even when the sites are not using Cloudflare's CDN services. As such, Cloudflare should be required to block problematic sites on its DNS servers too. After hearing these arguments the Milan Court agreed. It issued an interim injunction that requires Cloudflare to block three torrent sites: kickasstorrents.to, limetorrents.pro and ilcorsaronero.pro. These sites are already blocked by ISPs in Italy following an order from local regulator AGCOM.
This is the first time that Cloudflare has been ordered to make pirate sites unavailable through its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. This is an important expansion since many Italians switched to public DNS resolvers to bypass ISP blocking measures. With the court order, rightsholders can remove this shortcut. "We welcome the Court's decision which will further strengthen the ongoing infringing site blocking program performed by AGCOM in Italy, whilst also increasing the efficiency of the enforcement actions carried out by the rightsholders to protect their online content," says FIMI CEO Enzo Mazza. [...] In theory, similar injunctions could follow against other DNS providers as well, including Google and OpenDNS. "The ruling opens the door to others that offer similar services, such as Google," Mazza told local media.
This is the first time that Cloudflare has been ordered to make pirate sites unavailable through its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. This is an important expansion since many Italians switched to public DNS resolvers to bypass ISP blocking measures. With the court order, rightsholders can remove this shortcut. "We welcome the Court's decision which will further strengthen the ongoing infringing site blocking program performed by AGCOM in Italy, whilst also increasing the efficiency of the enforcement actions carried out by the rightsholders to protect their online content," says FIMI CEO Enzo Mazza. [...] In theory, similar injunctions could follow against other DNS providers as well, including Google and OpenDNS. "The ruling opens the door to others that offer similar services, such as Google," Mazza told local media.
Four Masts (Score:3, Funny)
A pirates: avasts
Hacks to last
Bristle, then blasts
Burma Shave
Shh (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody tell them about 8.8.8.8....
Re:Shh (Score:4, Informative)
Nobody tell them about the root servers.
I did set up my own DNS locally just to cope with the ISP DNS being filtered. I rarely use the public DNSes.
OK, if the ISP blocks access to other DNS servers than its own then I might be in trouble, but that's an issue to deal with when the time comes.
Re: Shh (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Shh (Score:4, Informative)
OK, if the ISP blocks access to other DNS servers than its own then I might be in trouble, but that's an issue to deal with when the time comes.
The ability to VPN aside, I remind people that this scenario is one of the reasons DoH exists.
Silly (Score:4, Interesting)
This is silly. Cloudflare is based in the USA and, I believe, has no division in Italy. What authority could they have over Cloudflare? Can Cloudflare block resolution for specific sites for requests ONLY coming from machines in Italy? And if they can, should they? Otherwise, if every country can dictate what DNS must be blocked for everyone, you can kiss the concept of the internet goodbye. Maybe Italy should force all the networks to not route to Cloudflare and start the path to their own walled network like China??
Re:Silly (Score:4, Insightful)
Cloudflare has three PoPs in Italy, which would mean three anycast resolvers for 1.1.1.1 (and 1.0.0.1) that they could be compelled to drop queries for those records. That's my take on the technical concerns.
I'll bet they also have regional operations in Italy (employees (sales, accounting/billing, etc.)) where the Italian government could have jurisdiction.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder if they can comply.
It's not trivial to serve different DNS results only to Italian users. Even the in-country servers will be accessed by people in neighbouring countries who happen to be "close" to them network-wise.
Doing a IP based geo-location on every lookup will have significant overhead.
Maybe they can appeal on that basis.
Re: (Score:2)
... Cloudflare's core business is literally serving regional content to co-located servers based on the source of a request.
That's the entire operating principle of companies who run CDNs.
Re: (Score:3)
Not exactly. Their business is speeding up delivery of content, i.e. having servers closer on the network to customers. While they do off geo-location services, they warn that they are not perfect, and they do add overhead. Not so critical when delivering a website that takes a while to generate and send all the content anyway, but not good for DNS.
Re: (Score:2)
I read it differently, as this:
"For your six DNS resolvers/slaves in our country; Italy, you will delete three resource records."
Not as, "take actions specific to the DNS client's geolocation."
Re: Silly (Score:2)
Perhaps you should read the linked article
Re:Silly (Score:4, Interesting)
Cloudflare is based in the USA and, I believe, has no division in Italy.
Two clicks from their home page [cloudflare.com] we see that they have data centres in Rome, Milan, and Palermo. I'm pretty sure they don't want the Carabinieri turning up at those and starting to confiscate assets. Anyway, the EU is a thing and probably gives Italian courts even more enforcement options.
Can Cloudflare block resolution for specific sites for requests ONLY coming from machines in Italy?
Can Slashdotters read the article? "In response to earlier orders targeted at pirate sites operated by customers, Cloudflare has chosen to implement measures that are limited to Italy. The company hasn’t commented publicly on the recent DNS blocking order, but we expect that this will only be enforced locally as well." That Cloudflare has the capability should be no surprise since treating internet users differently according to location is their main service.
Otherwise, if every country can dictate what DNS must be blocked for everyone, you can kiss the concept of the internet goodbye.
At least for the EU there's a precedent [www.cbc.ca] that seems relevant and sensible. There's probably more danger from the US, given the dominance of US-based countries in internet services, with rulings like this one [justice.gov].
Re: (Score:2)
No.
well in the USA an court can't do that due to 1st (Score:2)
well in the USA an court can't do that due to the 1st or at the very least force an full trail and not an DMCA takedown.
Re: (Score:2)
Cloudflare markets to Italy [cloudflare.com] and so most European (and specifically Italian) laws would apply to them.
As for requests coming from Italy (specifically IP's that are identified as Italian) ofcourse, it's not all that hard to do geo filtering. I would point out with the America passing the Cloud Act [wikipedia.org] after the whole Microsoft Ireland debacle because US law enforcement did not want to go through the MLAT [wikipedia.org] process a precipitant has been set where single country can make super national decisions.
Go To Your ISPs! (Score:1)
But keep your damn hands off of global DNS servers.
Idiots.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Dnscrypt (Score:3)
Thanks for the pro tip (Score:3, Funny)
Http://kickass torrents.to
Re: (Score:1)
I shave my neckbeard tyvm!
Hope Italy's government doesn't use CloudFlare! (Score:2)
I can see it now:
"Oh, we were supposed to block PirateBay at the request of Italy, not the other way around? -- Ooopppps!"
Cloudflare should publish that IP blocklist to... (Score:2)
...aid in troubleshooting.
8-)=)
Is it the same court... (Score:2)
...that jailed seismologists for NOT predicting an earthquake?
Cloudflare opened the door to this (Score:1)
A few weeks ago there was an article here that they came to an agreement with âoerights holdersâ to block certain services like âoeillegalâ IPTV streamers. Now that they admitted capacity of doing this, courts across the world will find they are violating some local ordinance. Islamic countries will want them to block alcohol and porn, European countries whatever sites violates their brand protectionism etc etc
Cloudflare is done for. They opened the floodgates on themselves by agreeing o
More fun (Score:2)
OpenDNS... (Score:1)
OpenDNS FTW [dnschecker.org] 208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220