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Site blocked. Site unblocked. Make up your minds!

deadman2020
Grafter
Posts: 63
Registered: ‎24-06-2013

Site blocked. Site unblocked. Make up your minds!

I'm sure it's BT causing Plusnet headaches but this is getting silly. One day sites such as kat.cr are blocked. The next they are not. Then the day after they are blocked again with that crappy court order page. They work at the moment but you can bet your sweet assets it will get blocked again just like the other P2P sites.
I am also not able to access usenet-crawler.com without use of a proxy or VPN (The main reason I came to vent). Can anyone else confirm this? It does not even give me a page. It just says the site is down (But it's not as confirmed via proxy and downforeveryoneorjustme.com check.
7 REPLIES 7
deathtrap
Grafter
Posts: 1,064
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎23-04-2013

Re: Site blocked. Site unblocked. Make up your minds!

That's the bt group for you, censorship and web blocking ,even outside court orders, get yourself VPN'ed up
lf2k
Grafter
Posts: 46
Registered: ‎12-05-2015

Re: Site blocked. Site unblocked. Make up your minds!

I tend to use the Google Data Saver option in Chrome (it's built in to Chrome mobile and on the chrome store for desktop applications) - this let's me get to places without any faff. I can see both sites mentioned...
I find it particularly useful at work where they use websense, so I tend to leave it switched on...
Technically its a proxy, but its handy for speeding up slower sites.
Chris64
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎27-04-2015

Re: Site blocked. Site unblocked. Make up your minds!

The Browsec extension for Chrome is pretty good too:
https://browsec.com/en/
I think there is also a version for Firefox as well
deadman2020
Grafter
Posts: 63
Registered: ‎24-06-2013

Re: Site blocked. Site unblocked. Make up your minds!

So is www.usenet-crawler.com being blocked or not?
chenks76
All Star
Posts: 3,274
Thanks: 338
Fixes: 12
Registered: ‎24-10-2013

Re: Site blocked. Site unblocked. Make up your minds!

usenet-crawler works fine for me all of the time.
i never get any block messages.
kat.cr is a lottery depending on what gateway you are using.
tpb currently isn't blocked as it now uses https.
djbenson
Grafter
Posts: 79
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎02-06-2015

Re: Site blocked. Site unblocked. Make up your minds!

From my understanding, certain sites (KAT, TPB etc.) have started appearing again, but not because ISP's are removing blocks, but because those sites are getting cleverer about how they serve up their traffic. I'm on Virgin Media (currently mid house-move to a house which has Plusnet fibre) and lots of big sites are now visible via Virgin without VPN's, proxies etc.
From my limited knowledge, the reappearance has something to do with the sites switching to HTTPS, new domains and also using Cloudflare - these things added together are causing ISPs headaches trying to maintain the court-mandated blocks.
Check out TorrentFreak for more info on this latest development Smiley
avatastic
Grafter
Posts: 1,136
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Site blocked. Site unblocked. Make up your minds!

Plusnet don't block sites, other than content included in the IWF block list.
Sometimes torrent / usenet / etc sites will appear with the "Site blocked" or "This site has been blocked by a uk court order" or even redirecting to a UK Court Orders page.
Plusnet has not blocked these sites, rather it is one of Plusnet's peering partners *cough*BTnet*cough* (the guys who Plusnet use for their internet connections) who have blocked the site.
These peering partners, however, have not been ordered to block the sites either, BT Retail (the ISP, not the peering arm) were ordered to. Maybe they asked their peering partner to do it for them, or the two aren't operating as independent companies like they should be, who can say?
What is true however is that Plusnet have no interest in contacting their peering partners to have the block removed, or not using those partners for those sites.
So, to correct my opening sentence, Plusnet block sites, by their inaction towards peering partners who are not subject to a court order, but are also under the same big corporate umbrella as themselves and BT Retail.
F9 member since 4 Sep 1999
F9 ADSL customer since 27 Aug 2004
DLM manages your line the same way DRM manages your rights.
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