CloudFlare changed the "pirated" IP sites to circumvent blocking in the networks of Cogent

A few days ago, users in the United States and Europe noticed that the Cogent backbone provider blocked users' requests to “pirated” sites like Primewire, Movie4k, TorrentProject and TorrentButler for more than a week. Blocking is set by IP. These resources work with the CloudFlare service, which assigned them IP addresses - 104.31.18.30 and 104.31.19.30. CloudFlare is a CDN provider, the traffic of client sites passes through their servers and is processed, and real resources “live” behind the IP addresses of this company.

If the traffic of the user who wants to open one of these sites does not pass through the Cogent network, then everything opens. Otherwise, access to these resources cannot be obtained. The reasons for blocking are not yet known, although it can be assumed that the main reason is the right holders, more precisely, their desire to block access to users with unlicensed content by any means. When asked about the reasons for blocking, a Cogent spokesman said a week ago that the company’s problem was known, but the provider would not discuss it with third-party companies and journalists.

Now the situation is beginning to clear up . Cogent chief executive Dave Schaeffer made a new statement, saying that the blocking was imposed on the basis of a Spanish court ruling. However, The Pirate Bay is not mentioned in the decision, although, as stated above, access to this resource in the Cogent network is also blocked.
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The problem here is that several resources working with CloudFlare can have one IP. Therefore, if access to the same resource is blocked on the network of any provider, then other sites with the same address will not be available.

Representatives of the party affected by the actions of the trunk provider, the company CloudFlare, said that the problem with the inaccessibility of resources is precisely this. “Such problems happen if you censor the Internet or follow the instructions to block resources,” says Clodflare chief executive Doug Kramer. - "Restrict access to a specific domain may not be so easy." According to him, difficulties arise even if it is necessary to block access to the site within the same country.

Usually, court decisions regarding the restriction of access to websites are made for providers that directly serve network users. The main providers rarely deal with such solutions. Top-level providers are the last to be affected, since restricting access to something on their network can have unpredictable consequences.

Interestingly, in the US, providers cannot block access to their sites on their own. However, the legislation of this country does not prevent blocking access to any resources by a court decision. By the way, most of the "pirated" sites, access to which blocks Cogent, previously studied and law enforcement agencies in the UK. As a result, the court of this country decided to start blocking access to them for the citizens of the country by local providers.

Anyway, retaliatory measures have already been taken. So, the other day the sites of The Pirate Bay, Primewire, Popcorn-Time.se, and Torrentz.cd were assigned other IP addresses. Regarding the recruitment of new IP, it is quite simple to recognize them.



After the change, all "pirated" resources, including The Pirate Bay, Primewire, Movie4k, Torrentproject, Couch-tuner, Cyro.se, Watchseriesfree, Megashare, Hdmovieswatch, Torrentbutler.eu, Afdah. Movie.to, Mp3monkey, Rnbxclusive.me, Torrentcd, Moviesub, Iptorrents, Putlocker.com and Torrentz.cd, are again accessible to users whose traffic passes through the Cogent backbone network.

CloudFlare is a company whose reputation depends on the availability of sites dependent on it. Perhaps, in order to bring the resources back online, avoiding blocking, CloudFlare employees changed the IP to “pirated” sites. At the same time, old IPs remain blocked.



So far, it is not clear what kind of response Cogent will take. Will this company blacklist new IPs, or will this whole situation stop developing? The company itself claims that, in general, the courts may require Cogent, the provider, to take certain actions in relation to various sites and IP addresses. If a Cogent user decides to request a resource whose IP is in the range of addresses affected by a court decision, access to such a resource will also be limited. The most interesting thing is that Cogent does not consider it possible to control the impact of IP blocking imposed by the company on user access to other sites.

According to Kramer, for the backbone provider, the easiest way is to execute court orders, blocking global access to certain resources, even if the ruling concerns a single country. In general, Cogent fully complies with court rulings, although in some cases this causes certain difficulties.