The Pirate Bay office raided by police

[PaperBagger'14]

Several major torrent sites, most notably TPB, were taken down in a raid by Swedish officials. Several hours later it was brought back to life in Costa Rica.

http://rt.com/news/212911-pirate-bay-police-raid/

[Resolute 14]

again?

[PaperBagger'14]

Yes, and apparently they have arrested the last founding member of TPB as well. Unfortunately for authorities though, they have a system of 21 "cloud storage servers" hidden around the world. Will make it increasingly difficult to take them down when they can set up shop in a new country so efficiently.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Glad I downloaded something in time yesterday

[nik-]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

Yes, and apparently they have arrested the last founding member of TPB as well. Unfortunately for authorities though, they have a system of 21 "cloud storage servers" hidden around the world. Will make it increasingly difficult to take them down when they can set up shop in a new country so efficiently.

Wasn't another one of the previously arrested ones just released the other day?

[btimbit]

Damn, that's why it's down.

isohunt still up, no worries

[Sr. Mints]

Couldn't they have waited 'til Homeland was finished?! There's like two freakin' episodes left . . .

[PaperBagger'14]

The site is back up again, it's now available with the suffix .cr instead of .se . I didn't want to link it however it is fully operational. And yes nik, one of the other members finished serving 2/3's of his sentence and was released in November.

[Igster]

Police fighting a losing battle. They will take one down and two more will pop up. And then boom, the same site back up again using a different suffix as noted above. I guess the cops have to do their job, but this will never stop.

[Matata]

Pirate Bay seems to stay 20-30 steps ahead of the authorities.

Police raids are crazy expensive, it's funny to think that they are pouring all these resources into mildly inconveniencing the Pirate Bay guys.

[Hack&Lube]

I wonder if the police recognize the futility of their actions or if they are just doing this a public gesture that they are making an effort.

All they get is the front-end load balancers. The configuration is in volatile memory and will evaporate. TPB servers are all virtual and can be brought up anywhere in the world on any cloud host instantaneously (perhaps without the host even knowing it). Then all they need is an external DNS update (which is probably what takes the longest) and it's good to go.

[Joborule]

Is there a way the police/authorities can realistically shut down the pirate bay and similar sites permanently? Because if not, it seems to be a waste of resource and time to raid these places if one is gonna pop up elsewhere immediately. As said above, it's a losing battle.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I wonder if the police recognize the futility of their actions or if they are just doing this a public gesture that they are making an effort.

It's still a fight that needs to be maintained. You can't just ignore the culture of entitlement that has emerged and the accompanying belief that stealing copyrighted material is okay.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Joborule

Is there a way the police/authorities can realistically shut down the pirate bay and similar sites permanently?

IMO the only effective recourse is going at it from an end-user end as opposed to the host servers.
Not saying it would work or is even feasible (or that I would want to see it). But I would think by making it tougher to download, this battle becomes moot.
A very rough analogy, what would be more effective? Trying to stop counterfeit jerseys at the source in China or on entry? Or fining individuals wearing them when they walk into the dome?

(Yes, I understand owning counterfeit jerseys is not illegal – like I said, rough analogy)

[Galakanokis]

I think stuff like this has more to do with identifying the people involved and seizing assets rather than any sort of actually jail time punishment. This just sets the perpetrators up for lawsuits from the rights holders. Companies have recouped millions this way. It is all about getting their moneys worth.

[Azure]

Seizing what assets? They won't be able to gain access to any of the servers as I doubt they were in the office they raided.

There was an article on Torrent Freak a while back that talked about how Pirate Bay is making sure they always have uptime. There is no way the police every get anywhere in shutting it down.

I'll try to find it later.

[PaperBagger'14]

If they already had servers waiting in Costa Rica, it makes you wonder how many others around the world are just waiting to be activated in case of this one going down. I think EE is right that from a police perspective it's just optics. The music industry gets to make some quick change and even in the case of TPB owners it isn't a big deal. The one co founder released in nov only had an 8 month sentence which only 2/3 was served. Now (here's speculation) he could have distanced himself from their operations and potentially made a ton of money in the process. Meanwhile the site is up and running with no signs of change.

[corporatejay]

I'm legitimately curious, what is is piratebay's mandate? Why do they think they are okay to do this? Is there a larger protest point?

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Azure

Seizing what assets? They won't be able to gain access to any of the servers as I doubt they were in the office they raided.

There was an article on Torrent Freak a while back that talked about how Pirate Bay is making sure they always have uptime. There is no way the police every get anywhere in shutting it down.

I'll try to find it later.

I imagine they gain some information about other sites and suspects as it's hard to imagine it's a air tight operation like Al-Qaida. If they can find Bin Laden they could shut down Pirate Bay given enough resources. Now obviously they won't be getting the same military resources but I would expect stuff like this to continue as regardless of what Pirate Bay says stings like this are more than a mild inconvenience to their operations. When you are continually on the run eventually you will slip up. That's likely what they are waiting for.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

I'm legitimately curious, what is is piratebay's mandate? Why do they think they are okay to do this? Is there a larger protest point?

Same reason the people that are using their service feels it's okay?