February 4, 2007

NTL blocking web sites?

Maybe this is coincidence ... maybe not. It seems that NTL are blocking access to thepiratebay.org.

The symptoms? HTTP connections simply timeout:

telnet thepiratebay.org 80
Trying 83.140.176.146...
Connected to thepiratebay.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD / HTTP/1.0

Connection closed by foreign host.

I've confirmed the site itself is not down from two separate machines on totally different networks. And indeed proxying requests via those machines works just fine. I've no other examples of web sites that don't work direct from NTL.

I'm sure it's purely coincidence that NTL provide the broadband network behind BitTorrent Inc.'s so-called legal video download service. Perhaps someone needs to educate NTL that not all content shared through thepiratebay is illegal, and that arbitrarily blocking parts of the internet just because they don't like it is not how it works.

Anyone else on NTL having these problems?

Meanwhile, go tell the BBC how to run an on-demand service. The BBC Trust On-demand Services' consultation is a great place to gently and politely suggest that DRM-free cross-platform unlimited access to BBC content is a good idea (via MJR).

Posted by savs at February 4, 2007 5:25 PM
Comments

telewest is serving it up, which is odd given that NTL/blueyonder are merged.

Posted by: Steve Loughran at February 4, 2007 6:42 PM

Works fine for me..

Posted by: John Billings at February 5, 2007 8:16 AM

No joy here either. Perhaps the Norwich cache is having problems. I lost access to userfriendly.org for several months last year despite attempts to 'educate' NTL tech support.

Posted by: Ashley at February 5, 2007 5:47 PM

yea i'm unable to view TPB :(
what the hell are NTL doing

Posted by: andie at February 6, 2007 5:56 PM

I'm in north London and TPB WorksForMe.

Posted by: jaduncan at March 2, 2007 6:43 PM

For the past 2 days I cant access TPB i have internet access on other pages but cannot access TPB. If NTL are blocking content im changing ISPs. Is this some ploy by Virgin who have taken over NTL ?

Posted by: Billy at March 17, 2007 12:27 AM

i have a website which is being blocked by NTL bloody nightmare!!!!!

Posted by: andy at May 5, 2007 2:37 AM