Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in India

paroh

Padawan
[/source]*indiatoday.intoday.in/technology/story/are-you-a-criminal-now-users-may-get-3-yr-in-jail-for-viewing-torrent-site-blocked-url-in-india/1/745181.html[/source]

Call it the new Digital India. The Indian government, with the help of internet service providers, and presumably under directives of court, has banned thousands of websites and URLs in the last five odd years. But until now if you somehow visited these "blocked URLs" all was fine. However, now if you try to visit such URLs and view the information, you may get three-year jail sentence as well as invite a fine of Rs 3 lakh.

This is just for viewing a torrent file, or downloading a file from a host that may have been banned in India, or even for viewing an image on a file host like Imagebam. You don't have to download a torrent file, and then the actual videos or other files, which might have copyright. Just accessing information under a blocked URL will land you in jail and leave your bank account poorer by Rs 3 lakh.

Also Read: It's over! Torrentz, world's top torrent search engine, shuts down
If you visit such a URL, you will be shown the following warning.

"This URL has been blocked under the instructions of the Competent Government Authority or in compliance with the orders of a Court of competent jurisdiction. Viewing, downloading, exhibiting or duplicating an illicit copy of the contents under this URL is punishable as an offence under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957 which prescribe imprisonment for 3 years and also fine of upto Rs. 3,00,000/-. Any person aggrieved by any such blocking of this URL may contact at urlblock@tatacommunications.com who will, within 48 hours, provide you the details of relevant proceedings under which you can approach the relevant High Court or Authority for redressal of your grievance"

This is a change compared to the earlier message that users would encounter on the blocked URLs in India. The earlier message would read that the URL has been blocked at the direction of DoT. Of late, however, the government bodies were not only experimenting in how to implement the blocks but were also trying to figure what message to show to users. Recently, the blocked URLs also gave out not reachable error without specifying any message.

In India, most of the URLs and websites were blocked using DNS-filtering. This means the DNS of the blocked site was added to a list maintained by the internet service provider and whenever a user tried connecting to that site, the DNS server of the internet service provider would block that request. However, this was easy to bypass as a lot of people started using - or were already using - third-party DNS services such as those maintained by Google. It is also ineffective if a site uses HTTPS or in other words encryption to secure the network between the user's computer and the site server.

But in the last couple of years internet service providers, probably at the request of government bodies, have invested lot more in bolstering the mechanism through which they block websites. Indian government bodies too, instead of relying on internet service providers that are many, has started bring into play the big companies like Tata Communications and Airtel that manage a number of internet gateways in India.

The latest warning message clearly implies that the URL blocking is now happening at the internet gateways - in this particular case for the example the gateway is seemingly managed by Tata Communications - and that is more difficult to circumvent. The connection on which this message was served is from MTNL. But the message came from Tata Communications. We sent an email to Tata Communications at the specified address to get more information but it bounced back (see above).

While the message in itself is ominous and surely must have been vetted by a government body, it is not clear how it will be enforced. It doesn't look possible that the government will be monitoring the whole world wide web, looking for people may access or try to access a blocked URL. It is also not clear how, if someone does land in trouble for accessing a blocked URL in India, will be prosecuted and what process will be followed.

Lack of clarity on it as well as no prior information on something like this, which may make, almost every web user in India a criminal, does indicate that this is just a message and not any sort of official government policy, which is going to be enforced. However, at the same, it is also clear that the mere presence of this message to web users mean that they may end up in trouble if a government body or cops do decided to follow through on anything that they believe is an "offence under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957".
Blame it on John Doe

The problem, for now, doesn't seem to that India is moving to block half of the internet through a policy the way China does. Instead, the issue is likely due to the John Doe orders that Indian courts are issuing at the regular interval at the request of content creators like Bollywood film makers. The lawyers of film studios often approach courts ahead of a movie's release seeking preventive blocks on the URLs they compile in the list.

Also Read: Torrentz.eu clone is up but 5 reasons why you should not use it

In reality these lists are poorly compiled and often block is sought on full websites just on the basis of whims and fancies. However, courts have regularly issued orders in the favour of film studios in India. These court orders are issued against John Doe or in other words an unnamed entity that may indulge in piracy of the film.

Once this order is issued, the copies of the order along with the list of URLs to be blocked go to DoT, which them passes an order to internet service providers to block these sites. The interesting bit here is that once a URL is blocked it remains blocked, even years after the release of the film.
 

tkin

Back to school!!
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

Achhe Din (TM)
 

Nerevarine

Incarnate
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

pehle torrent download karne ke liye FUP hatao, then think about blocking ppl from downloading torrents roflmao
 

lywyre

Cyborg Agent
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

They need to build numerous huge jails.
 

chimera201

Wise Old Owl
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

What if a user accidentally stumbles across such a site? Google search almost always shows some torrent sites at top 10 searches for any rare download.
 

tkin

Back to school!!
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

*i.imgur.com/bL8YDC5.png
 

Minion

Conversation Architect
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

Seriously i never download anything related to Bollywood from torrent most of them sucks any way but before gov. should implement this they need to seriously consider providing high speed internet.
 
A

amit.tiger12

Guest
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

Total ****.
Now it's time to buy VPN.
 

dissel

Cyborg Agent
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

Is it possible for ISP's to know if user downloading Torrent or not ?
 
OP
paroh

paroh

Padawan
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

The problem is more servious or deep in nature. Suppose you are visiting a legitimate site that is not banned in india . But on that site some one post a link or thumbnail from (Imagebam) that is banned in india. Than what will happs?
 

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

So Illegal Download > Rape > Murder?
 

SaiyanGoku

kamehameha!!
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

Can they be more stupid by blocking the entire site instead of specific links only? :facepalm:
 

Desmond

Destroy Erase Improve
Staff member
Admin
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

Can they be more stupid by blocking the entire site instead of specific links only? :facepalm:

Well, they are ignorant enough to also screw over legal torrent users.
 

Zangetsu

I am the master of my Fate.
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

Is it possible for ISP's to know if user downloading Torrent or not ?
Yes...ISP admin will know from the logs.


*stech2.firstpost.com/tech2images/640x359/proportional/jpeg/2016/08/Capture1-624x351.jpg
 

Piyush

Lanaya
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

What about private trackers?
 

bkpeerless

In the zone
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

It means if u r not rich u cant have entertainment.. simple
n moreover even if u r rich u cant get decent and uncensored tv series or movies..
now cost of setting up a photo studio increased by 5000 per month thats the cost of Photoshop
are gov piracy karte hai kye ki hamare pas paisa nehi hai utna.. koi inko samjhao.
Who was the minister watching porn in loksabha i hope it was shot from legal site
 

SaiyanGoku

kamehameha!!
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

now cost of setting up a photo studio increased by 5000 per month thats the cost of Photoshop

Use gimp instead. I don't think one should make money using pirated softwares.

Also, its 120$ yearly (~ 8k) and not 5k/month.
 

TheSloth

The Slowest One
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

Can they be more stupid by blocking the entire site instead of specific links only? :facepalm:

I used to read football articles on bleacherreport(dot)com. but for past 2-3 months onwards i am getting this message :
[FONT=&amp]***This URL has been blocked under Instructions of the Competent Goverment Authority or Incompliance to the orders of Hon'ble Court.***[/FONT]
 
A

amit.tiger12

Guest
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

Is it possible for ISP's to know if user downloading Torrent or not ?

Yes.. some trackers are fake which share junk data/useless data/NOTHING, those can leak your ip. And by connection logs/ip logs (which some ISP keep it, some don't, some keep with days months limits). MTNL and BSNL keep logs because it's government.
Best way is to use VPN or seedbox. Buy any service, they provide new ip use that.
 
A

amit.tiger12

Guest
Re: Are you a criminal now? Users may get 3-yr in jail for viewing torrent site, blocked URL in Indi

What about private trackers?
Private trackers are private, lot of good torrents original torrent, converted edited ripped one time (some public tracker 1 video file is converted Manny times)
Privacy is for that tracker and site, government don't go after private tracker because site does not show up on Google searches. Basically private tracker site and your info on that site are secure.
But when you start downloading torrent you are not safe. VPN or seedbox will save you.
 
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