Kuwait Government Blocks 20 BitTorrent Sites
Written by Ernesto on February 12, 2008As of today, the Kuwait government ordered ISPs to block access to 20 BitTorrent sites. The ultimate goal of the state of Kuwait is to ban all BitTorrent sites in an attempt to reduce piracy, but this is not likely to happen anytime soon.
As in most countries, BitTorrent sites have gained a lot of popularity over recent years in Kuwait. BitTorrent sites are frequently visited, not only with the nationals, but also with the many foreign employees who are stationed there. Most foreigners use BitTorrent as a replacement for the Tivo they have at home, so they can catch up with the latest TV-shows.
However, this is about to change - or is it?
United Networks, a large ISP active in the Kuwait area, has recently notified its customers about the new torrent site filter. They write: “The Ministry of information has today sent us a letter announcing they will be blocking all Torrent sites. This is due to piracy laws of the State of Kuwait and to protect the intellectual property of the pirated content on these sites.”
BitTorrent site filters are not new, last year Turkey blocked The Pirate Bay, a week ago the Danish ISP Tele2 had to do the same. Protesting does help sometimes, a few months ago, Mininova (not included in the Kuwait list) was blocked by an ISP in Dubai, a country in the same region as Kuwait. Only a few days later, the ISP in question decided to unblock Mininova as many customers complained, and threatened to move to another service provider.
It is unlikely that the Kuwait government will respond in the same way, but perhaps this is not needed anyway. If you take a look at the list of 20 torrent sites that was released today, you’ll probably understand that the state of Kuwait is not really up to date on what’s going on in the BitTorrent community. They missed most of the bigger BitTorrent sites, and several sites they listed ceased to exist months ago.
The Kuwait 20….
www.demonoid.com (has been offline for a while)
www.extratorrent.com
www.fulldls.com
www.meganova.org (is no more, redirects to SeedPeer)
www.seedpeer.com
www.nfo.com.il (not loading)
www.piratic.org
www.worldnova.org
www.power-portal.to
www.smartorrent.com
www.thepiratebay.org
www.torrentazos.com
www.torrent-base.dl.am (redirects to Usenext)
www.torrentlounge.com
www.torrentplaza.be
www.tvtorrents.com
www.xphilez.com
www.zakatron.com
www.zonamule.com (parked domain)
www.zoozle.de
Previously: ShareReactor Admin Found Guilty of ‘Commercial’ Copyright Infringement
Next: 5 Reasons Why Illegal Downloaders Will Not Face a UK Ban
73 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
they didn’t even block mininova :D
viva la eztv :)
they didn’t even block btjunkie!
@1
IMO Dont give them ideas of more sites to block. Play the dumb game.
This sucks :/
did they blocke the site, or just the domain name. If its just the domain you could always do a reverse DNS, get the ip, type http://ip.address and you’re sailing the high seas yet again. A permant fix would be to edit your “hosts” file.
Also how dare they assume that everything on a public bitorrent site, and much less the whole protocol is copyrighted work.
The UK is next. Welcome to fascism!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7240234.stm
They didn’t even block Google.
Don’t panick…
Does anyome remember what had happend after fall of Napster? Who remember about it today[quote comment="287852"]The UK is next. Welcome to fascism!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7240234.stm/quote
I know that reading id a rare skill nowdays, but it’s not impossible.
[quote comment="287853"]They didn’t even block Google.[/quote]
QFT :D
lol @ blocking demonoid. Why haven’t they blocked OiNK? :f
This is hilarius, who cares about Kuwait? Is that even a country?
@ 12 / andyness
You obviously don’t, but then again who expects something from a person that doesn’t even know if Kuwait is a country. Ignorant fuck. You sound like a fucking American…
[quote comment="287889"]@ 12 / andyness
You obviously don’t, but then again who expects something from a person that doesn’t even know if Kuwait is a country. Ignorant fuck. You sound like a fucking American…[/quote]
Disregard that, I suck cocks.
For Koweit users, visit http://www.sumotorrent.com, it’s not blocked by your country :)
Oh what a big surpise,.
Kuwait is the country which was invaded by USA in the 90s and where they then installed their own corporate puppet government.
@16
This was what came to my mind when I read the headline
Next step is Ban Internet
[quote comment="287851"]did they blocke the site, or just the domain name. If its just the domain you could always do a reverse DNS, get the ip, type http://ip.address and you’re sailing the high seas yet again. A permant fix would be to edit your “hosts” file.[/quote]
lol, it’s not that easy. They are blocking the actual ip of the sites, also filtering the p2p traffic. But with a good proxy and encryption, it can still be done.
IMHO the best solution for winning the war against piracy is to unplug the internet. It’s that simple. xDDD
Why would the Kuwait Government have any interest in blocking pirated american media? Wow they are going to help with U.S Policy….thats about all they’ll do…bastards
you stupid fucks. Kuwait blowz.
“The Ministry of information has today sent us a letter announcing they will be blocking all Torrent sites.”
Ministry of Information?!?!
1984 anyone?
Orwell is here and he is living large.
well, other countries in the middle east have also blocked these sites and more..for one United Arab Emirates has done it..
who cares what’s happening in kuwait
america never blocks the internets…never.
lol pathetic..
is it me or is everybody really dumb compared to pirates?
20:20 by Mike Rob
america never blocks the internets…never.
Exactly - Comcast anyone? If Kuwait’s lead is folowed by other ISP’s who knows who will be next? Get the wool off your eyes and stopBig Brother from screwing us all!
they didnt even block torrentz.com :p
Thank you Kuwait, for providing me with some new torrentsites to browse…
I’ve never even heard of most of these sites…
“Ministry of information” -
sounds like ‘Brazil’ to me.
ROFL!
That fascist country America will spread it’s draconian laws everywhere.
Democracies of the world are being destroyed by Americans.
Now there are four country’s that have blocked access to some kind of BitTorrent-site. China, Turkey, Denmark and Kuwait. Great company, Denmark.. Synes synd på dere, dere får snylte linje av Sverige ^^.
you are only a slave of big companies
if you don’t pay nothing to companies
you are the evil
keep buying ;)
i think they didn’t block a lot of the major bit torrent site because they knew it would cause a big protest
instead i think they plan to add more torrent sites to the list slowly so there are not big protests happening all at once
how come a stupid country like kuwait blocked the torrents? you stupid government bastards. burn in hell!
So what….More free bandwith for us.
Thank you Kuwait government…..
I wonder if it’s because of the push toward legal content (”Featured torrents”) that they didn’t block Mininova.
Man, poor Kuwait. That stupid USA army fucks up everything they set foot on (literally or figuratively). This certainly isn’t Kuwait decision, it’s American. There is no more Kuwait, it’s just an American colony.
Kuwait is American Ally. American help Kuwait when Saddam invaded Kuwait… The Emir(King) is American puppet.
1. I’m surprised that the Kuwaitis would make a move like this considering the amount of bootleg dvds and ps2 games i bought while I was there.
2. I don’t think it really matters to the citizens though, if you notice, they aren’t exactly blocking any Arab-centric torrent sites. This is probably just a move to get more credibility with US and UK.
3. This is also a country where if you are of Kuwaiti blood, you don’t work (with the exception of military service) because of the government owning the oil company and reverse taxation.
Torpark is your friend unblock everything.
another trimph for a great democracy
http://www.freethescene.net
isn’t blocked either…
Arab Royals are all crazy. Like the Saudis banning Valentines Day just yesterday.
I live out here in the Kuwait region and I am willing to bet that they blocked these sites because of Pornography and not copyright. If they cared about copyright they might do something about the illegal DVD’s sold on every corner.
lol! but tor (torproject) and proxy sites have been blocked as well! so, only who have a server outside kuwait or have already installed tor would be lucky, because these 2 r the only way to download torrents + torrents can be used for legal purposes as well :P
they did this for pornography like someone said not copyright. adult sites r already blocked in kuwait. and mininova.org is not blocked because it doesnt have adult content.
the most funny things ever heard . but I don’t think that this will have any big impact to kuwait people but rather to Mostly foreigners that working there.
this is awesome!
[quote comment="288135"]That fascist country America will spread it’s draconian laws everywhere.
Democracies of the world are being destroyed by Americans.[/quote]
Wow, you really are dumb.
It is NOT Americans, its the American Government, specifically George Bush.
Im not even American, im just not an ignorant European.
I live in Kuwait, for a several months and do not really disapointed with its policy, cause of using the http://www.strongvpn.com Open VPN account. So now i’m using the american IP while surfing the Internet. Sometimes the government blocks more services, like Skype or Google, but i really do not care :D
That is what I wish you.
lol. Im a teen currently living in Q8. If the government did this to stop the people from watching pornography they arent doing a very good job. My friends both foreigners and kuwaitis have figured out a way around this by fiddling around with the proxy numbers so that they can go any site they want. Now my friends still get to download all they want without worrying bout blocked sites.
So they care so much about piracy? Why dont they shut all the stores in Hawalli, an area famous in Kuwait for selling all kinds of illegal copies. Or why don’t they take over all those street sellers who are every where in Kuwait?
Why kill a technology instead?
For anyone from kuwait .. use a web proxy site http://www.hidemyass.com goverment is blocking EVERYTHING stupid hairy cock eaters
Kuwait is irrelevant as most if not all gulf so called contries. It is the foreigners who are going to be affected by any such practicies.
i have never heard of 10/20 of those sites … i don’t know is in charge of this blocking, but they seem like they have never been on the internet.
see, I figured new ways than my old comment! Internet is one network and Kuwait gov. is like ur parents that worries that u smoke!! u can smoke outside at mid night without them noticing… u can surf the internet freely without em noticing :P .. Internet is one network and community with no laws.. no goverments.. just use ur brian to play games !! (I wrote this comment in a weird way, didnt i?)
what is use of blocking torrent site while you can get same contents easier in any CD/DVD shop. (dont speak arabic, and dont wear arabic, and you get access to the banned stuff)
Most of these sites are already blocked in United Arab Emirates…booooooooo
Kuwait sucks ass, I’ve been their and the hole country smells like shit, forget that 1/4 of the internet their is blocked, those people are fucking idiots.
Their old amir (presidant) that died two years ago was a fucking moro, and he really scrowed that peace a crap country.
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