Panera Bread’s Evil Torrent Filter
Written by Ernesto on May 30, 2009For reasons unknown, TorrentFreak is filtered by many organizations, schools and WiFi hotspots spread across various countries. We assume that those who maintain the web filtering databases have grown wary of anything related to BitTorrent, but in some cases it’s even worse than that.
With over 1250 free WiFi access points across the US, Panera Bread is offering a much appreciated service to its customers. Tens of thousands of people use their free wireless Internet every day, and the company even lists it as one of their selling points on their website.
“Send an email as you munch a warm bagel. Read the news as you sip a latte. It’s a nice alternative to the office, isn’t it?” they write.
Well, not if you’re writing for TorrentFreak since our site is blocked, and we’re not the only site affected. The uTorrent website is also inaccessible, as well as the Wikipedia entry for BitTorrent and even Legaltorrents. Vuze.com on the other hand is not blocked. It all seems to be a bit arbitrary.
For some reason TorrentFreak is blocked by many web-filters. In the past we’ve contacted a university that decided to block us and asked the person responsible for the filter for an explanation. We were told that our site was wrongfully categorized as a hacking/warez site, and the university was kind enough to take us off their ban list. However, the issues with Panera Bread are a little different.
TorrentFreak is not allowed by Panera Bread
Panera Bread uses SonicWALL’s filtering solutions and when running a check on their database we see that (unlike others) TorrentFreak is correctly labeled as a “news and media” website. So, the people at Panera Bread either added TorrentFreak to their custom ban list, or implemented a keyword filter which is also supported by the SonicWALL system.
Could it be that they block all sites with the keyword ‘torrent’ in the url? It’s beginning to look like that is indeed the case. All Google searches with the word ‘torrent’ in it are blocked by Panera Bread and it is impossible to download any .torrent files. Linuxtracker is not blocked, however, the torrent listing on the site (with the word torrent in the url) is again inaccessible.
It turns out that every website with ‘torrent’ in the url is blocked, the “reason for restriction” always being “Administrative Custom List settings”. It gets even worse though. A quick search on Amazon for (legal) products that have “torrent” in the URL results in yet another list on accessible pages.
* The LEGO toy of the Torrent spaceship from Star Wars.
* A backpack named “High Sierra Torrent 70 Hydration Pack.”
* Book author “Ann Torrent” wont sell anything through Panera Bread.
* And a whole list of book titles that include the word “torrent.”
Of course we fully understand that Panera doesn’t want users of their free WiFi hotspots to download massive amounts of data with BitTorrent, and since it’s their network they can impose as many restrictions as they like. However, there must be a more sophisticated method to achieve their goals than to ban everything ‘torrent’, including the dictionary entry.
Previously: Soulseek P2P Application Vulnerable to Remote Takeover
Next: Search For Movie Piracy Equipment Was Invasion of Privacy
102 Responses
Maybe we should go to the error site and all complain :D
what a dumb way to filter torrent related sites :)
Ouch.
Network crimping hurts us all!
Nub admin
I won’t be eating at Panera Bread any time soon. In fact, I was already not eating at Panera Bread due to a local location voluntarily banning smoking on their outside patio.
I’m just getting up right now but will be sending them an email later today.
At the end of the day, it is their choice. Whether it is legal or illegal content you are downloading with bittorrent it would slow down the network for other users who are there just to check their mail or the news. They may have gone about it the wrong way but I understand why the ban torrents.
F,I.R.S,T !! ! !!! !! !! !! XD
I disagree with censoring this kind of thing in schools.
It’s similar with the recent TF article about pro-copyright propaganda in schools. Students should be taught how to think, not what to think. For this they /need/ both sides of any argument, regardless of whether one side supports illegal activity. (Another thing people need to learn is that just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it’s morally wrong. All of us filesharers know that.)
If these copyright trade groups can drop pro-copyright and anti-filesharing viewpoints on students, then shouldn’t the opposite be allowed as well? TorrentFreak is a great site for demonstr8ing the “other side” of the argument; I’ve learned an awful lot from reading the articles and comments here (well, the comments that contain at least a shred of intelligence, anyway, but such is the Internet.)
I’ve spoken about schools up until now. In terms of public establishment, I suppose it’s understandable for them to not want people torrenting on their networks, but I do agree with Ernesto in that they need a more specific way of filtering sites. After all, this is basically a form of censorship, and who (besides extremely rich capitalists and gov’ts) likes that?
I will now go and use their network for torrent seeding. Encrypted transfers anyone?
#6: They’re not banning *.torrent-files. They’re banning the word “torrent.” There’s a _slight_ difference between the two.
Just use a proxy server…
Get over it. Use someone’s elses FREE INTERNET. It’s their connection, which they offer for free to people who eat at Pinera. What they block is their choice.
Whiners complaining about a free service always = FAIL.
Maybe it is a mistake? perhaps they were meant to block .torrent – not torrent? Has anybody emailed them for an explanation?
Can’t forget looking up information on the Pontiac Torrent
http://www.gm.ca/gm/english/vehicles/pontiac/torrent/overview
The ‘Bess Smartfilter’ also blocks Torrentfreak. Its annoying that I cant get my TorrentNews when at school due to this.
@12 The pirate bay is a free service, people are always whining about it?
I love when anty-piracy peeps come on here, bash on everything with obviously brainless comments…
It’s not the problem that they block downloading .torrent files and downloading with torrent clients…
The problem is they ban everything with the word torrent… imagen sitting at Pinera and wanting to read Torrentfreak… you’re doomed…
It’s a form of censoring, and most people don’t like censoring (it’s like taking away your freedom of speech…)
Cheers…
@8
What a joy to read your post. Straight to the point and no bones about it. Thank you.
nub admin!!!
my underreaction to their overreaction:
“… so they’ve gone with “rather safe than sorry”-strategy.. what else is new?”
Who the hell cares, it’s FREE Wi-Fi and if they want to be ultra-careful about not getting prosecuted then why does it matter
@8
Man, if our school just censored the internet, I’d be happy
My school runs software that is the equivilant of having 10 members of the SS breathing down your neck, Do a single thing wrong, such as type into google for a result that happens to have a nasty result etc and you will immediatly be flagged by the system. I was called out of lesson for hacking for googling for Photoshop cs3 effects tutorials into google and scanning through 5 pages of results, not clicking on everything (Photoshop is installed on the network) Honestly, it’s a running joke with my classmates everytime big brother decides he does not like me
14 May 30, 2009 at 22:48 by Goon of Goons
Can’t forget looking up information on the Pontiac Torrent
http://www.gm.ca/gm/english/vehicles/pontiac/torrent/overview
*rofl*
I encountered this in a Panera location a couple of months ago trying to access TorrentFreak. I literally have not been back to one since then. Why put up with it? Starbucks, Peets, Coffeebean, etc. don’t do this, so they get my business instead.
You want to use free internet sitting at their cafe. So far so good. But don’t make them pay for your movie downloads. Oh come on, you don’t have to weep for everything.
@21 So some things are still free hey?
@22
That makes me very sad. ;-;
From now on i will boycott Panera FOREVER! i don’t forget and i don’t forgive.
I reside at a bording school where torrentfreak isblocked under the cattergry of illegal or age restricted activitty. I really don’t have a problem with not being able to torrent stuff at school, but considering that I live there for about 30 weeks of the year and that they charge a pretty hefty fee, I would at least like to read the news.
Sure, I accept that tf writes about some questionable things, but under this argument, surely the bbc should be blocked as they have been known to run stories about drug raids?
The only way I have of reading tf is to view there twitter and then google the names of the stories and hope that some other non sensered blog has stolen them.
Try proxify http://proxify.com
Maybe that will get around some of these blocks?
This is the sort of thing that happens when you let someone who has no idea what they are doing have access to black/whitelists.
If you are going to blindly use *keyword* to block things you deserve to be shot. No if, ands or, buts about it.
This is something that should be common knowledge. Its like using goto. You just don’t do it outside of VERY specific situations.
@8
Well put, couldnt agree more.
If they are allowed to “inject” their propaganda into schools then maybe some representatives from torrentfreak should think about education schools students as well.
Can you find the site by using the IP address. I was unable to ping or tracert torrentfreak.com.
maybe Im not smart enough to figure it out. Is that to avoid ddos
@29 learn to spell, it sounds like even boarding school isn’t helping :P
I wouldn’t be surprised if the RIAA/MPAA have sent their flood of legal e-mails to Panera explaining the evils of your site.
The RIAA/MPAA could benefit by having your site blocked. This is the only site where the information is not controlled by the RIAA/MPAA.
This is also a forum for anti-RIAA/MPAA haters.
If they can’t have you shut down, they will block access to you. That’s how powerful these guys are.
We must slay The Beast.
torrent torrent torrent torrent Just torrent making torrent sure torrent that torrent this torrent comment torrent about torrent torrents torrent will torrent never torrent be torrent seen torrent through torrent their torrent searches torrent that torrent contain torrent the torrent word torrent torrent torrent. torrent torrent torrent torrent
@34, you are a fucking idiot.
Same problem with the University of Southampton – the TorrentFreak website just times out. And we’re supposed to have one of the leading schools in electronics and computer science in the United Kingdom. What a fucking joke.
And that why I only trust the filters form bluetack, iblocklist, nexus32 and peerguardian…
The other commercial web filter sux.
“For reasons unknown, TorrentFreak is filtered by many organizations, schools and WiFi hotspots spread across various countries.”
thats easy , you DONT use HTTPS so any and all school type filtering auto checks it as all generic http bit NOT https
the answer is get youself a https certificate and server settings and we can all start reading from many more sites…
Wow, every1 should email them telling them their lame for doing that. Seriously, I just did via
http://www.panerabread.com/about/contact/index2.php
one word: TOR
Oh, and Tor(http://www.torproject.org/) is also supposed to be able to get around SonicWALL. At least until if and when they notice you’re using it.
My first impulse was to say it’s ok them I remember that most ISPs are private and they could do what they want if they wish to, well I have to say that although it’s private the service is public therefore they should not be allowed to censor anything they could use a QoS and load balancing thingy to rein on bandwidth.
And to end privacy concerns the traffic should be all encrypted.
About schools I feel that children are learning yet on how to be a member of society and they need supervision it’s bad and I remember how I did feel about in school but I also know that it’s important to have boundaries when growing up and I’m sorry but surveillance in schools should be and exception not on college there young people should be able to apply what they learned early and suffer the consequences of their actions good or bad like adults.
@8
The good news is that EFF,
http://www.eff.org
has started a schools project to tell the WHOLE story about copywrite and what IS allowed, as well as dispelling some RIAA/MPAA lies
“I won’t be eating at Panera Bread any time soon. In fact, I was already not eating at Panera Bread due to a local location voluntarily banning smoking on their outside patio.”
Smoking = cancer and bad health. If you refuse to eat at a restaurant because they promote health by not allowing smoking… Excuses along the lines of “it is hard to quit” are spouted by lazy people with no willpower. Many people have quit smoking without whining about it. Get over your self-pity and deal with it.
The Chinese Communist Party would be proud.
The Panera Bread I go to cuts your internet completely off for the day if you use a file sharing program while on their wifi
The problem with Panera’s “method” of blocking “torrent” is that it interferes with the non-related. Before it was a protocol, it was a word. This is absurd and most of all ignorant action taken against torrents. As the article pointed out, this blanketed blocking of anything with “torrent” is covering up those things not even remotely associated with torrents.
This Article has a point, the fact that banning the word “torrent” is not a sure way to stop people from getting to bittorent sites. There are such sites such as mininova and piratebay that doesn’t have torrent in their url. They could have atleast hired someone with knowledge on bittorent sites so he can manually block them all. One word for them “Stupid”.
…slow news day?
Darn noobs *shakes fist*
This is a new thing… About 8 or so months ago (Probably longer) I was at a Panara and had Torrent freak blocked while using Google reader on my iTouch. I wrote a quick email and sonic wall actually re-classed torrent freak. Everything was great. I haven’t been to a store in a while but I am sad to see someone decided to add a shitty word filter as part of a custom block list..
Sending an email to Panara’s corporate office about it now.
I have some clout with the IT dept at my work and got a bunch of sites unblocked, including this one. In the past, any site labeled as P2P got blocked. I tried to get Pirate Bay, Mininova and Isohunt unblocked but the head of IT said no, not because he was against file sharing, but because he said if the RIAA caught people downloading music at work they would sue the company.
Sonic Wall is the same filter my school uses
Not news. My old high school blocked any site with ‘torrent’ or ‘proxy’ in the URL… well until they switched to a whitelist anyway.
The problem is a philosophical view of what school is about.
For normal people like you and me, school is where you learn to think, eventually want to start to research, and to be made short, it’s a place of increasing and sharing knowledge.
For the psychopaths who run big companies, it’s just a place to produced educated (in the “i educated my dog to obey my orders” way) idiots, in an accounting vision, and specialized.
Don’t forget that for those people, the world is just a RTS game. Producing units, of all kinds. Nothing else, sadly.
i was reported to the principle while i was looking at the torrentfreak site they couldnt give me a reason for me being in trouble all they told me was i wasnt supposed to be on there. while other kids are hacking onto myspace and things in school torrentfreak which isnt even blocked i get into trouble for talk about major b.s..
i’m in oz posting via a proxy from another free wi-fi that has done the same.
>and since it’s their network they can impose as many restrictions as they like.
No! cause this would mean that ISP’s also are allowed to censorship whatever thay want!
This is not about torrent downloading, this about torrentfreak.com (some lame comments i had seen).
i dont like it but its their wifi and they can do whatever they want but need more education ;-)
i have friends who run transports in the US ,, they go from state to stata on a daily basis and run into the same problem at various truck stops ,, a vpn or proxy gets around it ,, i think it’s kinda neat ,, mobile file sharing ;)
Ahh… America Land of the Free.
Slowly diminishing.
I’ve seen my fair share of net-web filters and I must say they have ballooned. It is rather funny cuz such sites are decided arbitrarily.
Anyhow,I must say I am rather disappointed becuz they have become much much more pervasive. It used to be something that only school-children would have to bother about (which made sense, we dont want them looking up porn or whatever), but now it has expanded to so many businesses and real world. The classic techniques are to getting around them are becoming obsolete.
Welcome to the New America.
It’s your own fault for using “torrent” in your domain name, that’s all it is, noones going out of their way to block this website, simply “torrent” in url’s.
hardly news worthy.
This is completely different to an isp doing it; your getting a internet connection for free in this situation where as your paying for your connection with your isp there for nothing should be blocked.
People that are suggesting all these things like vpn’s, ssl’s webproxies and tor obviously have really good intentions but don’t know that much about network administration.
This is what happens when you employ Computer Science dropouts as admins.
maybe you should complain to BREIN
This is what happens when you employ Computer Science dropouts as admins.
That’s funny
sadly, if you want to avoid the problem of your favorite anti piracy folks sending you those nice legal letters … and you want to do so cheaply, than “you employ Computer Science dropouts as admins” and if you are really cheap, you just do it yourself! while this might upset a few folks, it does stop the legal issue of being sued by your favorite best friends … the riaa/mpaa.
well back to starbucks for me!
Well, I know that their wifi works for some bt dling, I dled Steal This Film 2 from their wifi using Transmission a couple of weeks ago.
not all panera breads use this filter, but the ones that do have chronically slow connections.
and they also block hipforums.com
http://browsershots.org
Another way: use google translator. Unfortunatly google have now blocked translation from english to english. Argg
lol oh well who cares anyway, panera bread seriously sux..
It’s the word FREAK.
Are we really complaining about free internet access? This is a complimentary service, it is nice that they provide any service at all. If you choose to not eat here because of the filter than you are missing out on some great food.
As someone who works in the ISP industry providing both residential and commercial circuits, as well as someone who has a lot of bittorrent traffic, I must say: quit your whining. public wifi != a right, it’s a privilege. This article is a great reminder why there’s rarely an article worth reading at this clown-shoes blog.
I could understand why they’d block torrents and P2P software on their free networks, they’d get blasted legally pretty fast if they didn’t.
But blocking every website that has the keyword ‘torrent’ is just implausibly silly.
I don’t think the free part is the problem is the censor part that is an issue.
I use ‘em all the time, and its easy to get around.. I have a squid proxy running on one of my home systems, and since I connect to my home network via OpenVPN, I just redirect Firefox to proxy thru squid and voila! no more bs from Panera….
Big fucking deal.
Evil? Grow up, dumbass
An outrage, what’s next? the librarian asking you not to jerk off while accessing porn in the children’s section of the library.
How much money Panera Bread paid for this free advertisement on TF to all, erm, pirates?
Considering the price of Panera’s food, you’d be better off going to Subway and using the money you saved to actually buy the movie or CD you would have downloaded.
I’m at Panera right now reading this article and I have been able to do everything that this article says you can’t do.
Yeah, there’s nothing like trying to access a web article or email over a poky connection while the other wi-fi hogs are downloading Duke Nukem Forever playable demos, a pirate of the 300 movie and four different Linux distros. Generally none of them have even bothered to at least buy a cup of coffee.
Good for you Panera. You’ll keep my business. The cries of the Everything Should Be Free and Wide Open Weenie League is music to my ears.
Mo big loss there…Panera’s food sucks anyway. I often have wondered if the wave the meat over the bread whilest make mine sandwich cause with the amount of turkey they put on there I could swear they are trying to covertly turn me into a vegetarian. cheap bastards…fuck em.
Net filters are one big censor machine..Their real purpose is to omit anything controversial..Sooner or later a free thinker will realize that civillisation is one big confidence trick.
yeah i completely stopped goin ta panera bread like a year ago, i def vote fur cosi at the promenade shops in saucon valley, pa, its way better n free wifi =]
n a side not theres always proxy use as well if that helps haha
@8
“Students should be taught how to think, not what to think.”
Yes
Lol I tried to go on this in school and it said “blocked: criminal skills” heheh.
Although I can get on waffles, what.cd. Epic fail.
Stupid ass school. I’m on this now with a proxy anyway.
TOR was designed to bypass this type of censorship. There is no way to stop TOR unless you whitelist sites. If a fw lets port 80 access to the outside, you are gold.
http://www.torproject.org/
Its there network, THEY PAY FOR THE IP access, they can do ANYTHING they want you cheap ass hippies.
FUCKING GET JOBS, pay for your ISP, and torrent away
fucking idiots
Google proxified along with everything else you do online
http://www.gookla.com/browse.php?u=Oi8vZ29va2FsYS5jb20%3D&b=13
don’t be censored again, set it as your homepage :-)
I’ve viewed this site everytime i was at panera bread unless this is a new change over the last year. in the past i have few problems with their internet :(
My one and only visit to the local Panera was a mess. I knew there would be problems when I walked in and saw that both the cashiers were Miss Cuties in their early 20s. That is ALWAYS a bad sign as that group never has even the most minimal interest in customer service.
I ordered a chicken sandwich with a jalapeno mayo dressing as that sounded good. Next problem was when I went to pick it up. Two more cuties who were talking away and completely ignoring the customers. No hello, no thank you, no enjoy your sandwich.
The sandwich was ok but not much more. A little dry in fact. Opening it up I discovered that the lame brains had not put the spread on it. Just the turkey and the limp lettuce. No side pickle either although my companion got one with their sandwich.
So typical of places that hire this age group based solely on looks. Basically this was a fast food place with a higher price and slightly older employees. Oh yes, almost forgot. The basket of free bread chucks to try? The bread was stale.
Roseville, California if anyone is interested. I’ve never been back and after reading this article I know I won’t. $7 for a crappy sandwich made by people who couldn’t care less and a business that censors its customers. No thanks.
http://www.gookla.com/browse.php?u=Oi8vZ29va2FsYS5jb20%3D&b=13
Welcome to gookla.com – BETA
Enjoy unrestricted and uncensored browsing with our service. You make a request via our site, we fetch the resource and send it back to you.
Browsing through us both keeps you anonymous from the sites you visit and allows you to bypass any network restrictions from your government, workplace or college.
Who cares, it is their internet connection and they want to block it.. If you want to access torrents from Panera, get a 3G adapter.
Panera bread suck’s anyway. Come to Newk’s!!
If im reading this from panera, then I guess they didn’t block it here? How nice.
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