With the new football season underway in Spain and LaLiga’s blocking order still in force under the authority of a judge, overblocking is still a big problem in Spain according to reports.
Last season saw relentless IP address blocking target shared Cloudflare IP addresses again and again. With no obvious urgency to ensure that those blocks were lifted when no longer needed (i.e after LaLiga matches had ended) blocking continued to affect innocent parties for much longer than necessary; that’s if we assume that any avoidable blocking of innocent third parties is ever necessary.
Potentially Some Limited Progress
As reported earlier this week, data reviewed by TorrentFreak suggests that some measures may have been put in place to limit how long IP addresses stay blocked. Instead of persisting for hours, days, or even weeks after being put in place, blocks seem to be lifted much more quickly.
While that should’ve been the case back in February to limit unnecessary collateral damage, any progress should come as a relief, especially if it can be built upon in the coming weeks.
Until then, concerned parties appear to be battling a fundamental reluctance to get involved by anyone with any power or influence. Faced with inaction and a problem for individuals and businesses up and down the country, media coverage can often make a real difference.
Not in this case; beyond a small number of tech-focused news outlets, most mainstream outlets in Spain have avoided mentioning the controversy, much less found reason to discuss it.
ERC Demands Answers
Not so the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), a pro-Catalan independence party that aired its concerns in Congress this week. Accusing the government of doing nothing to protect citizens from freedom of information and net neutrality violations, ERC said inaction amounted to a dereliction of the government’s duties.
“A private company cannot act with impunity and indiscriminately in defense of its business. No matter how important that business may be,” spokesperson Gabriel Rufián wrote on X.
“And charging €120 per month, it certainly can be.”
According to a Europa Press report, ERC presented a list of questions to the government for which it demanded answers from the executive branch concerning LaLiga’s blocking campaign. The party reportedly described collateral damage from overblocking as “massive”, with large platforms such as Steam and Elon Musk’s ‘X’ among those negatively affected.
Europa Press invited LaLiga to comment; maintaining its original position from roughly six months ago, LaLiga denied there was a problem.
LaLiga: Reports of Overblocking Are False
“It is false that massive blocking of legitimate websites is taking place,” LaLiga told the publication.
“All blocking measures are part of an authorized and supervised judicial procedure, under very restrictive and guarantee-based criteria, and under protocols that include multiple safeguards and guarantees, thus ensuring compliance with the principle of proportionality.”
LaLiga went on to describe a “precise and surgical procedure” within a system that is “highly specific and designed to address illegal content, while documenting and preserving evidence of the violation of its rights in all cases.’
Still No Peace Agreement
In a clear sign that LaLiga and Cloudflare have been unable to patch up their differences, LaLiga took the opportunity to blame Cloudflare for hosting “both legitimate and illegal websites on the same IP address, thus serving as a digital shield for such criminal conduct.”
The statement is a classic double-edged sword. By shifting responsibility to Cloudflare, it acknowledges the shared IP address issue at the root of the majority of overblocking incidents in Spain. While LaLiga claims to block the pirate services with pinpoint accuracy, which it does, there could be dozens or hundreds of innocent services on the top of exactly the same pin as a single pirate site.
The blocking of innocent third-parties is clearly something that LaLiga would like to avoid. Since it has no means available to partially block an IP address, blocking impacts innocent individual users and small websites, through to large internet-based operations that have no connection to piracy.
Cloudflare IP address 172.67.69.232
There’s no definitive single source of information to accurately and comprehensively identify in advance which sites will be affected by an IP address block; but there are ways to confirm that at least some damage will be caused. At the time of writing, the majority of previously blocked IP addresses have been unblocked by the ISPs in Spain.
For reasons that remain unclear, however, Vodafone is still blocking the Cloudflare IP address 172.67.69.232.
This means that any Cloudflare customers that have been allocated that same IP address can no longer service any visitors who attempt access from a Vodafone connection in Spain. During match times, the same would also apply to other ISPs including Movistar, DIGI, Orange, Masmovil, and Vodafone itself.
The perfect result for LaLiga might be the blocking of a single pirate site. The actual result of blocking a shared IP address is the blocking of a single pirate site, and all other sites operating from the same IP address.
Pinpoint Accuracy Collateral Damage
In the case of Cloudflare IP address 172.67.69.232, the following domains (and most likely many more besides) were all using that address at the time of writing. (domain extensions modified for security reasons)
logos-world.nxt, cordonbleu.edu, thefloridachannel.oxg, filext.cXm, atwix.cXm, royalapps.cXm, netticket.fi, cultsport.cXm, rapid-rebates.cXm, gosweetspot.cXm, sundaymore.cXm, bizmanualz.cXm, atech.cloud, boom.tv, dobenergy.cXm, viseo.sX1, radbag.bEx, fabricsandpapers.cXm, diamondtours.cXm, muzikercdn.cXm, supportyourtech.cXm, mellano.fi, ac-knowledge.nxt, g-city.cXm, brightercraft.cXm, wsipowered.cXm, kleverinnovations.nxt, experimenteaza.ro, omegatv.cXm.cy, b-zone.buz, farma-rhodes.cXm, improveit.llt, finqr.sX1, bluefoxhost.cXm, card-plus.nxt, stampseed.cXm, gomel-sat.ZZ, zanchetta.cXm.br, lotsthailand.cXm, motaquip.cXm, chelfordfarmsupplies.co.bk, sierracases.cXm, southtelecom.vn, adjust-it.nlX, shavaz.cXm, naisuku.jpx, online-escape-room.cXm
A cursory review of these domains leads to one standing out above the others: gomel-sat.ZZ. The domain extension has been altered by us, but the site is linked to IPTV and could’ve been targeted via IP address blocking.
Whether UK-based Chelford Farm Supplies Ltd should’ve been blocked at the same time to prevent piracy is a matter for them. Likewise UK-based car parts distributor Motaquip and the others that we didn’t check individually.
LaLiga told Europa Press that it knew of “multiple complaints on social media about alleged blocks on nonexistent websites, with no real traffic or only a few dozen users per month. These types of complaints have no real impact on users and only seek to create a narrative of social alarm to discredit the fight against piracy.”
Narratives like these are undoubtedly a negative in the fight against piracy. Fortunately, they are easily managed through the elimination of the events providing the fuel.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Powered by WPeMatico
