Are Orcon Blocking The Pirate Bay? (answer: No, but something's up somewhere)

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › Are Orcon Blocking The Pirate Bay? (answer: No, but something's up somewhere)

gehenna

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#112332 5-Dec-2012 11:28

So for purely research purposes I headed to The Pirate Bay the other day, from home, on my Orcon Genius connection.

Funnily enough I couldn't get through, I kept getting failed requests that timed out. "Oops! Chrome could not connected to thepiratebay.se" my browser would say.

It suggested redirected URL's that also didn't work.

So I tried on my Telecom XT iPhone connection and what's this?! It's working just fine!

I tried a bit later and I could connect from home again. But again today it's not working. My connection at work is fine - no problems getting through, but for the life of me I can't connect from home.

The other day I thought it might be my browser cache or some cache in my router - funny thing is my Genius got replaced recently so it's a brand new router and still from day one of that device I had problems. I also replaced my server on the weekend with a new box and new OS install - same thing.

It also happens on my MacBook and iPad.....it won't connect for ages then I try later and it's okay, then I go back a while later and it's down again....all the while accessible from another ISP.

So, the only conclusion is that Orcon are up to something funky with this website. I thought maybe their DNS was causing it but I can't get through on the IP either.

Anyone else having problems?

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Hawkes Bay
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#727337 5-Dec-2012 11:40

Pirate Bay has been up and down very often in the last month that I have been researching its homepage availability.

I seriously doubt Orcon are doing anything with it.

ptinson

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#727341 5-Dec-2012 11:46

We dont block pirate bay.

meat popsicle

gehenna

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#727343 5-Dec-2012 11:54

tonyhughes: Pirate Bay has been up and down very often in the last month that I have been researching its homepage availability.

I seriously doubt Orcon are doing anything with it.

Weird that it works on one ISP but not on Orcon when attempts are made at the same time on both though?

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#727347 5-Dec-2012 11:57

Echoing Paul. We don't block Pirate Bay.

Comms chap

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#727349 5-Dec-2012 11:59

I can confirm through my own independent research that they do not block it.

As mentioned they do go down now and then but sometimes you can still get in via one of their proxy sites. It may help your research efforts to follow them on FB

They're never gone for long...

ptinson

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#727356 5-Dec-2012 12:08

gehenna:
tonyhughes: Pirate Bay has been up and down very often in the last month that I have been researching its homepage availability.

I seriously doubt Orcon are doing anything with it.

Weird that it works on one ISP but not on Orcon when attempts are made at the same time on both though?

Yep weird.

meat popsicle

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#727362 5-Dec-2012 12:19

I did see somewhere recently that some service providers were asked to block traffic to TPB in the EU... might be getting caught up in that somewhere along the route.

FYI, works on Orcon fibre line here.....

XPD / Gavin

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#727363 5-Dec-2012 12:19

Given the nature of the site and enemies they likely have it doesn't really surprise me that TPB is up and down... I seem to recall multiple examples of them being DDoSed recently? I doubt it has anything to do with Orcon.

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gehenna

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#727383 5-Dec-2012 12:50

A lot of you, except ptinson, seem to be missing the point.... I know it goes up and down, I've got no issue with that. And I've got no issue with Orcon saying "we don't block TPB" - I get that too now that it's been stated in the thread.

The question is why it concurrently works on one ISP but doesn't on another....that doesn't indicate a host issue to me but rather an issue with that ISP - perhaps something local that's not updating fast enough to represent when the actual host goes back online following downtime?

So if Orcon aren't blocking the site there is still something going wrong with their connection that isn't happening on other ISP connections.

cisconz

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#727384 5-Dec-2012 12:57

I would say it is an upstream carrier issue
On my work connection I can't go to www.epygi.com
But on our lab Telecom connection it works fine, the ISP just won't route to www.epygi.com

Hmmmm

sidefx

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#727386 5-Dec-2012 13:01

How does a traceroute compare when it's accesible on one but not the other?

(The impression I've got in the past is TPB have to do a lot of tricky things to "stay up\accessible" - maybe as a result something is propogating at different speeds between ISPs... just idle speculation)

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ptinson

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#727401 5-Dec-2012 13:19

gehenna: A lot of you, except ptinson, seem to be missing the point.... I know it goes up and down, I've got no issue with that. And I've got no issue with Orcon saying "we don't block TPB" - I get that too now that it's been stated in the thread.

The question is why it concurrently works on one ISP but doesn't on another....that doesn't indicate a host issue to me but rather an issue with that ISP - perhaps something local that's not updating fast enough to represent when the actual host goes back online following downtime?

So if Orcon aren't blocking the site there is still something going wrong with their connection that isn't happening on other ISP connections.

traceroute it.
ill look at that.

meat popsicle

gehenna

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#727404 5-Dec-2012 13:25

cisconz: I would say it is an upstream carrier issue
On my work connection I can't go to www.epygi.com
But on our lab Telecom connection it works fine, the ISP just won't route to www.epygi.com

Could be the case, Traceroute below, but interestingly even though it times out from the same hop on both tests (Orcon and Actrix) I'm still able to view the site on Actrix but not on Orcon right now.

Both from hop 3 to remove any sensitive info:

Orcon:

3 27 ms 25 ms 25 ms xe-3-3-0.cre1.sky.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.72]
4 26 ms 28 ms 26 ms ge-0-1-5-0.cre1.nct.orcon.net.nz [121.98.9.9]
5 30 ms 27 ms 27 ms 121.99.12.0
6 162 ms 161 ms 161 ms te4-4.ccr01.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com [38.104.84.29]
7 163 ms 161 ms 161 ms te2-1.ccr02.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.28.66]
8 193 ms 189 ms 188 ms telia.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.10.10]
9 241 ms 322 ms 240 ms nyk-bb2-link.telia.net [80.91.252.166]
10 337 ms 334 ms 356 ms kbn-bb2-link.telia.net [80.91.247.120]
11 342 ms 341 ms 503 ms s-bb2-link.telia.net [80.91.248.50]
12 369 ms 368 ms 367 ms s-b2-link.telia.net [213.155.131.33]
13 342 ms 342 ms 350 ms te-1-2-tsic.sto2.se.portlane.net [213.248.95.174]
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.

Actrix:

3 2 ms 3 ms 1 ms wlg-core-1-gi0-0-0-18-10.actrix.co.nz [192.100.53.77]
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms wlg-core-int-pri.actrix.co.nz [192.100.53.45]
5 139 ms 139 ms 142 ms te7-3.ccr01.sjc05.atlas.cogentco.com [38.122.92.105]
6 139 ms 140 ms 139 ms te0-2-0-4.ccr21.sjc01.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.84.53]
7 139 ms 139 ms 139 ms te0-3-0-3.ccr21.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.86.90]
8 141 ms 141 ms 141 ms sjo-bb1-link.telia.net [80.239.196.189]
9 236 ms 216 ms 216 ms nyk-bb1-link.telia.net [213.248.80.0]
10 305 ms 319 ms 305 ms kbn-bb1-link.telia.net [213.155.134.51]
11 380 ms 310 ms 316 ms s-bb1-link.telia.net [213.248.65.141]
12 316 ms 316 ms 316 ms s-b2-link.telia.net [213.155.133.107]
13 294 ms 294 ms 294 ms te-1-2-tsic.sto2.se.portlane.net [213.248.95.174]
14 * * * Request timed out.
15 * * * Request timed out.
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.

tonyhughes

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#727417 5-Dec-2012 13:56

gehenna: A lot of you, except ptinson, seem to be missing the point.... I know it goes up and down, I've got no issue with that. And I've got no issue with Orcon saying "we don't block TPB" - I get that too now that it's been stated in the thread.

To be fair, I haven't seen anyone here miss the point.
Upstream (from NZ ISPs) issues for a site with a very questionable reputation - I bet the final routes to TPB alter quite a bit as various entities adjust their tolerance to TPB for various reasons, and that no ISP is going to be willing to pour wasted energy into it.

I don't think Orcon has anything to answer here.

TPB is sometimes unavailable, with the qualification that it is not necessarily the site itself disappearing off the internet.

The fact that Actrix or whoever else can access TPB at any given time still doesn't pin the problem on Orcon.

If it was Google, The Register, TMZ or something else not considered 'dodgy' then I'd suggest your ISP might like to dive in and help, but in this case, they have already stated they don't block TPB.

The question is why it concurrently works on one ISP but doesn't on another....that doesn't indicate a host issue to me but rather an issue with that ISP

It's a possibility, but given Orcons statement that they aren't blocking, I'd suggest it strongly indicates an upstream issue (which is basically out of Orcons control).

So if Orcon aren't blocking the site there is still something going wrong with their connection that isn't happening on other ISP connections

It does happen on other ISP connections. It has happened to me, and I am not on Orcon.

As you already know, the internet isn't a controlled-by-ISP direct route from web server to client. These things happen from time to time. It surprises me not that it happens often to a high profile torrent site.

YMMV/YOLO

My traceroute from hop 5 (I can access the site happily at the moment).

traceroute to piratebay.se (194.71.107.15), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
5 124.157.96.2 (124.157.96.2) 43.073 ms 42.470 ms 66.693 ms

6 kordia.cre2.nct.odyssey.net.nz (121.99.12.20) 43.512 ms 43.395 ms 44.296 ms

7 ae2-214.lax20.ip4.tinet.net (173.241.131.245) 204.922 ms 227.550 ms 204.035 ms

8 213.200.73.234 (213.200.73.234) 178.213 ms 182.892 ms 177.084 ms

9 power-och-tandom-t-lane.tengigabitethernet1-3.ar1.arn3.gblx.net (208.48.1.246) 369.108 ms 367.769 ms 396.963 ms

10 * * *

11 * * *

12 * * *

gehenna

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#727428 5-Dec-2012 14:03

tonyhughes:

I was only referring to the answers in the thread about TPB being up and down in general which don't relate to my question about a very specific scenario that in turn doesn't relate to the wider up/down issue (as far as I can see), also not saying it doesn't happen on other ISPs, just that it doesn't happen on other ISPs (the 3 or so I'm able to use) when I test concurrent with the Orcon problem.

I'm not trying to blame Orcon for anything (hence the thread title change), just noticed a problem and am trying to pinpoint the specifics so it can get fixed. If it's out of everyone's hands then so be it.

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