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Quad9 Must Block DNS Queries to a Piracy Site in Germany

A court in Germany ruled that the DNS-resolver Quad9 must stop resolving DNS queries to an alleged piracy website unaffiliated with Quad9.

Earlier this year, Sony Music obtained an injunction against Quad9 in the lower court of Hamburg, Germany, that required the DNS-resolver to block DNS resolution of the domain or domains of a site that allegedly violates Sony’s copyrights. TorrentFreak, a site that is obviously more capable of reporting on piracy-related news than Darknetlive, identified the likely subject of the case as CannaPower, a well-known music-sharing website.

A picture of From the name of the site, one might think it belonged to a online marijuana vendor.

From the name of the site, one might think it belonged to a online marijuana vendor.

I will operate under the assumption that TorrentFreak is correct. A cursory examination of the injunction as well as the CUII initial action against the site indicates that TorrentFreak is likely right. However, Quad9 does not apparently have a record of blocking CannaPower–at least via the domain name provided in the TorrentFreak article. No variant of CannaPower’s URLs appear to be blocked by Quad9.

A picture of It appears as if both CannaPower and the subject site use the same backend. PHP Fusion?

It appears as if both CannaPower and the subject site use the same backend. PHP Fusion?

Prior to Sony’s case against the site, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Germany voluntarily agreed to block the resolution of DNS queries to sites hosting allegedly pirated content. CannaPower, which quickly added a set of mirrors to circumvent the DNS block, noted that the ISPs 1&1, Vodafone, and Telekom had already blocked their site. After the establishment of the Clearingstelle Urheberrecht im Internet (CUII) in early 2021, Vodafone grew increasingly aggressive in blocking access to websites. The provider voluntarily blocked access to Libgen, a huge online repository of free books and academic articles.

Of course, Germany is an awful country for uncensored internet access, perhaps only behind New Zealand and Russia and tied with the United States and the United Kingdom. As a result of Germany’s aggressive censorship policies, users of “piracy” sites are familiar with the process of switching to a better DNS resolver.

CannaPower guides its users to switch to Cloudflare, censurfridns.dk, Google, or simply DNS-over-TLS. (By the way, you should most likely do this regardless of the country you live in.) Sony, a company that aggressively pursues perceived Copywrite violations, has caught on to this tactic. Sony Music received an injunction in Germany against Quad9 which stopped the Swiss-based DNS-resolver from resolving the target site.

A picture of It is not clear if Quad9's database simply has not been updated to reflect recent additions to the blocklist.

It is not clear if Quad9's database simply has not been updated to reflect recent additions to the blocklist.

“We’re disappointed that this first set of hearings ended in what we think is an outcome that is not consistent with the legislative intentions of the German government,” said John Todd, General Manager of Quad9. “There are a large number of Internet-based services which we think ultimately are put at serious risk by this ruling, and we will not stop our legal challenges on this injunction. We object to the decision not just for ourselves but for all of our end-users, network operators, software developers, and network services that we believe are the targets of this ruling in its much wider context.”

As for the block being inconsistent with the legislative intentions of the German government, Todd might be correct. The German government wants to prevent so-called offensive content. Sites impacted by Germany’s laws, according to HumanRightsWatch, “include a leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, a satire magazine, and a political street artist.” (Imagine thinking AfD is actually “far-right” lol.) The blocking of piracy websites is something done at the behest of corporations.

Quad9 appealed this injunction. As reported by TorrentFreak on December 6, the Regional Court in Hamburg chose to uphold the previous ruling, ordering Quad9 to continue blocking the site in question.


Mostly Off-Topic/CW:Intentionally Antagonistic

Many will argue about how terrible the censorship in China is or the censorship in Russia for that matter. And the censorship in both countries is directed by the government and is a model directly incompatible with people living in what they believe are free countries. Neither China nor Russia block CannaPower.

A picture of Canna is not blocked in China either.

Canna is not blocked in China either.

Russia’s block lists, which are also mandated by the government’s internet police, function in a similar fashion to China’s firewall. For example, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media asked DeepDotWeb to remove a guide on how to use a Russian darkweb marketplace. Prihar ignored the request. As a result, Russia’s internet police blocked access to the specific guide, leaving the rest of the site accessible to users in Russia.

A picture of I do not blame them.

I do not blame them.

China, for the most part, blocks websites the government considers socially harmful, such as Darknetlive.com, and pornography sites, such as xhamster.com. Content that brings shame to the national identity of the country or its government, criticism of the government although not necessarily criticism over policy, etc. Or the “Strict Management to Effectively Prevent Minors from Addiction to Online Games” that forces online gaming companies to only allow minors to play for one hour from 8:00 to 9:00 PM on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The gaming services must prevent minors from accessing online video games at any other times.

A picture of kek

kek

Chinese citizens should be thankful the government has saved them from the invasive services offered by Google or Twitter. (I am mostly joking about that last part as the Chinese government has filled the invasive role of those private companies. But, this is far out of the scope of this article and Darknetlive articles are the wrong place to discuss this issue.) Since this site explicitly does not encourage anti-social behavior such as drug abuse or fraud, I am guessing China blocked Darknetlive to prevent citizens from accessing a repository of links to hidden services.


I feel like this was far too long for an article about the blocking of a piracy website. However, the censorship at the ISP level and third-party DNS resolver is very important and will undoubtedly become a form of lawfare against other sites.

Injunction (pdf) via Quad9.

12 Comments
It's Called We Engage In A Mild Amount of Tomfoolery
e30014ef
41f549a0 Mon, Dec 13, 2021

Of course, Germany is an awful country for uncensored internet access, perhaps only behind New Zealand and Russia and tied with the United States and the United Kingdom. As a result of Germany’s aggressive censorship policies, users of “piracy” sites are familiar with the process of switching to a better DNS resolver.

???
There are not many countries with such a free internet like germany and almost no one knows how switching their DNS resolver works nor is it necessary here.

3f405048
6dccccb0 Mon, Dec 13, 2021

I guess it depends on what you consider a free internet. But you don’t get your door kicked in for saying mean things online in Namibia or even Botswana like you will in Germany.

398cd058
6dccccb0 Sat, Dec 11, 2021

I can admit when I am wrong. After looking into it, it looks as if there has been one instance of a journalist getting Cellebrited as a result of content written online.

f5f83e74
12ca56f0 Tue, Dec 14, 2021

Yes, sure, germany (like most developed countries) has made up rules for the internet and for example harrassing someone online can lead to a conversation with the police which would probably not happen in most african countries because they don’t have laws there yet against something like that.
But i think comparing it with russias targeted censorship or their misinformation campaigns and calling it “aggressive german censorship policies” is just wrong.

The fact that some german internet provider now block access without a court order by using simple DNS blocking is not very awesome but unfortunately not illegal for them.

German laws fortunately make it very difficult to block sites on the internet and now these internet provider believe they need to be the gatekeepers.

8e17aed9
6cd96dc0 Mon, Dec 13, 2021

Think you both missed it. Nothing is free.

5a2c9259
b9f35c80 Mon, Dec 13, 2021

Freedom isn’t free.. it costs folks like you and meeeee…

855c589b
093e0060 Tue, Dec 14, 2021

fuck fr33dom

9beba257
52859780 Tue, Dec 14, 2021

I cant breathe with all this censorship

ba9d116a
74d1c040 Wed, Dec 15, 2021

Breeve*

29ae7348
cb3c05a0 Wed, Dec 15, 2021

Breed*

a80a7ad2
71703d60 Wed, Dec 15, 2021

40%

9c21c8c6
0ae3b3d0 Thu, Dec 16, 2021

DNS blocking on ClearNet can be avoided very easy,
creating alternate FreeDDNS links, yes, double DD. like Bra.
to look similar and re-route directly to the proper IP address#,
like a short URL but Not short, and direct to the IP #, Not to another DNS server.

or simply typing the real ip4/6 address # on the browser.
go to whois website search anywebsite, type the ip, done.

DNS is just the server between you and the real server you want.
like a phone directory,
like a time saver,
you type a human name easy to remember,
DNS server searches that name in the database,
finds what IP address # corresponds to that name,
tells or wispers the answer to your browser in the backgorund: the IP #,
your browser goes to that IP address.
but you browser displays the easy to remember human name on the address bar.

the reason for DNS servers it’s because most websites have a dynamic IP address..
very few have a fixed IP address.
when modem is reset, the IP changes, but the name does Not.
some modems change/refresh the IP every 24 hours automatically.

cable modems need to ask every x time, a configuration file to the cable company ISP server,
to know the speed allowed by the server, if you pay your monthly bill, etc…
or simply to refresh the connection, bc some switches go crazy, doing all that routing and need a re-boot.

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