This Russian torrent website has been unblocked in Russia after six years. Your answer? lock itself – TheNewsTrace

A couple of weeks ago we told you that Russia had decided to respond to the exit from the Russian market by American multinational film and software companies. deciding to make exceptions to the current ban on downloading unauthorized copies.

At that time, we told them that the politician Dmitry Ionin had he even proposed the unblocking of the famous RuTracker torrent portal, of Russian origin, but he vetoed it for a few years by the authorities of the Slavic country, as a way of facilitating the access of Russian users to Western series and movies.

In fact, some users claimed to have been able to access to RuTracker soon after, though shortly after they ceased —again— to have access to the portal. And now we know what happened.

The unlock was a mistake. The 'relock' does not.

It turns out that, indeed, six years after ISPs were ordered to 'eternally block' access to RuTracker, users had been able to access it again... but it was simply due to a mistake by a Russian ISP that was in the process of being liquidated and, having laid off its technical staff, the blockades put in place by Roskomnadzor (the Russian communications regulator) were not being properly implemented.

Thus, between March 6 and 7, RuTracker managed to experience a sudden 40% increase in its traffic. But, before the news reached all its potential Russian users, those responsible for the portal made an unexpected decision: they blocked themselves. Or rather, they decided block access of any Russian IP to your server.

An unusual reaction. But those responsible for the portal had their reasons, related to the fact that have copyrighted material that is not affected by the recent exceptions approved by Moscow. According to a RuTracker representative:

“Our possible unblocking carries certain risks for those of our users who access from their IP addresses without using a VPN. Copyright holders haven't gone anywhere, no one has canceled [las leyes] about piracy.

“We are also unwilling to communicate with Russian state agencies when they require us to provide them with personal user data. That is why, in the current situation, we are categorically against and will prevent this 'unblocking'”.

Added to this is another piece of information, which those responsible for the portal officially dissociate from their decision to self-block: for a few days its logo changed to incorporate blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag as a way of expressing their disagreement with the invasion promoted by the authorities.

Via | TorrentFreak