CLOUDFLARE REVEALS PIRATE SITE LOCATIONS IN AN INSTANT
BY ANDY ON JUNE 29, 2015 C: 10
BREAKING
In recent times its become common for 'pirate' sites to use U.S.-based Cloudflare as a 'shield' from the outside world and copyright holders in particular. However, as yet another torrent site learned this past week, Cloudflare is not only ineffective in this respect, but it will also lead anti-piracy companies directly to their true location.
cloudflareFive years ago, discovering the physical location of almost any ‘pirate’ site was achievable in a matter of seconds using widely available online tools. All one needed was an IP address and a simple lookup.
As sites became more aware of the need for security, cloaking efforts became more commonplace. Smaller sites, private trackers in particular, began using tunnels and proxies to hide their true locations, hampering anti-piracy efforts in the process. Later these kinds of techniques were used on even the largest sites, The Pirate Bay for example.
In the meantime the services of a rising company called Cloudflare had begun to pique the interest of security-minded site owners. Designed to optimize the performance of sites while blocking various kinds of abuse, Cloudflare-enabled sites get to exchange their regular IP address for one operated by Cloudflare, a neat side-effect for a site wishing to remain in the shadows.