Beware Internet users, trying to access blocked torrents sites will get you three year jail sentence along with a fine of Rs 3 lakh.
Until now, The blocked sites would either not load or give a message saying “Your requested URL has been blocked as per the directions received from Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Please contact administrator for more information.”
However, the government has now instructed the telecom operators to put up a warning notification on blocked URLs (torrent sites):
“This URL has been blocked under the instructions of the Competent Government Authority or in compliance with the orders of a Court of competent jurisdiction. Viewing, downloading, exhibiting or duplicating an illicit copy of the contents under this URL is punishable as an offence under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957 which prescribe imprisonment for 3 years and also fine of upto Rs. 3,00,000/-. Any person aggrieved by any such blocking of this URL may contact at urlblock@tatacommunications.com who will, within 48 hours, provide you the details of relevant proceedings under which you can approach the relevant High Court or Authority for redressal of your grievance”
In India, DNS-filtering is used to block websites – a list of DNS for blocked sites are provided to internet service providers (ISP), who in-turn apply the filters to their DNS server to block users from accessing these sites. However, users have been managing to access blocked sites by using VPN services. Also, this method is ineffective against sites that use HTTPS encryption, where user’s computer securely connects to the site servers.
There is lack of clarity regarding this issue as there has not been an official word from the government officials.
Indian Express reports that when it tried to access certain torrent sites, the new warning did appear, but when they tried to re-access these sites, the warning was replaced by an old notification.
It remains to seen on whether the government is trying to scare people from using torrent sites or if they will actually prosecute people.
