I’d like to report that currently the IP address corresponding to the custom domain endpoint (185.244.226.2) has became unreachable from a few of the major Spanish ISPs.
There has been lately a surge in blockings of shared CDN ip addresses due to football piracy, mostly Cloudflare main addresses specially during big matches, and the Storj endpoint seems to have been a victim of it.
The IP address is currently blackholed from Movistar, and accessing from DIGI and Vodafone shows a message, with specifically DIGI reporting it’s been blocked due to a request from Spanish LaLiga.
We also got confirmation from Movistar via X that this address is blocked because of a judicial order, and to contact the website owner for more information: https://x.com/movistar_es/status/1960691651854393436
This website also tracks the blocks from different ISPs, showing the IP is still blocked on those 3 ISPs, and it was also temporarily blocked by Orange/Masmovil up until yesterday night: Hay ahora fútbol?
This is causing currently Storj customers using custom domains (most people have noticed TrueNAS updating servers) to be unreachable.
I was imagining it. This morning I called both Movistar and LCR and they gave me the runaround. Then I saw your post and said, “That’s it, it’s LaLiga’s fault, Javier Tebas, and his blocking of soccer piracy websites.”
Companies should take action on this issue, as this is harming us on a daily basis and preventing us from working normally, even though it’s completely legal.
I can corroborate what @Tavier_Jebas says; our IP is blocked.
Switching internet service providers is easy to say, but difficult to execute, especially when these ISPs offer fewer services that don’t fit my needs or those of the companies I work with. Therefore, switching providers isn’t an option
If you can do something to unblock the IP, indicating that it’s legitimate and doesn’t contain pirated football content, that would be helpful. You are the owners of that domain, and you have the opportunity to prove that there’s no reason to block it.
The decision prevents further appeals via Spanish courts, but it remains to be seen whether Cloudflare will pursue recourse at a European level – let’s hope so.
It seems such actions can no longer be legally challenged in Spain but only on an European level.
I don’t know if Storj can or should try something like that. But if they lose business due to such action maybe they should and demand damages.
I hope they can do something. Companies are already asking me for a solution. They’ve been unable to make backups or access files for four days, and they can’t share files with clients either. Right now, they’re working as they used to, everything locally. If this means we have to abandon Storj in Spain… it’s a real shame, since I’ve been working on the project for about four years and I hope to continue for many more.
If tech companies currently want to have everything in the cloud and for us to work from the cloud, cases like these make you reconsider whether that’s true, and they’ll have to go back to having all their hardware locally and not relying on third parties.
As I understand it the problem is that they simply block anything in Spain without further verification if the blocked ips or domains are actually involved in unlawful actions.
Normally there should be a process to appeal such blocking decision, even more if they are conducted in a “we simply block everything” fashion without considering cases where the block of an ip is not justified and causes damages.
I don’t know how it is done in Spain. But in Germany as a last resort you could always apply for a “Einstweilige Verfügung” which is an urgent preliminary ruling at your local court. It does not cost much and anyone can do it, at least technically. There might be cases where a lawyer is required I don’t know but normally it can be filed without one. But of course consulting a lawyer first might be beneficial.
Maybe your clients in Spain can do something like that?
The legal department where I work has already started working on it. But they’re already telling me it’s going to take a long time and that the “temporary” solution their ISPs have given them is for Link.storjshare.io, with the IP address 185.244.226.2, to request an IP change from their respective ISP to remove the block, or for us to purchase a VPN service to access Storj’s resources until the block is resolved.
Personal opinion… are you telling me all clients have to purchase a VPN? Seriously… how can I tell X clients that they have to purchase a VPN service to work with us? They’ll just tell us they don’t work with us…
It’s a shame that such a thing is possible. I mean to block ips for the sake of it but without proving that blocking of each is required and appropriate.
This should not be possible. It could be that access to important data like medical data for example gets blocked that way.
That’s really bad.
Not many months ago, Steam was simply blocked, and many users in Spain lost access or only partially accessed it. It also affected the Redsys payment gateway, preventing purchases on websites. The way ISPs are acting is absurd.
Here are some links to the news from when it happened:
Some background info from when they did this also to another provider, Vercel:
LaLiga justifies their blockings as “minucious, precise and surgical“, and in previous cases they’ve only said they are only done after trying to reach out repeatedly the content provider to issue their copyright takedown (which I doubt was always the case).
Mainly it is political issue. It should be discussed on government level. If enough number of people will approach their politicians, they will understand they need to fix it.
Additionaly, you and all citizens could request their internet providers for monthly discount, since they have faulty network and not providing their customers with full / real internet access.
Whilst you can’t trust your government to do things in an orderly manner, it’s the best solution ATM.
Switching to an alternative storage provider will only buy some time. Risk is that they will get banned sooner or later as well. Storj getting IP changed could be short lived fix.
