Pirate Bay ISP victim of sabotage after shutdown

IDG News Service - Black Internet, the ISP that on Monday turned off the access to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, says it has become the victim of sabotage. The damage is substantial, according to CEO Victor Möller.

Customers that get their Internet access from Black Internet were experiencing outages on Tuesday morning. The reason was sabotage against its infrastructure, according to the ISP.

On Friday, a verdict in the Stockholm district court prompted Black Internet to shut down access to The Pirate Bay. The verdict reached Black Internet on Monday, and it decided to immediately comply. Only a few hours later it became the victim of sabotage, it said.

The sabotage has been intentional, according to Möller.

"Our network isn't working as it should. We are working with the police and technicians to find out what has happened," said Möller.

He doesn't want to elaborate on details of the sabotage or from where it might have originated.

Möller also underscoresthat the link between Black Internet shutting down The Pirate Bay and the attack is far from certain.

Is there anything that implies that this is an act of vengeance? "Nothing more than the fact that we were hit six hours after we shut down the connection," said Möller.

All of Black Internet's customers were affected by the disruption. Part of the network was up and running on Tuesday morning, and more parts were being turned on continually. Several of Black Internet's customers resell access, so it's difficult to gauge how many people have been affected.

"It's a giant pyramid and we are dealing with substantial damages and large sums," said Möller.

Per Wedin, CEO at One Call Support, one of the victims of the sabotage, had received information about the sabotage when Computer Sweden reached him on Tuesday, but the connection wasn't up yet. If it doesn't get resolved shortly the company will have to look for another supplier, he said. "We are talking about millions of Swedish kronor," he said.

The Pirate Bay site was up again on Monday with the help of a new ISP, according to Peter Sunde, the former spokesman for The Pirate Bay and one of the main men behind the site, so the outage resulting from Black Internet's disconnection only lasted for a few hours.

The reason that many users still aren't able to access The Pirate Bay is "because your ISP has a sucky DNS. Use OpenDNS instead", Sunde said in a Twitter message on Monday. "Also, TPB has issues for some people because of old routes. It will fix itself," he later added.