Can't say we didn't see this one coming: The Pirate Bay is experiencing downtime due to a DDoS attack, according to TorrentFreak. The attack comes just a few days after the site criticized Anonymous attacks on behalf of the site, calling them 'censorship.'

Until someone claims responsibility, though, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. For all we know, it could be a random attack from random hackers, or perhaps a devious government attack to separate people from their warez. And their authentic free speech rights. But mostly warez.

As of now, the site has been down for over 24 hours, and accessing it is still a hit or miss affair (mostly miss). Despite the presence of many workarounds to keep the site accessible in the face of censorship and governmental blocking, they don't seem to have been prepared for an attack from their fellow freedom fighters.

We're not gonna give you a walkthrough here, but if you simply must access the site, TorrentFreak does report that several proxies of the site are still accessible, and you can still do things 'the hard way,' too. In the meantime, we'll keep an eye on the usual sources and let you know if we hear anything, particularly regarding the origin of the attack.