The Norwegian Pirate Party has made a big statement by launching a free DNS service which allows Internet users to bypass the local Pirate Bay blockade. The party advocates a free and open Internet for everyone and believes that the recent website blockades set a dangerous precedent.

Last week Norway became the latest country to block access to The Pirate Bay.

A local court ordered Internet providers to block users’ access to several large ‘pirate’ websites in the hope that it will decrease online copyright infringement.

The local Pirate Party is now vigorously protesting the ruling and has decided to fight back. Since the sites will be blocked on the DNS level the party is countering by providing their own DNS servers.

“We want a free and open Internet for everyone. The copyright industry’s fight for control over culture has put us in a situation where this is no longer the case in Norway,” Pirate Party co-chairman Øystein Middelthun tells TF.

“The censorship is easy to bypass, by simply changing your name server, so we decided to practice what we preach and offer such a service to all those affected by the problem,” he adds.

Indeed, since the sites’ IP-addresses are not blocked the blockade can be easily circumvented by changing the DNS settings on one’s device or computer. The Pirate Party is not the only company offering alternative DNS, OpenDNS and Google have a similar service.

The Pirate Party’s DNS has added benefits though, as it supports additional Top Level Domains including .geek or .pirate, and the Namecoin based .bit. In addition, it operates from Norway with minimal logging to guarantee users’ privacy.

The Pirates note that the order will have minimal effect on people’s sharing habits. However, Middelthun is concerned about the slippery slope, where companies and the authorities get to dictate what people are allowed to see online.

“The blocking order is yet another sad step down the road towards the dystopic world imagined by George Orwell. At the same time it achieves absolutely nothing of what the plaintiffs are hoping for,” he tells TF.

“The dangerous thing about it is that it sets a precedent. It is easy to imagine how the scope could be expanded to include other websites somehow considered immoral, and while the current technical implementation is easy to circumvent, hardening it is equally easy once society has accepted censorship in the first place,” Middelthun adds.

The DNS service is not limited to Norwegians. Everyone who wants an unfiltered DNS service is welcome to use it.

Previously the UK Pirate Party ran into trouble when they launched a Pirate Bay proxy in response to a local blockade. The Norwegian Pirates don’t expect that their DNS will be targeted, but if it does they are prepared to fight back.

“Running a public DNS service is fully legal, so we do not expect any legal trouble. A scenario to consider is if the copyright industry, or surveillance hungry politicians, started pushing for strictly regulating DNS- and/or VPN-services,” Middelthun says.

“If this scenario came true, we will fight it with everything in our power. It is paramount that the Internet remains free, or society would suffer greatly,” he concludes.