UK Man Arrested for Hosting Proxy Server

A man has been arrested and released on bail for hosting a proxy server.

The 20 year old from Nottingham is being questioned by the police, with help from the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), after they had found evidence that tied him to the creation of the proxy server which allowed access to 36 websites. All of these websites had been blocked by ISP’s including The Pirate Bay and EZTV. The proxy called Immunicity has now been blocked by the police and now only shows a police warning.

A proxy can allow a user to connect to websites that have been blocked by an ISP, much like a VPN can. The proxy server doesn’t actually host any files, it just makes accessing websites possible. Due to this I’m unsure on how the police are going to charge the man ad he has not violated copyright laws, he has just allowed users to route their traffic through his server.

The arrest is part of a larger clampdown on piracy websites called ‘Operation Creative’. During this clampdown police have been removing large company advertising from illegal websites, which basically removes their funding. Since this has happened however, more advertisements from porn websites and malware websites have popped up on torrent sites, making them a little riskier to browse.

Thanks to Wired for supplying us with this information.

Image courtesy of Wired.