DNS-based blocking? As someone living in a country with ever-increasing internet censorship, that's not blocking, that's a trivially ignorable gentle suggestion to not visit these sites.
You need to spend more time with the normies. 99.8% is probably an exaggeration, but if so, not by much. It's easy to forget just how little the average person knows, or wants to know, about how technology works, or their ability to change it to their advantage.
The vast majority of people not only do not understand DNS, they couldn't tell you with any specificity what a domain or IP address even are, and they're afraid of doing anything which might break their computer in a way they don't understand enough to fix.
Doesn't require much understanding to bypass a DNS block or use a VPN.
Easily two thirds of FiFo (Fly In | Fly Out) mine workers in this state, the full on beer swigging head butting rail labourers et al have a rough understanding of the problem and have traded a carton or three with a mate of mate to fix it on their phone | home network so they can get all the p0rn and free movies they can watch on time off.
Real understanding of layered networking protocols from fibre and wire upwards is rare; bypassing DNS blocks is common as muck even sans that fancy CISCO certification.
in fact I would say >90% of -internet users- who are motivated to do so would figure a way to bypass the block. And they don't need to know DNS for that. They find some board that gives them the steps necessary without needing to understand how it all works. Or they know a guy. Why are they motivated? Probably for games, videos, netflix, social media, etc. The walled gardens would motivate them.
Thing is here, only a minority are going to be "into" the pirate site scene, so way less are motivated in the first place. And a lot of them probably have a perfectly fine way to get their stuff from non-blocked pirate sites.
When I look at my grandma use the internet, she knows very little about it, but if she's motivated to do something with tech she always seems to figure out a way.
It's a hard stop because Germans don't really care so much. They are rich enough that they can just pay for a legal streaming platform or to just buy the movies and games.
In actually poor countries where the price is a real stumbling block, people do figure out how to use the required tools. In Eastern Europe, usage of torrent is common knowledge among average people. Everyone has some friend or family member who will explain and install it for them and they are motivated to learn. It's remarkable how much better people become at computer skills once it's about getting access to your favorite TV shows, movies or games.
> In Eastern Europe, usage of torrent is common knowledge among average people. Everyone has some friend or family member who will explain and install it for them and they are motivated to learn
Germans are not using torrent not because they don't have the knowledge but because they will get sued unless they take other anonymization measures that cost money and slow down speed so why not just pay for Netflix. In developing countries enforcement is not so great that's all
The solutions are just a Google search away and easy to implement. If that stops anyone even slightly motivated I must wonder what they are generally able to achieve with a computer.
For your anecdata is somewhat relevant you need to know around 2,000 people well enough to accurately judge whether they're capable of circumventing a DNS block :-)
> wonder what they are generally able to achieve with a computer
Stuff they actually do day to day. Scroll social media, use messaging apps, watch Netflix, Youtube, Twitch etc, in the older generations (millennial and up) also email and MS Office.
1. Cynically, for bureaucrats to be able to claim they're doing something about an issue the politicians care about, but which the bureaucrats think is a non-issue.
2. Less cynically, to take away plausible deniability for the torrenter about whether the thing is allowed or not.
