Pirate Bay provider reports sabotage

Black Internet, a service provider that supplied capacity to The Pirate Bay, reports that it has been the victim of sabotage.

• Pirate Bay closed after court decision (25 Aug 09)
• Pirate Bay buyer faces criminal investigation (24 Aug 09)
• Pirate Bay buyer suffers new setback (24 Aug 09)

The report comes after a ruling by the Stockholm District Court last Friday ordered Black Internet to cut off capacity to the popular file sharing site under threat of a 500,000 kronor ($70,700) fine.

Black Internet was informed of the decision on Monday afternoon and acted swiftly to cut off bandwidth to The Pirate Bay.

The Pirate Bay was shut down as a result and remained closed on Tuesday afternoon.

According to a statement on Black Internet's homepage the company sustained sabotage shortly after and all of its clients have now been affected.

"We are talking about widespread damage. Our network does not work as it should. We are working with police and technicians to get to the bottom of it," CEO Victor Möller told the Computer Sweden newspaper.

Black Internet's CEO was however cautious in linking the sabotage to the closure of The Pirate Bay.

"Infrastructure is always sensitive...and there are other factors to consider," he told news agency TT.

Victor Möller was not prepared to divulge the exact nature of the sabotage.

Many of the firm's affected customers are themselves internet service providers which sell on capacity to private individuals and companies and many are completely without access to the internet on Tuesday.

The firm has been working hard since last night to repair its network and get its customers back on line and hopes that a large part of the network will be back in operation by Tuesday afternoon.