With the Megaupload take down, The Pirate Bay drastically changed their web site to circumvent censorship attempts from all arms of the law.  Many want TPB to be shutdown, especially Hollywood, which claims they lose billions of dollars because their products are being pirated.  But how can you shutdown something if you don’t know where it is?

TPB announced their plans of hosting parts of their sites in GPS-controlled drones instead of data centers, which could be raided and shutdown by the authorities.

“One of the technical things we always optimize is where to put our front machines. They are the ones that re-direct your traffic to a secret location. We have now decided to try to build something extraordinary.

With the development of GPS controlled drones, far-reaching cheap radio equipment and tiny new computers like the Raspberry Pi, we’re going to experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air. This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system. A real act of war.

We’re just starting so we haven’t figured everything out yet. But we can’t limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore. These Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) are just the first attempt. With modern radio transmitters we can get over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away. For the proxy system we’re building, that’s more than enough.

But when time comes we will host in all parts of the galaxy, being true to our slogan of being the galaxy’s most resilient system. And all of the parts we’ll use to build that system on will be downloadable.

In an interview with TorrentFreak, TPB stated why the need to host sites above the surface of the earth.

“Everyone knows WHAT TPB is. Now they’re going to have to think about WHERE TPB is,” The Pirate Bay team said.  “We’re already the most resilient and the most down to earth. That’s why we need to lift off, being this connected to the ground doesn’t feel appropriate to us anymore.”

Though the TPB drone plan seems too Sci-Fi-ish, they assured TorrentFreak that it is real and that their first drone will be flying above international waters.