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BitTorrent Community Running For Cover?
govatos writes "Bandwidth issues and DOS Attacks brought Bytemonsoon, a popular BitTorrent
page down, but now pages are closing for scarier reasons. Torrentse.cx 'recieved a cease and desist letter during the day of Wednesday, July 16, 2003 for copyright infringement. The entire website has been removed and will not return.' Will corporate pressure kill the BitTorrent movement, or will it keep flying from site to site before it settles somewhere 'safe' like Sealand's HavenCo?"
Well, on the plus side, the summer movie season is almost over.
Mike
index/key/tracker files
The tracker is a url of a server to contact. Take down that server, and the bittorrent files that contact it are no longer valid.
I've used BitTorrent once or twice myself, and found it to be a good system. That's only once or twice, because there just isn't that much legally distributable material that can reach the required "critical mass" for BitTorrent to be effective and necessary.
Nevertheless, the fact that there are proven legitimate uses of the code should be enough to prevent the code from disappearing. That, and all the copies that are already downloaded.
The real question is whether people will feel safe to post BitTorrent links even when they are distributing something that is 100% legit.
BitTorrent has one major advantage/disadvantage relative to Freenet. You can control what material you are involved in the re-distribution of to match whatever your defintion of "fair use" is. With Freenet you distribute everything or you distribute nothing because you don't know what anything is.
Personally, I prefer the BitTorrent approach. It would be a shame if the RIAA dogs force everyone to the "know nothing" approach.
A better question would be: "Will the continued use of bittorrent by warez kiddies destroy its reputation as a good way to get legitimate files?"
Does this come as a surprise to anyone? Now, don't get me wrong - I love it. Some sites post the coolest stuff, including stuff you'd never find (or would take years to dl) on any of the popular p2p networks. Though, that being said, have you seen some of these sites? It's the most blatant piracy ever! These guys are just begging to be shut down. It's kinda like the way it was when Napster first got popular and everyone was like "woah! free stuff for the taking!" This is the same thing; once again the ability to steal stuff has been taken to a new level and it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world notices... I just hope someone comes up with a better way to let ppl know about torrents besides posting them on easily shut down web sites.
Bittorrent was not designed as a way to anonymously get files, or to trick the RIAA, or anything like that.
It was designed as a way for people to distribute large files without paying gobs for bandwidth.
CX is the domain for christmas island:
.com, .net, .org, or .tk.
http://www.nic.cx/
There are a few popular sites with that domain that have some nasty content. But it's still just a domain like
Incidentally, I used the goatse site "as contact me info-page" in a reply to one of the Nigerian scammers. Suffice to say that, he was none to happy, as the following reply shows :
Just a question, the main problem with bittorrent is exactly the same as it used to be in the very early days of MP3, before most of you knew what the internet was and they shut down sites all the time that were just linking directly to the mp3s. You don't see that any now days, no one does directly linking, and the setup would not scale anyway. What do you see, we all use p2p search software. So why can I not use KaZaA to download the .torrent file and run it from there? Of Freenet? It still needs a tracker, but it decentralises the collection of .torrent files. How much work would it take to use KaZaA to get BT files?
Warez never truely dies, it just gets a good solid punch, you know the type where you can't breath for a few seconds, and then it catches its breath and comes back with a vengence.
Just to summarise it:
Warez started with BBS, when found they were easy to kill.
Moved to password and ratio BBS, a little harder, but not much.
On the internet it really came of age with FTP, often with ratio still, this was still trackable thou and sites got killed often.
Somewhere along the line, someone figured out that using centralised distribution methods was sorta the real problem leading to getting caught.
Along comes P2P, mp3's at first but it scaled well, and so moved quickly to anything.
So they started killing the search servers, ie napster, so we moved to P2P searches too.
Here is where it gets interesting, the problems with P2P were not created by the copyright holders as much as by the users. Leechers are a huge problem, and basically that leads to speed issues.
Now appears bittorrent, it attempts to resolve a lot of bandwidth issues, but it was not designed to be used in a obscured way. It tells the world everything and does not have search built in, but it is fast.
People come up with search engines for BT files, but those are like Napster servers, easy kills for the copyright holders.
That is where we stand now...
So the next step is to create, either as a hybrid of BT and something else, as P2P network that allows for distributed searches with content insertion abilities and BT style forced bandwidth sharing.
What is the attack that occures after that? The copyright holders have found it hard to kill KaZaA and the like, but they are too slow for a lot of people, and they can kill the fast BT. What happens when the two merge? No one has figured out how to DoS the P2P nets, and you cannot successfully sue everyone who uses it(there is more to the world then the US)...
Just some thoughts and ideas...
On Arrakis: early worm gets the bird. Magister mundi sum!
First off, it's very important to note that bittorrent isn't a P2P network; it is a completely new protocol, fundamentally different then anything that has come before it. In that regard, the "movement" so to speak will not die. The technology will continue to be improved on and it will continue to be used by people who love to get distros the second they come out. Hopefully, we'll finally see bittorrent get some commercial use. There is no reason every game company shouldn't be releasing their betas/demos with bittorrent. It is perfect for these companies that use very little bandwidth, but then every so often require HUGE amounts of bandwidth that force them to use mirrors, which are becoming increasingly annoying. Bittorrent is really a revolutionary innovation, IMO.
But, it has some serious shortcomings that need to be addressed. For a technology that promises infinitely scalable bandwidth, the tracker isn't very scalable at all. Multi-tracker functions (both the interconnectivity of trackers and the use of multiple isolated trackers within the torrent) are an absolute must for this technology to prosper. Also, an apache mod where you could simply upload the file to your web server and not have to worry about running a bittorrent "seed" would be great. From the companies standpoint nothing has really changed, but instead of everyone flooding your website to get this file, the file is only accessible by your bittorrent tracker, so your bandwidth remains consistent. And the company doesn't need to run a separate seed process for the thousands of files it may be serving, the apache mod would only open connections for files that are requested by the tracker (which would only request the file if the full file wasn't already being distributed by those connected).
As for the piracy aspect, I don't really see it going anywhere but I also don't see it growing. There is always going to be some site where you can upload torrents, and that site will always die within 6 months only to be replaced by another.
Maybe we should all move to gopher for a while cause the rest of the net has no idea wtf that is.
-B
This is about websites, that are acting as a hub for warez activity.
It's got no more to do with Bittorrent than a pirate ftp site has to do with ftp. You don't blame FTP, you blame the site.
This is not at all the same thing as p2p networks.
This in a non-US country without a DMCA-equivalent.
More than mere navel gazing.
Yeah, they're doing a damn good job of shutting them down. Just now I test-downloaded Eminem's Lose Yourself, and it only reached a top speed of 110 KB/s. Additionally, there was only 5,753,344 GB of data being shared by 3.6 million users at the time I was logged on, according to the status bar.
I'm real worried about Kazaa's future with numbers like that.
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
WWGD? Let's see...
[ At this point, the mortal Abraham, ignoring some thorny philosophy issues, dickers with the omnipotent creator of the universe and gradually sweetens the deal until the Lord concedes... ]
So the standard appears to be 10. If even 10 RedHat ISOs have been transferred, then BitTorrent must be spared.
Actually, HavenCo is no longer a safe haven. Ryan Lackey will be doing a talk about the events that transpired in 2002 at DEFCON 11. Here's the text from the DEFCON Speakers Page:
HavenCo: What Really Happened
HavenCo, an attempt at creating an offshore data haven, was launched in 2000 by a small team of cypherpunks and pro-liberty idealists.
During 2002, the Sealand Government decided they were uncomfortable with their legal and PR exposure due to HavenCo, particularly in the post-DMCA and post-911 world, and regulated, then took over the remains of the business, forcing the remaining founders out. While HavenCo continues to serve a small number of customers, it no longer is a data haven, and has exposed the ultimate flaw in relying on a single physical location in one's quest for privacy.
Ryan Lackey was with HavenCo from inception until late 2002, and will tell exactly what happened (not the PR-friendly whitewashed version) from day one until the end, what lessons were learned, and how similar goals can be achieved in the future by motivated individuals and groups.
-Shippy
And we still have good old usenet after all these years...;)
While the majority of traffic may be copyright violations, the point is the technology is not meant solely for that purpose. In this case, the technology clearly has uses that do not involve copyright violations. That clear distinction makes a big difference than what Napster was. If Napster had taken more steps to push the P2P concept for much more than just music MP3s (kind of like Kazaa and other P2P) things might have turned out differently, but Napster was meant to trade MP3s (music). Bittorrent is meant to provide a technical solution to file distribution, and several projects and a few companies use that to distribute their work. A cassette deck with the ability to record can be used to violate a copyright. But it can also be used for much more than that. Same with Bittorrent. That little detail makes all the difference in the world.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
>Where I live [Ottawa, Ontario]. Many drivers "slide" through stop lines [specially in residential areas where kids and such walk], they speed, merge without signaling, change langes inappropriate [many seem to think you cutoff people instead of going behind], etc.
Let's see the amount of accidents each of these cause in our province:
Ignoring traffic controls (ie: stop signs/lines/whatever) - 4%
Speeding - 1%
Failing to signal / inappropriate lane changes: 3%
Grand total: Accidents reduced by an absolute maximum of 8%. In fact, if it works as well as the photoradar blitz, accidents would be reduced by 0.5%. Somewhat less effective than the war on drugs. Well, a lot more than just "somewhat" less effective...
>Personally I think people rolling through stop lines should be fined 500$. I think speeders should have their license revoked. If the cops spent a day doing a traffic blitz they could probably catch a few hundred people [town of 50K here...] easy.
Personally, I think, as the stats suggest, there should be an enforced "dangerous conditions" speed (7% of crashes). Clearly driving when the weather is good is simply not a problem for Ontarians.
Also helpful would be proper patrolling of yeild signs (10% of crashes), and making it easier to arrest people for following too close (7% of crashes). I'd suggest a law about losing control of a vehicle (8% of crashes), but I think it's usually too late when that happens, anyways.
Technically, it should be illegal to drive properly (45% of crashes), but that's just plain silly.
I also think that speeds should be increased (the amount of people's lives that could be saved by ambulances being able to get to their destinations faster [from less traffic being on the roads] likely outstrips the "risks", which are so small they likely fall within the possible mistake zone of the statistics).
>Similarly, make piracy a huge penalty [e.g. compute ceased, fined 1000$ or etc] and blitz every so often.
Great. So you want to deny access to computers for piracy? Are you sure you've never taped a Hockey game? Do you realize this means offenders would have to be denied their right to use a phone? Do you realize that would mean the government would have to continue to support an extremely expensive and outmoded paper-based infrastructure?
Basically, you'll end up paying for their crimes.
Which reminds me, $1,000 would be a bargain if that's what it really was. In fact, it's usually more around the $100 - $200,000 range. A lot of pirate BBS sysops lost their homes, despite having, at best, maybe $20,000 of pirated software on their machines.
>If you report a pirate [who is convicted] you get x % of the fines. Get the geeks to hunt the pirates!
Yes, let's move from being a socialist country to being a dictatorship! You do realize that the method of control you suggest was the very most popular form of control used during Hitler's regime, right (it's simply a fact -- I'm not invoking Godwin's law here)? And that it was used as a control measure by the soviet union until the cold war was over?
Since we're making up laws to suit ourselves, though, let's outlaw those separate schools. I'm tired of paying for children to be brain damaged, and taught to violate our laws. And it's time to get rid of the CRTC (who make it illegal to have multicultural TV -- only Canadian monoculture is easily available) -- AND I'm tired of having these signals beamed at my house from space and not being able to manipulate them at will. It should be my right to do with any signals being sent to me, against my will, as I wish.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Maybe there was a lot of unauthorized content on BT, but there is a large group of users using it to download legal, live music. Look at Etree's Box of Rain forum, Groove Salad, and Sharing in the Groove as just a few example of the many message boards that have gigabytes of 100% legal, 100% lossless (.shn and .flac) music posted daily.
When the Phish summer tour aud sources come out, BT is going to be key. It sure beats trying to log in to someone's 3-slot FTP.
I think its a mistake to categorize tracker decentralization with "warez". Frankly, at this point tracker decentralization is absolutely necesary if bittorrent is going to thrive in a competitive (legal) environment. This is true for 2 reasons: 1.) 2 really cheap servers can do the same job as 1 really really expensive server and 2.) redundancy is necesary to achieve stability. If my downloads (or my clients downloads) are mission-critical, I can't depend on a single tracker, regardless of how cheap it is.
As for anonymity I totally agree with you, however you're already too late. I can already turn off my upload (and the *AA's seem preoccupied with only those who are serving).
Yep. I'd be happy to do a slashdot interview or write something for people to link to about this, either before or after defcon.
There is still hope for secure hosting -- I'm doing distributed hardware tamper-resistant location in a multiplicity of jurisdictions, which I think is ultimately a much better solution.
Sealand is still physically there, but I'd no longer consider HavenCo a "data haven" after the events in 2002 and 2003.
You can use a chainsaw to cut your winter firewood, or you can use it to commit a Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Does that mean we should outlaw chainsaws? No, of couse not. The act of killing is already against the law and has nothing to do with chainsaw technology. It is about actions and not tools.
So too is it with technologies like BitTorrent. Yes, certainly a large community of cheap-ass slackers who want goodies for free have exploited this great content delivery system for their own purposes. But to be sure, there are so many other legit uses for it. The LEGAL online music trading community has also taken up BitTorrent to distribute high quality live recordings of bands that permit taping. (The Dead, Phish, Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam, etc to name even a few!) Sites like Sharing the Groove and eTree provide legal lossless audio in FLAC and Shorten format to fans of the music. These lossless files can be quite large and the demand for them can be quite strong the night after a good concert. Well, gosh... This is Just the sort of thing that BitTorrent does and does well. It serves high bandwidth and high demand files with grace and ease. This isn't about piracy. It's about access to technology. The Supreme Court ruled in the betamax case that there were enough legit uses for the technology that it couldn't be outlawed simply because some people were using it to copy porn tapes. I reserve the right to use this technology in a lawful fashion despite what others may choose to do with it.
More than once I have turned to a Torrent link to get a copy of some content that was in high demand at the time. (Animatrix previews, Gollum's Acceptance speech, etc.) All were legit downloads when the normal methods of acquiring the content were under heavy /. effect.
Let's try to keep this in mind during these troubling times of heavy litigation by big media. They killed Napster, they'll try to kill BT and any other centralized system they can find. The chilling new bill introduced in congress should be a warning to us all. The concept of p2p itself is under attack. Fight for your rights to these tools.
(Stepping down from my sagging soapbox.)
I am an avid BitTorrent user when it comes to downloading LEGAL stuff like Linux distros. But Bytemonsoon got what was coming to them. A quick glance at the first few entries showed "Win XP Key Generator.rar" and "X-Men 2." To answer the question, "Will corporate pressure kill BitTorrent?" My answer is no, but idiots like the Bytemonsoon webmasters will.
To put it another way, too many people with technical knowledge to create or expand upon something wonderful such as BitTorrent allow their greed to cloud their judgement. It is possible to be greedy over non-physical posessions. Just think about how many people you know that horde movies and music, just to have them, most of which they have never even bothered to play.