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BSA Reacts to 'New' BitTorrent

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the usual-response dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It seems the Business Software Alliance isn't afraid of the new, tracker-less BitTorrent beta. While it concedes it will have to 'regroup', Tarun Sawney, BSA Asia anti-piracy director, said BitTorrent files could still be identified. 'BSA has traditionally sought the assistance of those hosting the actual pirated files. With or without the tracker sites, someone still hosts the infringing files.'"

60 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. So what? by CoolVibe · · Score: 4, Informative

    BitTorrent was never designed to anonymize. It was designed to distribute the load of hosting a file. A lot of hoopla about a non-issue.

    1. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, there is always i2p, which Azureus is prepared for anyway. Needs a bit of config, is all.

    2. Re:So what? by w3weasel · · Score: 2, Informative
      BitTorrent was never designed to anonymize

      For help with that... try this

      Vive la BitTorrent! Morte du le BSA!
      --

      Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy

    3. Re:So what? by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      please don't advertise i2p right okay. in a few months it will be a different story, the network is fragile right now and the lead coder is on vacation.

    4. Re:So what? by rpdillon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Methlabs' PeerGuardian does not anonymize.

      Just to clarify:there are two basic approaches to creating a protected network: making every member of the network anonymous, or creating a trusted network in one way or another.

      Projects like I2P and Tor go the first route of making network members anonymous. Freenet does this too, currently (we'll see what the future holds).

      PeerGuardian is a tool to block nodes that are known/suspected of being untrustworthy from accessing your computer using IP filters. While this does help, it is a bit of an uphill battle, and certainly doesn't account for the edge case where the **AA simply pays some college student's tuition to report all IPs that are hosting "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith".

      In the long run, trusted solutions are much harder to implement, and will become a part of networks that will grow relatively slowly. There are a couple of VPN based "metanets" around right now that follow this model, and most of us don't even know about them, much less use them. Their growth was designed to be slow.

  2. Re:Copyright? by leonmergen · · Score: 4, Informative

    Are but the torrent files do they actually in fringe copyright??

    It isn't the .torrent files they're talking about, it's the actual torrent data. They're probably just joining a tracker, and see which ip addresses try to contact their host... not sure if it is enough proof in court, but I can still see they're not scared of this indeed.

    --
    - Leon Mergen
    http://www.solatis.com
  3. Correct by hotdiggitydawg · · Score: 2, Informative

    They're right, this changes nothing. At the end of the day someone is still hosting the infringing material, and they're in the firing line.

    1. Re:Correct by Soybean47 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So, what? They're going to sue everyone who's seeding copyrighted material, and force them to stop? The problem with that is, legal proceedings are slow enough that by the time they go through, those particular seeders would likely have already stopped anyway, and been replaced by new seeders.

      It makes the system more fault-tolerant.

    2. Re:Correct by Harinezumi · · Score: 2, Informative
      It doesn't make it impossible for them to shut down a torrent, it simply makes it much harder. Instead of having a single site to shut down (the one hosting the tracker) in order to kill the torrent, they now have to shut down everyone with a complete copy (every seed).

      This can number into hundreds or thousands of users, with the number constantly changing as people finish their downloads. And if one or more of those seeds happens to be in a foreign country, it may take months or be outright impossible to shut the torrent down.

  4. Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair by Cryofan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These BSA dictators are paying off politicians to create corporate feudalism. Just like it was in the Middle Ages where private power, those with the most gold, OWNED the humans beings within a certain geographical area, so too has the BSA BOUGHT a part of us. For those BSA funders, and politicians who have enabled this, this is treason, IMHO.

    All the CEOs who fund the BSA should be tried for treason, and if convicted, placed in the electric chair, and electrocuted to death. And do the same for their lapdog politicians who give them this power.

    --
    eat shiat and bark at the moon
    1. Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, but note whom would have to try them for treason... uhm, isn't that the politicians themselves?

      Democracy would fix this just fine. Except for the fact that neither communism nor corporationism don't have anything in common with democracy.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    2. Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair by osgeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Lighten up, Francis.

      Software and other content developers trying to protect themselves from pirates is hardly Feudal serfdom.

      It's more possible than ever to collect movies, music, and software (that you never paid for) than ever before. Expect corporations to overreact to that theft as much as possible and for equity imbalances to result.

      If you were as vocal about protecting the rights of content producers as you are about protecting the rights of "the people", maybe there would be more balance in the situation.

      Those of us in the middle are willing to pay for what we use and ask to be paid for what we create. As usual, you warring factions at the extremes make it difficult for the more reasonable people to just live their lives in peace. Nice job.

      --
      Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
    3. Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair by shani · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most people either download music, and/or see nothing wrong with it. The "extreme" that you mention is the norm.

      It is not possible for every activity to result in somebody getting paid. Neither is this a reasonable goal.

      There were no "content producers" for most of human history, yet people made music, works of art, and so on. It will be different, neither better nor worse, if the world returns to a state where people are not paid for making digital recordings.

    4. Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair by Lehk228 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      you forget one thing, live shows, artists make most of their money on live shows, and while you can record a live show, there is not yet any technology which can recreate the experience of a live show

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    5. Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair by FLEB · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And what I am suggesting is DEMOCRACY at work. Ain't it a bitch?

      I suppose that if you got enough people on your side to create a direct vote to remove copyright protection it would be democratic. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be right.

      What you do for a living? If you do anything which isn't directly involved in the production of hard, physical goods, I hope you'll come to see the hypocracy in your stance.

      The reason copyright protection exists is that creating content takes work, and while the physical nature of many other forms of creation (making physical goods, which cannot be duplicated without a similar expenditure of effort) leads to scarcity that drives a fair asking price, no such natural restrictions exist on content that may take just as much legitimate effort to create. Hence, another method to drive a fair asking price has been created.

      Further down the same road, why pay for services? Those people serving you at the restaurant... they aren't really GIVING you anything, are they? The lawn care person, the teacher, the housecleaner... you don't HAVE anything that you didn't before employing their services. What's more, you don't have anything they can take back, so why not just refuse to pay?

      You might say "Yes, but I'm just getting a copy of the work... the artist didn't do anything more for me specifically." This is true, but by that nature, you should be paying a few thousand dollars or so for every CD you DO buy. Copying and timeshifting makes something that costs loads of money to make and market available at a much lower cost.

      I'm not saying that price is required, just that the rights of distribution being held by the creator is a good thing, since similarily arduous tasks have the same protection through physical laws. And, yes, enforcement is a bitch when you get slapped with the lawsuit, and I'll fight on the side of anyone who's unfairly punished, but in many cases, the rules of the game were laid out well in advance.

      As for your "movement", you forgot to mention the option of disagreeing and being the fuck in the way... I'd say that's a valid option, non?

      (I really should just save one of these sometime-- slashdot-copyright-rant.txt-- so I don't have to keep typing it out all the time.)

      --
      Information wants to be free.
      Entertainment wants to be paid.
      You just want to be cheap.
    6. Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair by The_Spud · · Score: 3, Interesting

      you forget one thing, live shows, artists make most of their money on live shows

      Evidence for this ? I used to think this till I spoke to people I know working on tours. The cost of touring is massive and the artists tend not to make huge sums of money so do still need recording revenue. Also how do you propose that you come up with the large deposits needed to secure the venue bookings and down-payments for the sound and lighting crews etc if they don't get paid for recordings.

      I dont think the economics of the music industry are as simple or black and white as regularly made out here.

      I am interested in other peoples views on this.

    7. Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair by Lehk228 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      you are going to the wrong shows, if you go to the huge outdoor or arena shows stuff like that will happen, I saw Nightwish play in NYC last august and the show was awesome, in the front it was standing room only crowds but towards the back if you wanted to sit down there were tables and they even served dinner if you wanted it. seriously great show. Go to the smaller and mid sized shows you will have a much better time than the huge shows where you are like 20 yards from the stage.

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    8. Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair by Gigs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you're so annoyed by the other people in the theater, then do something about it...Otherwise, nothing will be done and those theaters will continue to suck.

      Why is it in my interests to make theaters better? There will always one thats too cold or too hot or the fact that I must leave the movie find a manager, complain and then have the manager return and disrupt things again to address the situation.

      None of this is an issue in my own house! I never said that I wasn't willing to pay for content. The issue is that the MPAA and is not willing to provide that service because they will not be able to maintain their profits. And as such the market is finding a way to provide that service. Legality and morallity have no bearing on the situation. The demand exists it will be filled by someone and as is apparent the cost of providing said service is nil.

      The cost of a music has dropped to, what, $5 a month for unlimited music or less then $.99 a song on walmart.com? And its continuing down. Last I checked there is still plenty of musicians out there performing and making a living. Why is it this low, because the distributers know that if they don't charge that low people will find other ways to get what they want.

      As for distribution under $1000 I'm seein news reports all over about how many copies of Star Wars that are being downloaded from the internet. I don't see anyone fronting money to distrbute it.

      Do not take my work, which cost me time and money to produce, and fail to compensate me what I feel I'm owed for MY content and complain to me because it fits your desires

      Why is this so difficult? No one is saying you have to work for free. Just distribute the content in the form the consumer demands. People want music over the internet instantly and as Yahoo and ITunes proves they are willing to pay for it. Its still possible to get music for free, naspster didn't disappear it just evolved. But the hassle of using the other methods is no longer worth the cost. People want Movies and TV shows instantly over the internet as well. You see dwindling profits, I see market oppertunity.
      You can feel what you are owed for your content all you want, the market will still decide what worth regardless of your feelings.

      Yes I can. It's my content, not yours. I can offer it for whatever I want. I may not sell much of it at a certain price, but that's my right to choose, not yours.

      And don't bitch when people arn't willing to pay your price. If you are not happy with the money you earn do something else or offer you content at a lower price so you sell more and then, and here is the point you are missing, make more money by getting more willing buyers. If you are still not making enough to live on then thats just too bad! Lots of movies flop, and lots of tv shows are canceled, why are you so special?

      You equate producer to distributor

      Theres a reason for that that you continually miss. The current producers are not getting the level of profits they once did because a new distribution method has been created and people like the new form of distribution, the issue is the the producers do not and are unwilling to use it. The problem is not consumers. Its the producers unwillingness to use the new distribution model because they will not earn as much... guess what Too Bad!

  5. Shared responsibility by arikb · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The question is, can they prove someone has the infringing file, if they only transmit PART of the file?

    What bittorrent is about is being able to send very small but verifiably authentic parts of the file - but is that enough for them to prove the person has the infringing content?

    My guess is that this is going to be made into law in the US in the near future - that if they get a single BitTorrent packet from you that belongs to an infringing file, it's enough to convict you of a crime and haul your behind in jail.

    -- Arik

    1. Re:Shared responsibility by syntap · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Let's say you get four friends and you each photocopy a fifth of the new Harry Potter book when it comes out, then stand outside and each sell your part for a dollar, in effect letting one person collect a fifth from each of you and get the whole book for $5 instead of the $12 or whatever the retail price will be.

      Is it your contention that by making only a part of a work available that you and your friends aren't infringing on a copyright? A "small but verifiably authentic" part of a file is content infringement just as much as a significant portion of a book would be.

    2. Re:Shared responsibility by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Interesting

      can they prove someone has the infringing file, if they only transmit PART of the file?

      Yes, because the clients broadcast how much of the file they have.

      If you don't think thats enough for a warrant, go down to the local police station and start shouting that you're carrying a pound of crack.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    3. Re:Shared responsibility by Catbeller · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Once again, sharing is not selling, is not piracy. The various *AA's want the terminology confused, and no doubt will be successful in their BS campaign. Redefine the words, and opponents have no chance in an argument because the audience hears definitions in their own minds that were implanted by BS campaigns. It's a wonderful strategy. Oppose the war? You oppose the troops. Share a file? You steal/sell the file. Oppose Bush? You oppose America. Want reproduction and birth control education in schools at an early age? You're for little-kid promiscuity. Oppose inserting religion into the government? Anti-Christian, probably satanistic, certainly anti-American.

      The analogy fails because you invoked the idea that I and my friends are selling parts of the book for a dollar. We are not selling anything; as a matter of fact, we pay for the bandwidth, tho that is irrelevant. What if we sat on the corner and let passers-by read our portions? Are we stealing then? The who **AA argument rests on the fallacy that just because it's electronic, the old traditions and laws should be junked. Frankly, they're using this to give themselves rights under law they always wanted, but never could get. They're using the newness of the technology to redefine copyright as ownership, which is NOT what copyright is about. Not to mention that the new copyrights are now eternal, which breaks the original deal the constitution's writers had in mind, which is: make cash for a bit, then the work goes into the public domain forever to enrich all. The deal was broken, so all bets are off. Change the copyright laws so that copyrights expire in twenty years after publication, and then we can talk. Right now, copyright=ownership for eternity. A free marketplace for ideas can't exist like this.

    4. Re:Shared responsibility by Qzukk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Wouldn't they have to download it to actually check that it is what they think it is?

      Yes, they would.

      (And thereby upload to others themselves at the same time.)

      Not if they set it up behind a firewall. Sure, it'll be slow as hell, but they only need to request enough of an uncompressed ISO to confirm that it is what it says it is (ie, if they know where on the ISO their installer is, they can grab that chunk of data and prove that the file being distributed contains their installer, which is, of course, copyrighted.)

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    5. Re:Shared responsibility by Insightfill · · Score: 3, Interesting
      If you don't think thats enough for a warrant, go down to the local police station and start shouting that you're carrying a pound of crack.

      In such a case, there are existing "turkey laws" that apply. Selling a pound of powdered sugar and calling it cocaine carries the same penalty as selling real cocaine. Such laws only apply to drug sales, and for any other sale, the charge would actually be simple fraud.

  6. Re:Copyright? by real_smiff · · Score: 2, Insightful

    exactly, although (whatever they say) they must be gutted that they won't have single points to shut down many users with.

    --

    This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.

  7. Arrrgh! by ale3ns · · Score: 5, Funny

    Shiver me timbers!We can just bury the torrent files and make a map!BSA's having the Davies now! Arrrgh!

  8. BSA Reacts to 'New' BitTorrent by gowen · · Score: 4, Funny

    Today the released a statement saying : Why should it bother us? We manufacture classic motorcycles.

    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  9. I2P by sbrown123 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I2P can do bittorrents. Unlike magnetic links, the original file is hidden behind a series of tunnels. Theres some encryption in there too for good measure. Check it out at www.i2p.net.

  10. Re:Copyright? by bmongar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    IF an agent of a copyright holder (BSA) makes the work avaliable for public download is it illegal to download it? I mean by knowingly making it avaliable on a public network they are giving public permission to copy it.

    Brad

    --
    As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
  11. So, in real time we hash the payload to a by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    particular IP with that IP for disassembly at the other end. Whammo, proof of DMCA violation on the part of anyone who comes after your ass.

    DMCA violation trumps copyright violation any day.

  12. The BSA, Microsoft and the definition of Extortion by NZheretic · · Score: 4, Informative

    The BSA, Microsoft and the definition of Extortion

  13. Two dilemmas by KrunZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But what if you and your 500,000 friends stand in line and each hold a letter and each will show it to people for $12/500,000 per letter. Are you infringing on the copyright?

    What if you and your 10,000 friends each stand a in line and each of you are holding a paper citing a line from the book. Are each of you just using your citation rights?

    1. Re:Two dilemmas by !the!bad!fish! · · Score: 5, Funny

      I haven't even got 4 friends, you insensitive clod.

      --
      Kids today are tyrants. They contradict their parent, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers. - Socrates 400 BC
    2. Re:Two dilemmas by 1WingedAngel · · Score: 2, Insightful


      > But what if you and your 500,000 friends stand in
      > line and each hold a letter and each will show it
      > to people for $12/500,000 per letter. Are you
      > infringing on the copyright?

      Wouldn't that be you and 25 friends? I mean, I missed the part where there are 500,000 letters in the english language

    3. Re:Two dilemmas by aquabat · · Score: 2, Interesting
      But what if you and your 500,000 friends stand in line and each hold a letter and each will show it to people for $12/500,000 per letter. Are you infringing on the copyright?

      What if you and your 10,000 friends each stand a in line and each of you are holding a paper citing a line from the book. >Are each of you just using your citation rights?

      This is equivalent to (weakly) encrypting the book before distributing it, and here's why:

      In order to verify the authenticity of the parts, the receiver must have the authentication algorithm. Therefore, the sender must send the data (i.e. 500,000 chicks, each with a letter on her t-shirt) as well as the key (i.e. the order in which the t-shirts must be removed to be read).

      Obviously, the guy that thought this scheme up and implemented it is guilty as sin; he had the intent. However, I would not consider the chicks to be guilty, even if each one had her own copy of the key, as long as she was unaware of what the key unlocked.

      If the chicks are a general transport mechanism, then they are just couriers, and could very well be used for legitimate purposes. It is only when they are aware that what they are carrying is part of an illegal act that they assume responsibility for that act.

      I guess my thesis here is that there has to be intent to commit a crime for there to be guilt, in this situation.

      --
      A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
    4. Re:Two dilemmas by TGK · · Score: 2, Informative

      The problem with your argument is that you're relying on a ficticious bunch of altruistic distributors who don't want anything in return for their bandwidth/services.

      In reality, the distributors want something - they want the copyrighted work. Now there is the origional altruistic individual, who donates his bandwitdth or whatever to distribute the file. But everyone else has to download the file in order to distribute it. Now some of those people might have their own legal copies of a particular work, but we can safely assume they don't have that copy for - say - prerelease films.

      So if the *AA sees you uploading portions of a file, X, for which there is no publicly available licence, they know you've necessarily downloded those portions or are the origional distributor.

      Either on is actionable. The protocol you're using is one desinged to download the entire file -- not just a pre-agreed upon fragment. As such, you can likely be prosecuted for your possession of that file.

      Moreover, because the sharing networks have each indivual hosting a large number of file fragments, it's harder to claim Fair Use for partial work distribution.

      In short - these programs encourage the agrigation of the data by the host. As such, it's not legaly unreasonable to investigate further based on the evidance given by a single fragment.

      Analogy -- you go out a buy a large amount of cold medicine. Now, you could be shopping for a bunch of friends who all have the cold. Or you could be running a meth lab. While the cops can't get a warrant for your arrest based on that, they can get a warrant to search your house.

      --
      Killfile(TGK)
      No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
  14. Re:Trackerless BitTorrent will never work by Alioth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This whole trackerless bullshit (new BT beta as well as "new" distributed tracking in Azureus, was created for ONE purpose only - to distribute ILLEGAL content.


    No, that's not true. There are plenty of reasons for having a trackerless torrent system - it allows people who don't have access to a server that can provide a tracker (such as bloggers, or those with GeoCities sites) to host large files without waxing their bandwidth limits. Bloggers can now easily publish their home videos, for example. There are substantial non-infringing uses for trackerless torrents.

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  15. Blaiming Technology is fruitless. by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sure you can blame BitTorrent for piracy problems you can probably even go and make it illegal to use in most countries. But it wont stop the piracy. They will make an other program that does it differently. Technology moves a lot faster then the legal system. If they really want to cut down on piracy they should figure out why people pirate materials.

    Things like Price. $100 and up is a lot of money for the average home user. Money that can be used for car payments, paying Rent/Mortgage. And paying $100 on a product you don't even know you really want or will use for only a couple of months can be a big waist. $25-$85 is the normal sweet spot for what people are willing to pay for most software.

    Things like convenience. Going to the store and finding the product that you need now. Or going online and filling out all your personal information and getting placed on the stupid mailing lists and then paying for the product. Or go and get a pirated version with no questions asked.

    Finally no real good reason to buy. When you buy the programs at the store you no longer get useful documentations like the good old day you just get the media and sales stuff on other programs the company makes or install directions in 1000 languages. I wish every program came with a manual the explains all the features in it, and a real paper manual not a PDF or html documentation where it is more difficult to flip to some page and find a cool feature.

    Stop blaiming people who make the tools that make our lives easier the companies to think about making our lives easer,

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  16. Fear? by otter42 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why should they be so scared of it? Is it made to attack them? Is the stated goal of BitTorrent to attack incessently, to give no quarter to the BSA?

    Or are they just self-rightious overreacters that think that everything technological that doesn't come from them is a threat to their god-ordained, constitutionally protected business model?

    --
    www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
  17. Re:Copyright? by NewStarRising · · Score: 3, Informative

    I may be wrong, but isn't it the UPLOADER (distributer) that is commiting the offence?
    If someone who owns the copyright to a material is allowing it to be distributed, then there is no offence.

    --
    b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
    MadDwarf
  18. Trackers won't get hosed - Will Swarms Balkanise ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This has nothing to do with Piracy, it just alieviates the scaling botlleneck that was the tracker.

    A more interesting question might be will this lead to other problems as swarms split and fragment. You may end up joining a tiny swarm cut off from the main swarm and thus get no bandwidth.

    Or stuck in a swarm with no seeds.

    Bram is very Clever though and I believe he has thought of this - can someone explain it to me though?

    Bittorrent is designed to scale well and to ease the load on the Seed.
    The problem was that the tracker did not scale well, even though it is a small file, it gets communicated with reguarly and just doesn't scale, popular files take down trackers.

    So trackerless trackers simply allow better scaling and ease publication - so I would say that this innovation is more for legitimate files running on indiviual sites rather than Advert funded Warez trackers.

    The myth of Internet anonimity has allowed an awful lot of fools to be caught. Naughty Bittorent swappers only have security through numbers.

    How about underground fanzines which publish Movies as UUENCODED ASCII which is then typed in or OCR'ed - these could be published as poetry and protected as Free Speech. ;-)

  19. Rodi - an alternative to BitTorrent? by TheHidden · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Found this on Planet Peer: http://board.planetpeer.de/index.php/topic,829.0.h tml Rodi is a new developmental P2P network that is currently in testing. What makes Rodi unique? Many features, such as IP-spoofing for anonymity and packet-mimicking, so the P2P traffic can appear as one of many different internet traffic patterns - such as HTTP, FTP, etc - that are less likely to get blocked or throttled by an ISP's packet shaping. Unlike traditional proxied (very slow) anonymous networks (Freenet, Mute, Ants, Winny, etc) the use of IP spoofing can allow high-speed full-bandwidth downloads while keeping the uploader's true IP address hidden from the downloader.

    1. Re:Rodi - an alternative to BitTorrent? by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 2, Informative
      Unlike traditional proxied (very slow) anonymous networks (Freenet, Mute, Ants, Winny, etc) the use of IP spoofing can allow high-speed full-bandwidth downloads while keeping the uploader's true IP address hidden from the downloader.

      If your ISP still allows IP address spoofing they need to be hit with a clue-stick.

  20. Too Simple by Morosoph · · Score: 4, Insightful
    What you're not accounting for is those torrents that haven't been posted because the legitimate distributer of material had nowhere to put up a tracker. Certainly, one can always pay money for a permanent host and find somewhere, but someone with an account that is free with their broadband connection is that bit less likely to publish. With this change, when fully seeded, they can turn off their home machine.

    So I suspect that you're wrong. By making publishing easier still, more will be able to put stuff up on their site that they couldn't before. True, most people lacking in resources will in this context be pirates, so the proportion of illegal use will go up, but that is a side-effect of enabling your average Joe to publish where they couldn't before, meaning that the quantity of legitimate use will also go up.

    --
    Wikileaks, no DNS
  21. Re:Trackerless BitTorrent will never work by springbox · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you think the intentions of creating a distributed tracker are purely for piracy then I think you've missed the point. It was to make transfering files via BitTorrent more accessable to a wider audience who don't have access to a dedicated tracker. Of course it will be abused. The current version of BitTorrent is abused already.

  22. Taking Down Torrent Sites Doesn't Work by UMhydrogen · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I find it funny that all the anti-piracy agencies don't realize that taking down a website doesn't work. Suing/taking down torrent trackers or torrent hosting websites does nothing. When you take down 1 site, 10 pop up in its place. Look at suprnova, that went down and already over 20 sites have popped up that host as many torrents as suprnova did.

    The anti-piracy people should look to solve their problem a different way. Why are people pirating things? Maybe it's because of the price. People certainly don't get a thrill out of piracy in the same way that people do other illegal things. Stop making moves $10 to go to, stop making someone pay $1/song, stop over-charging and blaming increasing charges on piracy when that is a complete lie. It's time to attack the problem elsewhere - not in those sharing the files.

    1. Re:Taking Down Torrent Sites Doesn't Work by RevengeOfPoopJuggler · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm beginning to think that these people don't even really care about piracy, they just blow smoke up their shareholders' asses to keep them happy. It doesn't make any logical sense for them to think they can stop piracy. You can't ever stop stuff like that. Just like the war on drugs. You can never ever ever ever ever win the war on drugs. So why do we keep pumping billions of dollars into fighting a losing battle? The same reason the BSA will keep fighting their unwinnable war.

    2. Re:Taking Down Torrent Sites Doesn't Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Stop making moves $10 to go to, stop making someone pay $1/song, stop over-charging and blaming increasing charges on piracy when that is a complete lie."

      I remember when the excuse was that paying $18 for an album or $3 for a single was too much and unfair, but if only, (IF ONLY!) some benevolent content distribution god were to swoop down from the Heavens and offer music for a reasonable price like, say, $1 a song, it would grind piracy to a halt because everyone downloading illegal songs is doing it in protest of outrageous prices.

      I also remember 20 years ago when we would make bootleg copies of G.I. Joe cartoons (2 20 minute episodes to a tape if I remember correctly) from the VHS rental place because official copies started at $58, roughly the price nowdays of DVD season set (and in some cases, 2 seasons and up.)

      $20 too much to pay if you want to see a movie in the theatre? Then wait 6 months and the DVD will be available in Walmart for that much and on Amazon for less. VHS tapes used to start with a street date of over $100 so Blockbuster and others could have a safe rental window before the general public could purchase the movie at an affordable price but DVD (which is easier to pirate. No fancy TV capture cards or miles of coaxial to worry about, just software you can get from download.com) shattered that creating a $20 street price the day it's released.

      No matter what the cost is, someone is going to come along and say that's too much, I won't pay! Someone else is going to say why would I pay that when I could get it for free. A third someone else is going to say that price is fair for what I get, I have no problem paying.

      I haven't made any elaborate spreadsheets of movie prices throughout the years, but but over-all, we're talking about a 60 percent decrease in product price (lets not get into the math of accumulating season sets back then... $58 for 2 episodes times 10 or 20...) and that is without factoring in inflation. How much is a 1985 $20 worth in 2005?

      So I guess with all that said I agree with you that "increasing charges" is a lie, just not in the way you seem to feel.

  23. When in doubt, fight copyright with patents! by vkapadia · · Score: 3, Funny

    Someone should file a patent for "a method of identifying a Bittorrent user by means of their IP address".

  24. Re:BSA?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hey, Windows programmer! Learn how to use strcmp() correctly.

  25. Re:BSA?!? by chrish · · Score: 4, Funny

    Mod: -1, Hungarian notation and ugly brace style.

    --
    - chrish
  26. Blocks by DickBreath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Suppose you downloaded a bunch of Blocks.
    Each block is, say, 128 KB.
    Each block contains bits that are indistinguishable from random noise.
    Each block has a number, which is its hash. Block numbers are much longer than in the example below.
    Each block may have come from a different IP address, indeed, even through a different network protocol (Gnutella, OpenNap, Mute, Http, etc.)

    You obtain a list of reassembly instructions through another network and reassemble the blocks as follows. (Each block you downloaded is labeled with a B, and the content blocks of the reassembled result are labeled with a C.)
    C1 = B224 xor B166
    C2 = B287 xor B948
    C3 = B569 xor B982
    C4 = ...
    C5 = ...
    etc....

    Blocks C1, C2, C3, etc. taken together form a copyright infringement.

    Which IP address sent you the infringing work? Each block may have come from a different address? Each block is not infringing content.

    Which block is infringing? The first block of the infringing reassembled file C1, was formed from B224 and B166. So was B224 infringing? Or was B166 infringing?

    B224, when combined with a different block in the network results in a portion of The Declaration of Independence. B166 when combined with yet some other block from the network results in a portion of The Bible.

    Maybe the infringer is who gave you the list of reassembly instructions that told you which blocks to obtain and how to reassemble them? But this information is not directly a copyright infringement. In fact, it may be a fairly short text file.

    Note that I did use double the download bandwidth to obtain my copyright infringing material. But for that cost, I raised a whole bunch of questions about who to blame. And I did not suffer the horrible performance of Freenet. (I have not tried Mute.)

    (This is an idea I read somewhere.)

    Such a hypothetical Blocks p2p system could potentially be designed with the swarming advantages of BitTorrent. Each block could be available from multiple sources -- even multiple network protocols.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  27. Re:Trackerless BitTorrent will never work by mrsbrisby · · Score: 2, Funny

    You have no idea what you're talking about.

    Right now: if the tracker _or_ the seeds go down then torrent doesn't work. The changes remove a redundant step and do NOT add any additional privacy.

    The new .torrent files contain simply discovery about the seeds instead of about a tracker. The new clients share tracking information.

    This means the MPAA actually has it easier: they don't have to "take" the tracker, they connect to a torrent like any other downloader and collect all of the addresses of all of the downloaders (as they would be operating as a tracker as well).

    And for the record, I would never be caught dead downloading Slackware ISOs as I don't have time to waste. Ubuntu's tracker (on the other hand) went down two days ago.

  28. Sharing is Sharing, Stealing is Stealing by freality · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We may disagree where the boundary between stealing and sharing is, but I think when it comes to major media, that cost many hundreds of people many years to create, you can share it on a small scale with a couple of people, but, for example, posting a torrent of Return of the Sith the day it hits movie theaters, stealing is, as Yoda would say.

    If you don't like the price of a movie, don't pay it, but also.. don't steal it. There's people who make that stuff for their living. They spend lots of time and energy on it in the expectation that many people will be interested in buying a copy for personal use. It doesn't matter if you think that's a valid profession, or morally correct. it's their business. Their life. And if they wouldn't sell you the copy if they knew you were going to turn around and give it away for free to everyone you could, on a massive basis, on the world-wide internet, that means that if you do, you're lying and stealing and violating their trust.

    Sharing can't happen without trust.

    Now, if you give it to a friend, and that friend gives it to a friend, etc. etc. and it remains low-level, then it doesn't matter what they think. It's none of their business what you do with it as long as it's basically private to you and your friends and family.

    Now maybe you disagree with the particular place I've drawn that line. You may see the line at a slightly different place in the sand. Or think it's blurry. Or gray, or not so gray. That's a whole other argument.

    But I think we would all benefit us all to identify a community-determined middle area where we tread softly, and broad side areas where we firmly plant our feet. I think we should all preserve and protect the practice of small-scale sharing of everything in the world, even in the face of pressure against this by The Man. I also think we should all preserve and protect the expectation of honesty in a market transaction, even in the face of painful desire for the latest and greatest popular piece of culture.

    1. Re:Sharing is Sharing, Stealing is Stealing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you don't like the price of a movie, don't pay it, but also.. don't steal it. There's people who make that stuff for their living. They spend lots of time and energy on it in the expectation that many people will be interested in buying a copy for personal use. It doesn't matter if you think that's a valid profession, or morally correct. it's their business. Their life. And if they wouldn't sell you the copy if they knew you were going to turn around and give it away for free to everyone you could, on a massive basis, on the world-wide internet, that means that if you do, you're lying and stealing and violating their trust.

      So, then government has to assume the role of preserving these people's profession, no matter what technology has done to make their busniess model obsolete? Perhaps these content DISTRIBUTION companies should investigate seriously how the Internet can be used to distribute their goods. If "Sith" was available electronically, many of us who watched it illegally in the past 24 hours would have paid. Was downloading it and watching it wrong? Yes, probably, but I have little remorse. The fact is, content creation has not ever been a lucrative business. Content must be sold, performed, or distrbibuted to make money from it. If I pick up a guitar, and strum out a tune so good that angels would weep to hear it, I have not made any money by doing so. DaVinci, paiting the Mona Lisa did not suddenly become rich as he put down his brush, the canvas had to be sold. My point is, the business you are defending is the distribution busness, the record labels, TV netowrks and syndicators, and movie distribution houses. I think that the "rampant" piracy of thier client's creations is due to thier shortsided, hidebound, outdated business model. They might be able to make even more money by making the content available to the public in a timely, convenient manner. Perhaps you should turn in your car, because it is putting the buggywhip manufaturers out of business.

      Frankly, my biggest beef with movies is people. I can't stand to go to a movie house, especially a crowded one, because people behave like animals. Why I should rearrange my day to fit the showtime, buy a $8 ticket, then get gouged at the concession so that I can have something to drink, only to have to put up with someone's single-digit-aged child being disruptive and kicking my seat all trough a PG-13 or R rated feature is beyond me. And this is the experience they want to protect by not releasing the content on any other channel.

      I can watch movies at home, on my wide-screen HD set in 5.1 sound and be quite stisfied with the experience.

  29. I smell fear by springMute · · Score: 5, Informative

    What are these guys smoking? The concept of the trackerless torrents wasn't created because of the need for protection of tracker servers, but for the ease of distribution... this is not about making it harder to identify trackers. The whole torrent system isn't about circumventing identification or about being completelly anonymous, and the BT author has mentioned this several times.

  30. Re:I2P by sbrown123 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now, with the TCP transport in place, I2P is essentially thread-limited (2 threads per connection) to about 250-300 nodes.

    Quick solution: don't use threaded connections. Use NIO instead. I will look in to this.

    Luring people to I2P now is not useful for development

    I2P is an open source project. "Luring" people is essential for its growth. If I2P core team did not want outside input they should close the project until a future time. This is unlikely their belief since they are posting bounties and requesting peer review to reach version 1.

    But for now, don't join it yet, and don't announce it here.

    Sorry. Already joined. I even download the source and starting to fiddle. I just can't help myself. As for official posting, you can do a slashdot search where I2P has been mentioned several times in the past. Thats how I found out about it to begin with.

  31. Re:[slightly OT] Setting up a trackerless BT by Badaro · · Score: 2, Informative

    Try port 6969, that's the one traditional trackers use (AFAIK the "Trackerless" mode runs a lightweight tracker on the client).

    []s Badaro

    --
    My sig became obsolete, and I lack the imagination to create a new one. :(
  32. Re:Copyright? by emilv · · Score: 2, Funny
    Then they should just connect to a tracker and see what pieces other hosts have made available, and record their ip's...
    Oh, you've missunderood it; the other hosts are only QUOTING the original material ;)
  33. Re:File Parts by friedmud · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It gets even more interesting when you consider that you probably "share" less than 1% to any individual peer.

    Is "talking about" a "piece" of a book considered copyright infringement?

    I was thinking a while ago that Azureus should be modified so that less than 5% of your outgoing traffic will go to the same peer. It would be tough to argue that you have given away "copies" of the song/program to anyone....

    Friedmud