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I2hub Shutdown Due to Legal Pressure
djabbour writes "I2hub, the only p2p client that catered to internet2 users has shutdown today due to legal concerns. A few hours ago, any user on i2hub got a message which read 'RIP 11/14/2005. It was a good run. Forced to shut down by the industry.' The i2hub site has been shutdown, and new clients can no longer login to the i2hub server."
What amazes me about the current copy paranoia is that PCs have been copying perfectly for decades. The Internet has been copying perfectly among strangers en masse for decades. It's been popular globally for a decade. Nothing has changed. The legal risks are exactly the same, our rights are exactly the same. Our laws protecting our rights are a little different, and the politicians are a new bunch. So I guess that's why there's a wild suppression running amok among the copyright industry. But they waited too long: the masses have grown accustomed to copying whatever we want. Momentum is against them - they might make some inroads, some local successes, but copyright was protected by inadequate tech for too long, and now has been exposed to disruptive tech for too long. The smart money is on the copyright holders who can harness the new distribution media, not those who fight it.
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make install -not war
What's worse is that the new ones are easier and faster to use. I wouldn't trade bittorrent for napster any day. Thank you RIAA for those fast linux ISOs.
Wasn't Internet2 supposed to be for academic uses anyway?
On noes! We can't clog up this incredibly powerful and incredibly expensive network trading terabytes of movies and music! The humanity!
Seriously now, the whole point of the thing was to move multiple gigs of data coming out of CFD simulations and the like, not to get the latest episode of Lost.
The funny part about a well written P2P is that you shouldn't be able to shut it down. I envisioned P2P taking over where Napster left off as soon as they shut down Napster. I was partly right, but there's no reason to have P2P shut down. The fundamental flaw in P2P software today is that it banks on main servers for user list files. If instead, it simply kept a record of everyone's IP address on the client side, it could then:
A) Scan every single IP that was active last run. Not everyone has a static IP, but out of thousands of people, at least one person should.
B) As soon as you find someone with an active IP, you become on the network, and recieve a new list of IP addresses(all the active ones) from the client that's online. VOILA YOU'RE ONLINE WITH NO CENTRAL SERVER
The other fundamental flaw of P2P software is that the coders are very lazy, and use a single port. Once this port is identified to your software, ISPS can block that port and you're screwed. To be robust, it should use a variety of random ports of software that you're not using. I mean you can get really complex about what ports you're using: Up to and including scanning the computer for software so it knows which ports not to use... But that's getting crazy indepth, just a standard: Random number between 10000-30000 should do. And everyone keeps this port number along side your IP address in the list.
God spoke to me.
It's just too bad that the RIAA and MPAA weren't more vigilant back in 1979 or so. A few lawsuits and threats here and there, and they could have kept this whole Internet fiasco from happening. You just know that someone back then was using UUCP email to trade bootlegged concert tapes, or something.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Kazaa and Grokster were networks. BitTorrent is a technology. Since it's free(in all senses of the word), BitTorrent will go away when it's illegal and not before then. Actually, even then BitTorrent probably won't go away. The fact that trackers are 100% decentralized and don't talk to each other(there is no single, homogenous BT network) means it cannot be shutdown with the legal pressure of a single company attacking another.
They will have to legislate away BT if they want it gone. If that successully happens, we have a lot more to worry about than how to get free porn.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
When you're connecting to 5-10 people at a time, and are always seeing those speeds, then you start to see the benefit. It's easy to back up a server over a gigabit link, but try getting on-demand content from students all over the country.
Three problems.
1) If you use a random port, you have a harder time enacting a firewall. Unless I misunderstand firewalls, they close all ports except the approved ones. Won't you have to change the firewall every time you log-on? And wouldn't a simple program that gets authority to automatically open ports in the firewall be dangerous from a security perspective? Esp. since P2P is already clogged with viruses?
2) If every computer has the IP address of every other computer, then the RIAA can bust one guy, and if he isn't quick enough to wipe everything (and he may not get the chance), they have the master list of all the file sharers, who they can sue or send threatening letters at will.
3) It looks like this lets all people with dynamic IPs be leechers, and keeps them from sharing their files.
4) Yeah, I only had three in the beginning, deal with it. If you download the software from a mirror somewhere, how do you get this master list? For that matter, how does User #1 find User #2, User #3, and so on, on Day 1?
Warez sites come and go, I have little sympathy for them - they know it happens. But, I've been known to sample a new artist here and there *cough* and I like getting my movies, songs, books, and software through the Internet so I really do want copyright holders to get their heads out of their collective ass and wise up a bit. .wma file won't play on an ipod - something to do with .aac I guess? Seriously it's a mess from an average persons point of view) and then you're limited on how many your devices that can store your purchased copy of the information and millions of other little things that piss me off. What I'm trying to get to is content sources: make it friggin' simple. I want to go from ooooooh! shiny song must buy to got it in seconds with only a minimal amount of new payment complexity (swipe card; enter pin vs. fill out form 1074 in triplicate along with supplemental schedule B and maybe, just maybe we'll let you have a license to it...). Debits here, it works, make it go.
The Internet is the most amazing distribution system for Information ever invented by us and no matter how content is distributed be it bittorrent, gnutella, ftp, or http that is not the real problem the media companies are facing. The real problem is that they don't have a means of payment built into whatever communications protocol is being levereged at the moment to move data. iTunes, Napster to Go, and the like simply suck and I'm not going to bite because in my opinion I will only accept purchasing a copy of a high-quality content source with *no* drm so I could transcode it into an appropriate quality and format for the other devices I own, instead of forcing the purchase of the same content on multiple media types.
Here's how I see it, it's just like making a withdrawal at the bank, I go to a teller, swipe my card, tell her how much I want, and that's it. It's all simple and just works. Getting online information however is a daunting task as usually at the minimum a credit card is required. Then you have to know what format your music is going to arrive in wrapped in drm (which adds further confusion to the market as consumers scratch their head when their
Shh.
Since when did using software that allows the direct transfer and query of data become illegal? Shouldn't "the industry" shutdown the people that distribute copyrighted material, or would that just (be more difficult|cost more money) than supressing the software?
Bandwidth and cpu power will continue to increase, it's time certain groups realize that information can't be controlled in the same fashion as physical property. These strong armed tactics of shuting down services, instead of the actual source of the piracy, will only disgruntle the market.
1) The port [range] could be user-configurable rather than random, meaning the user could change ports if their current range is blocked.
2) True, but anonymity wasn't the point of the original post. The point was creating a p2p network that is impossible to shut down.
3) You seem to want anonymity as per #2. It will be hard to implement any sort of karma system without tying it to identity, which can eventually be tied to an IP at the ISP level.
4) There have been p2p networks with similar premises in the past. One was GNUtella (or just had a client by that name, perhaps). You have to have the address of someone on the network in order to connect. That's simply a fact of life in a system like this. So you gotta join a chatroom, look on a webpage, check usenet, or just have a friend on the network to connect the first time.
they considered it a legal risk for them to know it exists on the campus. Colleges are cracking down on local P2P as well, so the only real option is a distributed network.
i think they were trying to tell you how to keep it alive without telling you.
it would be a smaller community but run a VPN inside the school network allowing the big dogs and anyone else who really wanted to join to swap files, it would also hang a big 'no noobs' sign on the network.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Could it be that you aren't smart enough to figure out the difference in someone with a pro pirating agenda and someone who actualy uses the system for legal and reasonable uses?
You act as if someone records a radio program we should ban all tape recorders. You even act as if it is someone god given right to ban all tape recorders because some one taped a program. This attitude is bullshit. There are plenty of good uses for P2P that doesn't infringe on anyone copyright. You seem to think because someone just lost a tool they were taking advantage of(legaly) then makes a negative coment about the situation, they are automaticaly supporting piracy. You are wrong.
Rant and whine all you want. The majority of users are not pirates. some may be but if we followed these examples everywere we would ban car because some break laws or use them to steal from others. We would ban almost everythign. Of course that would be just fine with you wouldn't it?
I see your concern, and lawmakers may attempt to move in that direction. However, technologies like bittorrent probably cannot be legislated against directly. The media conglomerates will have to attack those who actually participate in the distribution process. Although it is easy to track infringement to a specific IP address, proving that the person who owns the IP address is actually the person engaging in the infringement is difficult as evidenced by the few defendants that have stood up to the RIAA.
Your logic does contain a fallacy. Right now, P2P technologies are one of the driving forces behind widespread broadband deployment and that is not something ISPs are willing to give up. As evidenced by some of their recent attempts to shield their users from the RIAA's legal efforts, some ISPs are realizing the value of protecting their client's anonymity. ISP's currently have common carrier status meaning they are not responsible for the contents of the traffic they carry, this has been upheld by the courts. ISP's do not care what you do with your bandwidth, unless of course you use so much of it(think 'excessive use') that it affects the people around you or begins to degrade the stability of their own network.
As far as college networks, you are probably correct. There are no guarantees that civil courts will find that college networks fall under common carrier provisions(especially private colleges). So they are in a special legal position in that they feel some legal liability to stop copyright infringement, especially when they are aware of what is going down on their networks.
Downloading and owning said software will also be illegal
That is highly unlikely as BitTorrent is a 'stupid' protocol in that it doesn't decipher/alter the data it is designed to transmit. If the BitTorrent protocol could be made illegal, then why not HTTP or SSL? SSL is only used by terrorists, you know... (sarcasm)
Programs like DeCSS used for copyright infringement that have been attacked were not covered only by the Copyright Act(which actually didn't seem to have an issue with DeCSS because it could be used for fair use), but they were covered also by DMCA which is a whole other beast. With BitTorrent, I can send you an ISO of a CSS encrypted movie and it still doesn't fall under the DMCA because I haven't decrypted it for you.
As you can see from this example, BitTorrent cannot be made illegal without significant changes to the laws governing your privledges. Notice I didn't call them rights, fair use is a privledge provided by the Copyright Act but with one amendment it could be removed. Even the most pro-corporate legislators won't do that, that would be political suicide of unimaginable proportions. So, I don't think BitTorrent software or the BT protocol are going anywhere. The media companies will have to attack the users of the software for specific acts of infringement, not just the technology itself. The fact that it's open source only means it's that much more resilient because no one can take it away from you now.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Is freenet really usable for piracy, though?
Probably not the way you mean. There's Frost for requests / trading and some good freenetizens like scs-warez inserting various decent quality releases. Also some reliable movie sites like one with all the Star Wars episodes. Ironically these anonymous releases can be trusted more than non-anonymous p2p downloads, because establishing a good freenet nym reputation is expensive.
However the selection is limited to say the least and downloading is often very slow, compared to normal p2p. If you want something and can't find it elsewhere or risk more open channels, it's great, otherwise stick to BT / gnutella etc.
Last I check (admittedly a while back) there wasn't even a search mechanism.
:)
There still isn't, really. Well you can search seen files in Frost but that's about it. However this feature is coming sooner or later.
There's a proposal to put in a hack for 0.7 which would work by downloading spidered indexes in the background then search them locally, and in the longer term stream support will be added so you can anonymously query a live server for "proper" google-style search. Streams, and the publish/subscribe architecture being worked on, open up a lot of other cool things like near-real-time communication. Believe it or not, IRC over freenet is being seriously suggested
The thing about the Internet, is that if you want to be sure you block some specific usage, you also have to block all and every encrypted packet. If the RIAA and friends keep the pressure on p2p, i'm guessing we'll start seeing a "strange" surge of vpn traffic as vpn-like stuff becomes part of the p2p software featureset.
And the day they only let us pass small plaintext files is the day we will steganographically hide mp3's in the typos. You see, this has the strength of a social/cultural revolution, and we will only stop sharing copyrighted material the day they abolish copyrights.
There is always a chorus of shortsighted if well intentioned posters reminding us of the artists. Yes, rewarding artists is a significant problem we face in the new cultural paradigm of zero-cost copy, but reality denial (stuffing the genie back in the bottle) never helped anyone solve problems. And it is, indeed a significant problem. It is fundamental to our civilization that artistic creation not be stiffled when we could be at the edge of an unprecedented cultural golden age.
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
Good. Public money is paying for your university links to be used for academic purposes, not sharing music and movies. If you want a Linux distro, ask your administrators to mirror the appropriate distro locally
Are you trying to get modded funny or are you stupid enough to believe that if you contact "your" admins, they will do something like that for you?
If the latter, you need to be beaten with a clue stick a couple dozen times.
And as for the whole "public money" bit, it would be a valid argument if
a. students didn't pay tuition (they do, just in case you didn't know) or
b. students weren't forced to pay a "technology fee" or "internet access fee" (especially when the fees exceed the cost of Internet access from a traditional provider)
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