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The Truth About Suprnova Shutdown

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the sites-speaking-from-beyond-the-grave dept.

Romeo E. Cabrera writes "You might remember it was exactly a year ago when Suprnova, once the most popular BitTorrent search engine went dark. Today, Suprnova's admin Sloncek, reveals the truth and details, about the events occurred then."

10 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So, to sum it up by ericdano · · Score: 4, Interesting

    However, if you live and host in the same country as him, you might be able to do it again and still nothing will happen. Sounds good to me.

    --
    It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
    I moderate therefore I rule!
    --
  2. 15 minutes of fame by intelliot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why normal people are catapulted into a spotlight they didn't ask for will always be a question of concern. If you want to be famous, you can be. But think about it. If you want to be famous, you're not thinking straight. As small site owners are plummeled with traffic and legal issues, how can we help them survive? This reminds me of the blogosphere, which recently experienced growing pains with the servers and datacenters struggling to cope with demand.

  3. Slyck Disagrees with Sloncek by remove+office · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sloncek's story is disputed by Slyck here.

    slyck of course being the most prominent file sharing news source on the web.

    1. Re:Slyck Disagrees with Sloncek by TheFlyingGoat · · Score: 5, Interesting
      They're not disputing it. Try reading it again. They list three questions/inconsistencies that they felt were unanswered:
      1. Why would he continue supported eXeem if he was under copyright enforcement actions?
      2. Why would he continue working with ANY P2P development?
      3. Although the Suprnova.org servers were raided in November, the site continued to function until December.

      They go on to say:
      A year later, answers for the curious are finally available. ... Considering the magnitude of the situation Sloncek faced, he did what was best for him. No on else from the BitTorrent community was going to help him, and he knew that. Whether he is telling the truth is irrelevant.

      That's not disputing him. That's saying, "we had questions before, but he answered them sufficiently, and it doesn't really matter even if he weren't telling the truth."

      Yay.
      --
      You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
  4. Re:EU law and Slovenia by lynzh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The people at pirate bay arent scriptkiddies either, see this url: http://static.thepiratebay.org/

  5. Welcome to the club. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "On November 2004, I received a call from my ISP saying that all of my servers had been raided by the police. I received nothing from the police before or after the raid, nobody told me what was going on."

    On my end, Adobe lawyers contacted my ISP and sent a short, but curt letter: "Shut him down, or we will." I balked and so did my ISP after some heated conversation. I ran a VERY popular macintosh serial # site and yeah, serial numbers are sort of a grey area as far as I was concerned (and so thought my ISP thought, as well).

    Whoops.

    Yeah, it was stupid on my part but I enjoyed the money that rolled in from my sponsors. In the long-term I got burned, much like this fellow will. I had to claim bankruptcy, due to my mounting legal bills. I'm basically screwed for the next 7 years. Hooray. Some people can walk that thin grey line between legal and illegal but I found a way to trip over it. Oh well.

  6. "wait and see" ? by Presence2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How the hell does an admin go a week, let alone "November to December" without having a single clue as to why police would raid his servers? Why his site was shut down? Fear or apathy?

    His statement strikes me as someone who was simply hoping the problem would go away (as quoted) from the onset. More pressure on both the police and a legal defense from the onset could have both quelled the investigation as groundless and gotten the site back up.

    It's an unfortunate truth that law enforcement often only succeeds in setting legal precedent in computer investigations only because people aren't more diligent in defending themselves.

    1. Re:"wait and see" ? by hot+soldering+iron · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Are you an American? Then get a clue. According to the Patriot Act that our "representatives" *PTOOEY!* signed into law, all they have to do is say "Homeland Security", and you can be held INDEFINITELY, with NO CHARGES FILED, and NO PUBLIC RECORD, NO REPRESENTATION BY AN ATTORNEY, AND YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ARE WAIVED!

      And that's in a country with a history of being one of the most free and liberal in the world. What do you think normally happens in Slovenia?

      How did the land of the free come to resemble Soviet Russia?

      --
      When you want something built, come see me. If you want correct grammar and spelling, get a F*ing liberal arts student.
  7. A proverb by carcosa30 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Crime is the art of knowing when to quit.

    -Me

    --
    Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
  8. Re:So, to sum it up by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because Corporations are always getting Merc and Terrorists to stop things they don't like. For example the MercCo raid on Shanghi Windows XP pirates in '02 that resulted in...

    Actually they don't, and the United States Government really doesn't do much militarily to protect corporate interests these days, not like the Fruit company fun in the 20th century. Yea, War for Oil, War for Kosovo's Tin, the geopolitical ramifications of the US and/or NATO going to war are much larger than Corporate Interests these days.

    However, if a Nation-State has a relationship with the United States, there will be treaties and frameworks usually that'll help shut this stuff down. Plus, your ISPs could just block thier domain names.

    That all said, if you are really intent on pirating other people's property, and it's not about "Sharing", come on, it's about gettng crap for free, look at Indian Reservations in the United States. The legal issues between a Reservation, County, State and the Federal Governments are a goddamned mess. Plus, theres a whole lot of corruption so with some cash, you might get a Rez to go for this model.*

    * - I'm Indian and from a Reservation and have known a fair share of Tribal Council and Chairpeople over the years that I can say they are corrupt for the most part without being a Troll or a Flamer.