To Media Companies, BitTorrent Implies Guilt

kripkenstein writes "The big media companies immediately assume you are guilty by your mere presence on a BitTorrent swarm, an investigation by a university security worker reveals. Turns out companies like BayTSP (which the media companies employ) will send shutdown notices to ISPs without any evidence of copyright infringment; all they feel they need is an indication that you are reported by the tracker to be in the swarm." From the post: "For my investigation, I wrote a very simple BitTorrent client. My client sent a request to the tracker, and generally acted like a normal Bittorrent client up to sharing files. The client refused to accept downloads of, or upload copyrighted content. It obeyed the law... With just this, completely legal, BitTorrent client, I was able to get notices from BayTSP. To put this in to perspective, if BayTSP were trying to bust me for doing drugs, it'd be like getting arrested because I was hanging out with some dealers, but they never saw me using, buying, or selling any drugs."

Comments

Don't understand the analogy

[letsgolightning]

In the spirit of slashdot, could I request that we instead get a car analogy? Preferably one involving hookers... and blackjack. You know what? Forget the analogy.

Re:Don't understand the analogy

[slim-t]

It's like picking up a hooker to have someone to talk to while playing blackjack, then getting thrown out for counting cards even though you were just trying to make sure they were 52 in the deck, then a cop seeing you starting your own car with a screwdriver and arresting you for soliciting prostitution when he sees who you're with. Not a perfect analogy, but it happened to a friend of mine once.

Re:Not missing anything

[Dilaudid]

So essentially it's a bit like hanging around with dealers and wearing a sign saying "I buy and sell crack cocaine".

Charge me with rape!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I have the equipment.