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Torrentspy Disables Searching For US IPs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the everyones-favorite-pariah dept.

dr_strang writes "Torrent indexing site Torrentspy.com appears to have disabled torrent searches for IPs that originate in the United States. Instead of a results page, users are directed to this page, which states: 'Torrentspy Acts to Protect Privacy. Sorry, but because you are located in the USA you cannot use the search features of the Torrentspy.com website. Torrentspy's decision to stop accepting US visitors was NOT compelled by any Court but rather an uncertain legal climate in the US regarding user privacy and an apparent tension between US and European Union privacy laws."

12 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Re:tor by The13thSin · · Score: 2, Informative

    That, or use one of the (crappy) free proxies around... or go to a torrent site that's not based in the US... or... dare I say: Usenet?

    --
    "This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults."
  2. Re:tor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Tor might let you get to the .torrent, but you really shouldn't use it for the actual download... that's just not what the program is for. If you can download without torr, great. If you can't, it's time to get a demonoid account or use TPB.

  3. This is a good thing. by Deagol · · Score: 4, Informative

    The more popular tor gets, and the more traffic in the network, the better it'll be for the entire 'net. One click of the my "tor" option under "FoxyProxy", and I was able to submit searches no problem.

    --
    Method of processing duck feet
  4. Re:tor by FlyByPC · · Score: 4, Informative

    Searching shouldn't take too long. Basically you're submitting a small string and asking for a fairly simple HTML page as a response. You can live with even moderate to bad inefficiency if the request is small enough.

    I wouldn't want to try to download the latest Ubuntu DVD via TOR, though; that might be more of a problem. But that's what BitTorrent is for, anyway.

    --
    Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
  5. Canada also blocked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Canadian users are also blocked

    1. Re:Canada also blocked by Kristoph · · Score: 4, Informative

      I am in Canada at the moment and it is working fine for me. I suspect it much depends on who your ISP is.

      ]{

  6. Re:tor by kebes · · Score: 5, Informative

    Keep in mind that in this case you don't even have to use TOR for the actual torrent. You only need to use a proxy for the short time necessary to do a search on torrentspy and download the .torrent. After that, you can join the torrent in the usual way. After all, torrentspy only tracks torrents: it has no control over the swarm or what connections the swarm allows/blocks.

    So, instead of a search taking 1 second it would take 3 seconds. The actual download would be just as fast. (That is, assuming you were willing to download a torrent without TOR before this block, then this block doesn't change your actual download speed.)

    Also note that an easier solution is to switch to using a torrent tracker which does not block US users. For instance trackers not in the US (e.g. Pirate Bay) will probably not have any reason to block US users. In fact a tracker like Pirate Bay could mirror all of TorrentSpy's contents. Although this recent development is interesting, it will have little to no impact on the amount of downloading (or the ease of downloading) that goes on.

  7. Also blocks AOL in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I know it's lame to be using AOL in the first place, but it would be nice if they were using a decent geo-ip list.

  8. Move along by scruff323 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Isohunt, Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, Mininova, (reincarnated) Suprnova. Shall I go on?

    1. Re:Move along by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Meh, Google search with a inurl:.torrent in the search replaces the need for any of those sites individually. Google, My OmniTracker!

  9. Re:The Obvious Reason by Skreems · · Score: 2, Informative

    After all, who cares about the Constitutionally protected rights to control distribution? What use is that in the face of overwhelming demand for free shit?
    That's a bit of a mischaracterization. The constitution grants congress the right to pass laws granting control of distribution. This doesn't mean that the right to control distribution is itself constitutionally derived. And the implication that everyone who's against indefinite copyright is equally wrong. The entire point of copyright was to encourage creation of works which would eventually (sooner than later) enter the public domain. The entire point of copyright, as originally written, was to create "free shit".
    --
    Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
    The Urban Hippie
  10. Re:tor by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 2, Informative

    www.google.com

    en.wikipedia.org

    Learn things.

    --
    Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.