Torrentspy Disables Searching For US IPs

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."

Comments

tor

[wpegden]

Did someone say tor?

Re:tor

[FlyByPC]

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.

Re:tor

[xtracto]

or... dare I say: Usenet?

So, why would you like to to run upon usenet? Do you plan to start a big flamewar about the Torrentspy blocking or anything?

something tells me you wont be desired there!.

Re:tor

[kebes]

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.

Re:tor

[Anonymous Coward]

The first rule of Usenet: Don't talk about Usenet. The second rule of Usenet: Don't talk about Usenet. Understand?

Re:tor

[blahlemon]

Most people don't participate in tasteless and foolish events like flamewars unless they need the approval of others. Yes, it happens at times but I'm sure it's never planned that way by Slashdot posters!

Re:tor

[dmatos]

Pray tell, then, what does one have to do to qualify as a documentarian? Tell the truth? Can you point out the parts in his movie where he doesn't tell the truth? Be unbiased? Can you point me to a single documentary that does not contain any editorial bias? Can you point me to anything published ever that does not contain any bias?

Michael Moore is a documentarian. He creates documentaries. His documentaries have a very strong left wing bias. The trick is in recognizing this factor, and judging his films accordingly.

That said, I have to agree with the grandparent poster. The US medical system is scary. The fact that it is possible to have to go into Bankruptcy because of a medical condition scares the fuck out of me. I'm with Moore's relatives. I would not set foot into the US without additional medical insurance. In fact, for the most part, I've been steering clear of the US as much as possible. Ever since that whole right of Habeas Corpus was suspended.

Re:tor

[gomoX]

For those who didn't see it, the parent comment contains sarcasm.

Re:tor

[tiedemann]

thanks blahlemon, you made my day :)

The Obvious Reason

[eldavojohn]

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. From the Wikipedia page (and as linked on the related Slashdot articles):

On May 29, 2007, A federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to begin monitoring its users' activities and to submit these logs to the Motion Picture Association of America. TorrentSpy's attorney, Ira Rothken, has stated that TorrentSpy would likely turn off access to U.S. users before it started monitoring anyone, since such monitoring is in violation of TorrentSpy's own privacy policy.[1] As of August 24, 2007, TorrentSpy has been closed to United States users. Looks like they finally got around to it ... although it wasn't ordered by a judge, a US judge certainly left them no choice.

I wonder if this can be accessed from the United States through Tor.

I also wonder if I have to start worrying about other sites blocking American users simply out of fear & safety from the United States MPAA/RIAA run court system? I used to feel sorry for Chinese people who had to suffer from their government's censorship and now I have to wonder if I'm going to start suffering from other servers censoring me based on my government's actions.

Re:The Obvious Reason

[DoofusOfDeath]

I also wonder if I have to start worrying about other sites blocking American users simply out of fear & safety from the United States MPAA/RIAA run court system?

That would potentially be fantastic. If we can make Congress understand that excessive copyright and patent regimes put the U.S. at a technological / competitive disadvantage, that's part of the war in getting change.

Of course, Congress might be just as likely to respond in some insane, drunken, counter-productive way as well, which is why I used the word "problematic" above.

Re:The Obvious Reason

[kebes]

You bring up a very valid point, what we have here is reverse censorship. Because of the freedoms (freedom to sue for losses) offered in the US, these restrictions are imposed.

What? "Freedom to sue for losses" ? And does equal rights decrease freeom because landowners no longer have "the Freedom to own slaves" ? How do you reconcile "freedom of speech" against the "freedom to censor" ?

Get real. Just because you add the word "freedom" to the start of a sentence doesn't mean you are describing a real freedom. US users are not being blocked because the US is "too free." They are being blocked because US laws meant to protect copyright holders may require logging and disclosure of logs. This is in conflict with privacy policies.

There is a disagreement here about what "rights" are more important (ease of tracking legal violators vs. privacy). To characterize US laws in this instance as being about "freedom" is disingenuous.

Re:The Obvious Reason

[capnchicken]

The Congress shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Author and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; The pretense of this right is to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts not to protect a failed and obsolete business model.

Re:The Obvious Reason

[TClevenger]

Simple: automatically release works to the public domain after a limited time of protection. That's the way it originally was supposed to be: an artist is encouraged to create a work because they have a time-limited protected period to make money from it, and the expiration of that protection encourages the artist to continue creating. Now, an artist can sit on one successful work and make a lifetime of money from it.

Time for wiki-torrent

[superpulpsicle]

Someone create a privatized wiki-torrent where people can put up their own torrents. That way you can never be sued cause you're not responsible for the contents.

Re:Time for wiki-torrent

[veganboyjosh]

That way you can never be sued

Need I remind you how, *ahem*, flexible the US legal system is?

Flexible like a rubber hose, you mean?

Re:Time for wiki-torrent

[dslauson]

Someone create a privatized wiki-torrent where people can put up their own torrents. That way you can never be sued cause you're not responsible for the contents.

Ummm, there's really no such thing as "can never be sued because of". In the U.S., anybody can sue anybody for anything. Sure, maybe a case will hold no water and will get thrown right out of court, but you'd still probably have a pretty damn good lawyer on retainer before you try something like this in the States, because somehow I don't see the **AA saying, "Oh, well. The guy's got a Wiki. There's nothing we can do."

In other news..

[micksam7]

Non-US proxy usage skyrockets globally.

Re:In other news..

[yorugua]

Are US-based users going to start using china-based proxies??!?!? Did hell just freeze?

Re:In other news..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm offering europe based proxy access to torrentspy for US citizens for 50 cents per search. 5 cents of every search goes towards helping starving artists in the states.

The real victims...

[Anonymous Coward]

How am I supposed to support artists if I can't steal their work? Buy CDs and movies?

This is a good thing.

[Deagol]

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.

Re:This is a good thing.

[pla]

Do you get several failed requests before a successful one? The tor exit node would have to be outside the US, so I imagine there must be many failed queries for every success.

Thanks to a cultural obsession with (fighting) child porn in the US, I would expect just the opposite - No sane American would allow exit connections unless they had high enough 3rd party traffic to claim basically no control over or knowledge of the vast majority of the content (ie, an ISP, and they rarely give anything away).

And if the real feds don't ruin you, Dateline will, regardless of the actual facts. I can just about hear the announcement: "Up next, the newest threat to your children: We put 250 megs of fake child porn on a website, and found we could retrieve it anonymously with a new program for terrorists called Tor. We've hunted down, had fired, and forwarded evidence to the DA about the beast running this smut ring, known perversely as 'Exit Node'.

But how will Americans hook up...sexually?

[Valacosa]

I was afraid that the lockout would affect Canada too, but it works just fine for me. So yeah, they have the whole localizing IP addresses thing down pat.

In related news, I get a banner add offering to help me "Find my real sex partner in WATERLOO". But how will Americans find their "real sex partners" without this valuable service?

Move along

[scruff323]

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

Blame CANADA!

[Mr.Fork]

Alright, but maybe not. I'm a Canuck and I enjoy the fact that my country has a different view on this issue. I don't understand why the MPAA spends so much money and efforts against downloaders where they loose a majority of their money due to pirate bootleg copies being sold inside the USA and around the world? I wonder if the MPAA polled movie goers and found out how many that do download movies still go to movies in the Theatre? Has it increased their interest since movies became easy to download? Do they watch more movies they normally would of skipped otherwise because they're watching so much more on the Internet via their computer?

Also, isn't this kind of action biting the hand that feeds them? Didn't Napster actually increase sales because it stimulated interested in music? Could MPAA be suffering the same short-sighted vision because their top executives are disenfranchised from the general public?

Re:Canada also blocked

[Kristoph]

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

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Re:Tor:Popularity Games.

[computational super]

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

Buildings with security guards are rarely robbed or broken into. A naive building owner may say, "you know, there haven't been any break-ins in years - I'm wasting my money paying the security guards to guard this place!" when in fact it was the deterrent of the security guard that prevented the break-in in the first place. Civil liberties (such as privacy safeguards) are a bit like security guards - the fact that you have them means you probably don't need them, but if you get rid of them, you'll want them back in a big hurry.

Re:No surprise

[Anspen]

Well, many European nations have an explicit right to privacy. Which is different from the US (yes there is a constitutional right to privacy but it is implicit, which means it tends to be unenforced in rulings). While the government has more leeway than private companies they are mostly subject to similar rules (i.e. they can't simply share information between, say the IRS and welfare, you need an explicit law to allow it.)

Re:My first accepted submission in 8 years

[Lithdren]

Way to post off topic, on your own topic.

That...that really takes something special.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Tor:Popularity Games.

[cooley]

Yes, 'cause it's not their knowledge to begin with. Why would someone else NEED to know that I'm downloading Ubuntu?

I'm not saying I don't masturbate. I am saying that it's none of anyone else's business if/when I do. Hey buddy, I love Ubuntu as much as the next guy (maybe more) but seriously you probably shouldn't tell people that you masturbate to it downloading.