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Hack Exposes Pirate Bay User Data

Posted by Soulskill on from the now-looking-for-a-torrent-tracker dept.

tsu doh nimh writes "A group of hackers from Argentina recently broke into the database for thepiratebay.org, the Internet's largest torrent search engine, exposing user names, Internet addresses, and (MD5) hashed password data on more than 4 million users, according to Brian Krebs. He interviewed the leader of the group, Ch Russo, who said they briefly considered what the information would be worth to the RIAA and MPAA before going public with the breach. From the story: 'Probably these groups would be very interested in this information, but we are not [trying] to sell it,' Russo said. 'Instead we wanted to tell people that their information may not be so well protected.'"

6 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. what fool provides personal info to pirate bay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    C'mon guys...don't register your info with pirate bay. That's just stupid. It was only a matter of time. Just be glad it came from a hacker group and not the courts. Use these services anonymously until the legal crap is sorted out.

  2. Your daily dose of irony by Caerdwyn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So here's a question. Who else has gotten into PirateBay's servers and NOT told them about it?

    I'd think that an organization like PirateBay would be the very last people on Earth whom you'd want to give any sort of personally-identifiable information. I guess we can put this one into the "Darwin Filter" category.

    side question: how many accounts are from president@whitehouse,gov, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC 20050 USA?

    --
    Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
  3. worth to the RIAA and MPAA? by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nothing at all.

    1 - If they accept stolen information anything they do with it will be tossed out of court and taint any pending or future litigation.
    2 - Having an account isn't grounds for anything.. I doubt even logs of what you searched for would be.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  4. Re:And this... by idontgno · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You only need an account for uploading, posting comments, and viewing/downloading porn torrents.

    Well, there's your problem!

    Or, more specifically, there's why the hack yielded 4 million users when a great deal of the torrents are available without registration.

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  5. Re:Leak It by Andorin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which again would make their actions hypocrisy, especially when they in turn laugh and try to ridicule people who ask them to remove such info from the site.

    [citation needed]. Show me one event in which The Pirate Bay refused to remove a torrent for the personal, private information of an individual or a large group of individuals.

    --
    That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
  6. Re:A couple of notes by Stan+Vassilev · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In this manner he makes the channel mods look like immature jerks, but I talked to the mod that actually kicked him not long after the story broke. Evidently the guy was typing like an idiot (multiple messages per sentence) and acting in a rather unprofessional manner.

    The mods banned the guy who has all their user data because he hit Enter too much. Not sure how that supports your premise?