Site Offers History of Torrent Downloads By IP

tsu doh nimh writes "You may have never heard of youhavedownloaded.com, but if you recently grabbed movies, music or software from online file-trading networks, chances are decent that the site has heard of you. In fact, you may find that the titles you downloaded are now listed and publicly searchable at the site, indexed by your Internet address. So far, youhavedownloaded.com has recorded more than 50 million unique Internet addresses belonging to file-sharing users. The site is searchable by file name and by Internet address. When you visit, it automatically checks and lets you know if your Internet address is in the database."

Comments

Honeypot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beware all you clickers!

Re:Honeypot?

[Beelzebud]

That's exactly what I was thinking...

Re:Honeypot?

[marcosdumay]

I was thinking on some sort of phishing scam...
Honeypot for catching what? Visiting such a site is not evidence of piracy.

Re:Honeypot?

[Goaway]

Honey what?

Re:Honeypot?

[lorenlal]

That site doesn't care...

Re:Honeypot?

[Vanderhoth]

Whether they are recording file-share IPs from torrent downloads or not would be beside the point. The people who are visiting this site would be people who do file-share and my be concerned they'll be sued.

Visiting the site will confirm they're on the list and they'll be "scared straight".

Re:Honeypot?

[shaitand]

They don't need evidence they just have send a letter to your ISP saying you are a pirate.

Re:Honeypot?

[MichaelKristopeit400]

i don't "do file-share"... i visited the site... my current dynamically assigned IP wasn't on the list.

you're an idiot.

Re:Honeypot?

[sinij]

I visited site out of curiosity. I don't pirate, yet they say I downloaded a bunch of shows (CSI Miami? Please, who watches that? Well, not me.) I am starting to think that site is not at all legit.

Re:Honeypot?

[Opportunist]

Talk for your country. I live in one where "innocent until proven guilty" still means something.

But we're working on that...

Re:Honeypot?

[gl4ss]

it didn't say anything for me, it should have. though my ip changes semi-frequently.

Re:Honeypot?

[sinij]

Not every Win PC (like my gaming rig for example) is automatically compromised and infected with bots. While it is possible, I see it as rather unlikely, since I have enough expertise to prevent anything that is not specifically target at me.

Much more reasonable assumption is that a) I didn't notice recent IP shuffle b) Database is randomly generated c) Database is not randomly generated, but might as well be due to methodology flaws.

Re:Honeypot?

[PNutts]

If you are dynamic IP, that is why. In addition,

There. Fixed that for ya.

Re:Honeypot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Visit the site from a Tor address and see what pops up. ;)

Re:Honeypot?

[Vokkyt]

It's likely an IP shuffle. The site just crawls the same way that the RIAA/MPAA has in the past; it's a non-serious project by some guys with a decent sense of humor. (Okay, it's not that good, but the point is they mean to be funny).

Re:Honeypot?

[DarkOx]

have enough expertise to prevent anything that is not specifically target at me

Much more reasonable assumption is that a) I didn't notice recent IP shuffle

See I don't buy it. If you had enough expertise to prevent *anything* that is not specifically targeted at you, an extraordinary claim! Then at the very least you would have logs and the ability to search them easily enough that you'd have checked and been aware of that ip shuffle before posting.

Re:Honeypot?

[shaitand]

Eastern Europe somewhere? It certainly isn't here in the US.

Re:Honeypot?

[anomaly256]

I don't have a dynamic IP (or use windows, heh). It still listed some crap I've never heard of (although 1 entry was correct, only 1). I know my wife didn't download them because she doesn't know even know what torrents are. I doubt any of my small handful of neighbours hacked my wpa2 just so they could download some self-motivation crap (it's not even tony robbins!). There seems to be more flaws with their data collection process than just the dynamic IP issue.

Re:Honeypot?

[hedwards]

It depends on your set up. I typically have the same IP address for long periods of time because the ISP doesn't reassign them unless you've gone offline for a period of time. If I turned it off and back on I might get a new IP, but as long as the connection is there consistently they don't bother handing out a new IP.

When I checked the site it didn't have any information at all.

Re:Honeypot?

[smi.james.th]

I've personally never bothered to check how long I have the same IP, but the router / modem which my ISP gave me as part of the bundle is quite crappy, so I need to reset it at least every couple of days. I checked on the list and nothing there matched what I'd actually been downloading.

FWIW, for all those people saying "I don't download," torrents don't ONLY have "illegal" stuff. There's a lot of Creative Commons music available on torrent, (Jamendo for example) and most Linux distros distribute their isos with torrents as well as regular downloads. As I mentioned though, this website had a long list of stuff downloaded by this IP, but none of it was mine.

Re:Honeypot?

[AliasMarlowe]

I also visited the site, out of a particular curiosity. It said my permanent IP address was not in their database.

I'm not sure how to interpret this - I have used torrents, but only for Linux ISOs (a few flavors of Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS). However, the site does not appear to restrict itself to torrents of questionable legality, but apparently encompasses all file sharing, including the legal sharing of GPL and CC works. If you enter "Ubuntu" in their search box, it will return a number of ISO links along with links to videos, books, etc.

Re:Honeypot?

[AliasMarlowe]

I visited site out of curiosity. I don't pirate, yet they say I downloaded a bunch of shows (CSI Miami? Please, who watches that? Well, not me.)
I am starting to think that site is not at all legit.

Do you have an unprotected (or minimally protected) wireless LAN and neighbors at fairly close range? That's a hole that the unscrupulous might take advantage of. At least, it would provide one explanation for the allegation of downloading stuff which you did not download.

Re:Honeypot?

[drb226]

Fortunately, this is slashdot. Nobody [of importance] actually clicks through.

Re:Honeypot?

[bipbop]

That was essentially the same conclusion I came to. It claims I downloaded things called Dexter and Nikita; I'm the only user, and I don't think anyone hacked my FreeBSD box just to torrent three TV shows. Moreover, I'd have noticed the bandwidth use. I'm also sure the IP the box is using is the same as it was then.

Re:Honeypot?

[hedwards]

I had a crappy ISP DSL modem which I ultimately replaced with a TP-Link 8816, quite nice and fairly inexpensive. I've had far fewer connection problems since it automatically dials in when it loses its connection without my having to intervene.

Re:Honeypot?

[PCTRS80]

When they send your ISP a complaint they will check their DHCP records and find out the account on the IP at that time and simply let you know that a complaint was lodged. This happened to me a few years ago when I downloaded a few missed episodes of True blood (prior to HBO on-demand in my area), I contacted the people and the complaint was dropped when I pointed out that I am subscriber HBO. Many of this stuff can be cleared up with a simple conversation.

Re:Honeypot?

[Cederic]

Nikita's a good film - definitely worth hunting down if you haven't seen it.

Of course, its spiritual sequel, "Leon" is one of the greatest films ever made, but you needed Nikita first.

Re:Honeypot?

[Totenglocke]

The best part is, the site wants you to log in using facebook to "prove you're human" - that way they can pin an IP address to an actual name and email address. If you don't use the facebook link, they provide something like a 26 letter long captcha (which as far as I can tell, will never let you in, thus forcing you to log in via facebook if you want to view the site). This site sounds like an extreme scam.

Re:Honeypot?

[SteveTheNewbie]

You do realise that this site (youhavedownloaded.com) doesn't record your private IP address if you are hidden behind a NAT device right ? and that DHCP leases will expire (and renew) and that your modem doesn't have to 'reboot' or 'crash' in order to get a new public IP address, and that, depending on the access technology and the time it happens, you may not even notice a new public IP address change ?

Also, if you fire back with 'but I have a static public IP address' then none of your arguments make sense anyway ?

Oh, and you may want to do some research into how worms work, I'll give you a starter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_worm

Re:Honeypot?

[makomk]

According to a comment someone left on the site, they apparently had records for the IP address 192.168.1.1 which have since been removed. So their data collection process is probably busted. (They probably got caught in the usual trap of assuming that trackers provide an accurate list of peers, or worse still assuming that DHT does.)

Re:Honeypot?

[iiiears]

http://panopticlick.eff.org/ - Why do browsers reveal so much about themselves?

Re:Honeypot?

[Adriax]

That's because linux is free and therefor deprives an honest company of it's god given right to profit.
Why would you freely admit to such unethical behavior, how can you be so proud of stealing caviar from the mouths of CEOs? You monster!

Re:Honeypot?

[geminidomino]

Of course, its spiritual sequel, "Leon" is one of the greatest films ever made, but you needed Nikita first.

Also released as "The Professional" in the 'States. Agreed with parent's assessment, too.

Re:Honeypot?

[trytoguess]

Huh, my thought was these folks are trying to drum up subscriptions for VPNs. To he honest, I'm surprised they haven't suggested some sites.

Re:Honeypot?

[Random5]

I checked my current home IP, it has four listing, two of which are definitely episodes I downloaded, two are someone elses listed from a previous month. I think it's safe to say they're 'legit' insofar as they're recording actual activity and querying it honestly at least some of the time.

Re:Honeypot?

[sr180]

Exactly. The extremely long captcha would not work for me at all - forcing people to use the facebook login, so its conveniently a neat little trick connecting People to IP addresses.

Re:Honeypot?

[neokushan]

Please tell me the name of the malware that turns your PC into a seedbox rather than a bot for sending spam, DOS attacks, etc.
Because I'm pretty sure you're talking out of your arse.

Re:Honeypot?

[neokushan]

Worse, the users all assume that they are experts and KNOW that they could not be infected

Errrrrr no, most users know they know nothing about computers and trust their security to some sort of AV program, or just don't care. Windows is "easy" to target because it only takes a small percentage of vulnerable targets (i.e. people) to get yourself a few hundred thousand victims. Windows is no more difficult to secure than Linux as the practices are the same - don't run as root/admin, keep shit up to date and don't download dodgy shit. Most Viruses and worms require some form of interaction or permission from the user to spread.

In fact your argument of "users all assume that they are experts and KNOW that they could not be infected" applies least to windows and most to Mac and Linux users. Many Mac users to this day expect things to "just work" and most don't run any kind of security software. Many Linux users assume that because they're running linux, they're invulnerable - if anything, Android proves that this isn't necessarily the case (I realise it's an apples/oranges comparison, but the difference is that Android is vastly popular while Linux on the desktop is not).

Re:Honeypot?

[AmiMoJo]

It looks like they scrape popular torrent sites like TPB and then list every address in the swarm. Problem one is that legal torrents are on there too, and problem two is that trackers list fake random IP addresses to make the data unreliable in court.

My home IP address is listed with torrents I never touched, and so is my mobile one. That is despite that fact that Vodafone blocks BitTorrent and I have never used it on my 1GB/month plan.

The whole site is a troll, clearly they either don't understand the data they are collecting or they are deliberately misrepresenting it.

Re:Honeypot?

[marcosdumay]

Then the information they gather with the site is useless.

Re:Honeypot?

[DynamoJoe]

Mine was! (I'm at an edu; I'm sure this IP has been used to pillage and loot). Kind of funny that there's a facebook connect button on the page. Who the fuck is going to click that? The best part is the music "I" have downloaded sucks, and the .exe of Photoshop is useless on my Mac.

Also, from the site: "Don't take it seriously
The privacy policy, the contact us page — it’s all a joke. We came up with the idea of building a crawler like this and keeping the maintenance price under $300 a month. There was only one way to prove our theory worked — to implement it in practice. So we did. Now, we find ourselves with a big crawler. We knew what it did but we didn’t know how to use it. So we decided to make a joke out of it. That’s the beauty of jokes — you can make them out of anything."

Re:Honeypot?

[scubamage]

I find it funny that I clicked and it told me that the only thing I had downloaded was a copy of a trigonometry text book, and its accompanying teacher edition. #nerdalert

Re:Honeypot?

[scubamage]

Interestingly I searched for my old IP, and it listed a bunch of movies which I never downloaded, as well as an Armin Van Buren album which I never downloaded (I listen largely to Jazz). I think part of its fallability is dynamic IP's because those things weren't me. Now however I did get tracked for a home repair book which I had downloaded some time ago.

Re:Honeypot?

[dokc]

i don't "do file-share"... i visited the site... my current dynamically assigned IP wasn't on the list.

you're an idiot.

Now it is.

Re:Honeypot?

[Hentes]

In some countries it's a valid defence to state that illegal activity happened by an intruder in your network, without your knowledge. By visiting a site like this, you became aware of the activity, thus can't use ignorance in the defence. Of course, this specific site is useless, because most people have dynamic IPs.

Re:Honeypot?

[botFeeder]

I have a torrent listed on my iphone, for pc software (I use mac and linux), at a file size that would kil my phone's bandwidth. Your comments are right on the money.

Re:Honeypot?

[Opportunist]

Only if your skin color is a little darker or you're a little poorer than average.

Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[elrous0]

The MPAA must really be getting desperate. I guess owning Congress just isn't what it used to be.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[InsightIn140Bytes]

MPAA? It's just some russian guys. Besides, all of that data is already visible and copyright infringement companies are probably gathering much more data than some guys who made that site.

It's not scare tactics to let you know what data there is out about you. Unless you want to be ignorant and feel happier if you don't know it.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[ZackZero]

Except there's also a disclaiming "Don't take it seriously" link at the page; essentially, they've only made a proof-of-concept.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[dougmc]

It's a good tactic though. Public shaming has always been effective.

It's likely to be more effective at stopping people than their mass lawsuits have been.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[TheSpoom]

Those Russian guys are about to get hired.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[turbidostato]

"Those who care about their reputation will just use other locations"

Or better yet, they will live in a saner country where sharing contents is legally supported.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[ackthpt]

The MPAA must really be getting desperate. I guess owning Congress just isn't what it used to be.

Probably going to throw the clamps on everyone who ever offered Free Wi-Fi and that wi-fi was used to torrent.

"Mr. Starbucks, you owe us 1 million dollars!" *whisper* *whisper* "make that 100 billion dollars!!"

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[shaitand]

They should give links to the torrents in question when listing the files downloaded. Then the site would be useful.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[jimmerz28]

Shame cultures just end up creating martyrs, they're more focused on making you (feel) guilty.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[Lashat]

Right. Because file sharing policy is the sole dictate of where I should live.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Here I come sunny Somalia!

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[poetmatt]

I noticed this after the fact. I was debating being annoyed with a lack of facts by any stretch and/or being generally annoyed by them even joking that I'd want to download green lantern. Really, green lantern? Also associating IP's with the wrong areas was kind of odd, even for the "hurr we have your IP/geolocation!" crap.

Truth be told, pulling a list of IP's from a torrent is not going to be accurate anyway.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[Opportunist]

In a time when you better own a large bank than a few congresscritters if you want a law? Think again.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[NatasRevol]

Actually, they do. Click on Some files others have loaded, click on one of those files - takes you to torrent page.

Or type in name of software, click on link, click on software - takes you to torrent page.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[Algae_94]

There could be some people that get scared and stop downloading. I think it will just cause most downloaders to get better at hiding their tracks.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[turbidostato]

"Right. Because file sharing policy is the sole dictate of where I should live."

You can add a longer life expectancy too, for instance.

But we were talking about sharing content on the Internet, weren't we? And then again, what part of *saner* did you find so cumbersome?

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Those russian guys are already hired. To remove yourself from their site, which they let you do "because they are nice guys", you have to log in to your FACEBOOK account, and give out your personal details so that you can be EASILY SUED without any need for warrants to your identity.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[Reelin]

Wait, does that mean....

Finally! A bittorrent search engine that's legal in the US! Way to go **AA!

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[ewhac]

Public shaming has always been effective.

Shaming? I thought it was a leaderboard...

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[bky1701]

Violating laws made to protect an artificial economic construct isn't shameful in the least, which is why its association has actually made "pirate" a positive term.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[exomondo]

It's a good tactic though. Public shaming has always been effective.

I see 202.86.210.47 has downloaded Snakes on a Plane, oh what public shame 202.86.210.47 is suffering!

...is that working for you?

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[gmhowell]

It also tended to cut down on the number of out of wedlock little bastards running around.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[Lashat]

The part where content sharing legality is inferred to impact my decision regarding what country I live in. It doesn't even make a top 1000 list for me. Nothing personal. The AC who posted before you gets the joke.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[increment1]

Violating laws made to protect an artificial economic construct isn't shameful in the least, which is why its association has actually made "pirate" a positive term.

Currency is an artificial economic construct, so should we allow counterfeiting as well? What about IP laws that are responsible for medical advances (or do you posit that we would have the same advances without these laws)?

Your position is naive, regardless of how much we all may like to pirate.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[bky1701]

I've already replied to the second claim enough times here to make me nauseous. Take a look at my history if you really want an answer, though I suspect you do not.

"Currency is an artificial economic construct, so should we allow counterfeiting as well?"

Currency represents value; it has no inherent value (these days). Yet, at one time, there was a tend of having money backed by real value, as well as people printing their own money left and right legally. The point being - currency exists for a reason I'm not debating, to allow exchange of goods and services for future goods and services. If someone wants to debate that reasoning, more power to them, it is totally aside from my positions on copyright.

Essentially, you cannot simply act as if copyright is gospel because it exists. Copyright ought to have the same cost-benefit analysis we give to systems like currency. We allow the restriction of counterfeit because it confuses monetary systems and costs the government money. It undermines the idea of currency. Piracy undermines the idea of copyright - yes. That is good, because the more it does, the less people can take the idea of copyright as a foregone conclusion, apart from any value it provides to society as a whole.

However, as it stands, it never gets this kind of analysis in today's society. I find the concept of owning an idea or information disgusting, on top of the proven harm it does to many fields when carried to its logical conclusion (see music industry). Copyright is not property inherently (and not legally in the purest sense, either); infringement upon it is not stealing. The world will not end when we abolish it, and if I ever said one thing with certainty, it is this: that's only a matter of time.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[increment1]

I maintain that your position is naive. While I am no fan of how copyright is used by various entities (MPAA, RIAA, etc) and the specifics of the legal implementation (duration, erosion of fair use, etc), I at least can recognize the value it actually creates.

Take the movie or music industries for example (since you already brought them up). The multi multi million dollar budget movies that are produced are only created because of the environment that exists due to copyright. Without those protections, theatres and stores could legally display or sell these titles without having to pay any money to the content creators. No store that paid any money to the creators could compete since their margins would be worse. The end result is that no large budget (or even small budget) titles would be created.

Now, before you say that free titles could / would be created to replace all of these, look at the facts. People can create free titles now and make them copyright free, but they tend not to. Further than that, the overwhelming titles that are downloaded (movie or music) are the ones produced under the copyright exists model. These titles would simply not exist in a copyright free society, and that is the value that copyright creates.

As for your comments concerning currency, it still is an artificial economic construct (which you do not seem to deny?). So I take it that you are backing away or at the very least refining your initial statement opposed to ALL artificial economic constructs (so you only oppose those which you personally believe to not have value)?

Lastly, concerning patents related to the medical field, I am not going to dig up your previous posts as you direct unless your arguments in favor of such are substantially better than the ones you have made here so far.

Re:Geez, we're down to scare tactics now, huh

[bky1701]

You base all your argument on claims which are not substantiated, arguably countered by history, yet very common arguments for copyright. This is why I say copyright needs a real cost-benefit analysis it isn't getting.

Not that it matters. Copyright will end. If because people wake up to the immorality of owning ideas, or because the copyright laws become so intrusive they elect widespread outcry (we're seeing this already), it will end, and I think we'll be better off without it.

Inaccurate

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not live in Marion, North Carolina and did not recently download an 8GB Lord of the Rings related file. I am on a tethered internet connection and that would take weeks.

I guess the whole concept of non-static IP addresses went right over their head?

Re:Inaccurate

[InsightIn140Bytes]

They obviously can't get information about who uses what IP at what times. But don't worry, when court orders come and you're going to be sued, your ISP has that info and will be able to find you.

Re:Inaccurate

[Anrego]

I was kind of disappointed about this.

I was expecting them to be using some cool bittorrent specific fingerprinting technique or something .. but nope.. looks like it's a really primitive IP based database. My ISP gives me a dynamic IP and has a fairly sizable range.. I get all manner of randomness when I visit the site.

Re:Inaccurate

[slazzy]

My ISP too, I seem to get a different class-a network each day. They must have a ton of IP addresses.

Re:Inaccurate

[billcopc]

Funny, I've been with four different ISPs over the last decade, and they've all had the same A-class.

You must live in an overbloated and cheap knockoff of ancient Rome.

indexed by your Internet address

[smoothnorman]

But my Internet address is not here. It's in Joe's house, that's right next to mine. And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Makelin's house, and a hundred others.

Re:indexed by your Internet address

[iluvcapra]

Obscure, but I got it.

Re:indexed by your Internet address

[_0xd0ad]

With a username like "iluvcapra", I'd certainly hope you got it.

Re:indexed by your Internet address

[characterZer0]

Not particularly obscure. It is December 12th. Everybody has probably seen that stupid movie half a dozen times already this month on account if it being the only damn thing on TV now.

Re:indexed by your Internet address

[iluvcapra]

I'm still waiting for the slashdot post that somehow ties Foxconn workplace abuses to The Bitter Tea of General Yen...

Re:indexed by your Internet address

[Pope]

Never seen it, don't really plan to either.

Re:indexed by your Internet address

[Almahtar]

You still watch TV?

Re:indexed by your Internet address

[Opportunist]

TV? You mean there's still someone clinging to that dated technology?

Gee, I couldn't exist on a movie platform anymore that forces me to watch what they choose instead of me.

Re:indexed by your Internet address

[KingAlanI]

just because it's on doesn't mean you have to watch it. I watched it once (nothing against the movie, most movies I only watch once or a few times). However, it wasn't enough to get the reference.

Re:indexed by your Internet address

[tbird81]

Sadly I have never seen this movie. I actually thought it was a reference to the Simpsons! (When Bart calls out "what do you mean the bank is out of money!").

I might download it. Check http://www.youhavedownloaded.com/?q=118.90.98.164 in about an hour.

Facebook data harvesting tool

[carlhirsch]

Well, at least we know how they're monetizing this admittedly slick database; they won't allow you to submit a removal request until you provide your facebook credentials. To even reach the text below, you need to unblock Facebook in NoScript:
______
Removal Request

What’s the matter? You’re brave enough to steal music, movies and programs but only because you thought you weren’t going to get caught? Well whoever told you that was completely wrong and now your information has gone public. Are you afraid of media companies finding out that you’re a pirate or are you afraid of your friends finding out exactly what you’ve been downloading? Whatever your reason may be, the internet is no place for secrets. Even if you use every precaution in the book, there’s always a chance that someone like us will figure out what you’ve been up to. Because, the reality is, if man made it...man will get around it...and man will figure out how to exploit it. It’s just human nature.

Anyway, like we said before, luck is on your side today because we’re actually nicer than we let on. I never said we wouldn’t bust your chops about it, but at least we’re offering you a chance to redeem yourself — The details can be found after logging in to your Facebook account.

Re:Facebook data harvesting tool

[TheSpoom]

Said Facebook data will be fed into their publicly available Facebook database, to be released in a week.

Re:Facebook data harvesting tool

[SirGarlon]

The details can be found after logging in to your Facebook account.

I know this is Slashdot and most people get it, but for those who don't -- this looks like a form of phishing to get your Facebook password. I'm not a security expert but I imagine they are using a man-in-the-middle attack to log your password while you log in.

This is probably exactly what parent intended to imply.

Re:Facebook data harvesting tool

[Bogtha]

Doesn't look that way to me - it's the standard Facebook Connect popup window that connects to Facebook.com via HTTPS.

What part of it looks like phishing for passwords to you?

Re:Facebook data harvesting tool

[billcopc]

Who the fuck would want to use Sony Vegas anyway ? Even if it came with a free case of beer, I still wouldn't touch it.

I think this site is a joke. They may have sniffed a handful of torrents, but for the most part this seems like that same Russian attention whore (of 3FN fame) trying to make himself relevant by pissing people off. Apparently it wasn't enough for him to host a shit ton of botnet C&C nodes and scam sites...

Shit like this is why I think we should have an Internet tribunal, where unforgivable swine are judged by a jury of tech-savvy peers and booted off the goddamned wire.

Re:Facebook data harvesting tool

[SirGarlon]

I don't care whether this is a standard Facebook widget or not. The site is using "behavioral engineering" (which is a fancy and strangely antiseptic term for "lying."). They are asking you, indeed pressuring you, to log into Facebook from an entry point of their choosing. That entry point is almost certainly a trap.

Try this experiment. Leave their page. Close your browser completely. Restart it. Go directly to www.facebook.com. Log in. Do you see any message there from the Russian hackers who purport to run the site? If not, they were lying when they said logging in to Facebook would tell you how to get off their list.

I'll bet you $50 there is nothing there. To collect, just go to www.sirgarlon.ru and log in to your Facebook account. :-)

Re:Facebook data harvesting tool

[Bogtha]

They are asking you, indeed pressuring you, to log into Facebook from an entry point of their choosing.

What were you seeing? When I clicked the button, I saw a pop up window that included a URL bar. That URL bar showed an HTTPS URL on the facebook.com domain. That is a legitimate Facebook Connect dialog that is not under their control. My browser auto-filled the form, which is further evidence of its authenticity.

Are you in any way familiar with Facebook Connect? It doesn't disclose passwords. Unless they have somehow bypassed the cross-domain security of browsers, spoofed the URL bar, or performed a man-in-the-middle attack with a compromised certificate, they cannot phish your Facebook password from this popup window, which is what you claimed they were doing.

Now, if you want to argue that they aren't being honest when they tell you they will remove you from the list, then go right ahead and argue that. But if you argue that they are phishing passwords, you're going to have to give solid reasons, because the available evidence says otherwise.

Re:Not so much

[jedidiah]

Ditto. This thing pegged me as downloading something from "Lil Wayne" while not correctly identifying the things that I have actually torrented. Although I usually stay away from stuff that RIAA or MPAA have any jurisdiction over.

So they aren't going to publically shame me over downloading Centos? I'm so dissapointed.

Zero results

[IANAAC]

I tried it. Came up with zero results or me. I download a lot too.

I don't do anything out of the ordinary to otherwise secure or anonymize my downloading using either Transmission or Vuze, for what it's worth.

Re:Zero results

[Hadlock]

Yep (AC here - sorry!) Both myself and my neighbors (we share a connection) are pretty heavy BT users (we use Azureus or "Vuze Classic") and the IP didn't show up anything. We've had the same IP for at least 18 months. Either they're inflating their numbers drastically (who says they aren't lying horribly? This is the MPAA/RIAA after all) or only using encrypted trackers seems to have some effect.

Re:Zero results

[Hadlock]

Hah. Uh, always hit preview when posting as an AC!

Re:Zero results

[Dyinobal]

Thank you for posting this Hadlock, we will be sure to use this in your upcoming civil case.

Love,

Media conglomerate.

Re:Zero results

[mehrotra.akash]

How do you submit without hitting preview?
I only get "Preview","Quote parent" and "cancel" buttons

Re:Zero results

[_0xd0ad]

By disabling the D2 system.

Or right-click "Reply to This" and open it in a new tab, to bypass the Javascript and get the old posting form.

Re:Zero results

[Hadlock]

Uh, that's how it's always been, ever since 2001 or so. I've tweaked the hell out of my account settings over the years, and when they did that awful 2.0 update earlier this year I think (when the option later became available) I set the discussion style to "Classic Discussion System (D1)", which may allow that option. But I guess that's the pitfall of posting without a net!
 
P.S. the stock D1 settings are terrible, adjust your score modifiers accordingly:
 
Insightful +1
Offtopic +1
Flamebait +1
Troll +1
Informative +6
Redundant -4
 
Friend +6
Fan+6
Foe +6
anonymous Modifier +1
New User Modifier +1
Small Comment Modifier1, -1
Long Comment Modifier 1, +1
 
And then browse at a threshold at +3, Threaded, Oldest First, Index Spill 600 and Reparent Highly Rated Comments as "True". Also helps if you have a healthy friends/foes list. Anybody willing to stick their neck out as an expert in a particular field and making a particularly informative post usually gets an add.

Re:Zero results

[rasmusbr]

Same here. They have nothing on me yet.

I download tons of completely legal stuff (of course) from various public torrent sites and sometimes share for extended periods of time, so you'd think they would have found my IP.

Re:Zero results

[Ponder Stibions]

I'm am currently downloading using Transmission on Ubuntu with Pirate Bay as one of my trackers. It could not find any downloads on my IP. I call this site out, it can't cope with the scale of the issue to actually be doing this. Even it admits that private trackers stop it from picking you up.....

Re:Zero results

[Aqualung812]

You +1 AC? -6, here, AC is dead to me. Grow a spine. :)

Re:Zero results

[Hadlock]

Yeah but AC starts out with 0 points, which means the interesting ones need to be modded up three times before I see them. What would be a +4 interesting post from a regular /. poster would fall below my +3 threshold. Browsing at +3 filters out 99% of the worthless AC posts already, but those rare, moderately interesting ones posted as an AC due to their job (usually the most interesting ones in the thread) still get through.

Re:Zero results

[gmhowell]

That's frighteningly close to the settings I use.

Re:Zero results

[allo]

friend of foe is missing.

Re:Zero results

[Hadlock]

I have those set to 0

missing link to actual users, dynamic IPs, etc

[Superken7]

"When you visit, it automatically checks and lets you know if your Internet address is in the database."

Except most people don't have a fixed IP reserved for them. Does that mean I'm going to get the "warning" because someone else on my ISP downloaded content? (Yes.)

Nevertheless, it's an interesting tool, but this information is probably useless since you still need to contact the ISP in order to know who actually was using that IP in that given time frame.
Also, keep in mind that this site currently only displays a time frame accurate to a MONTH (e.g. Dec, 2011) as far as I can see.

If they were trying to scare pirates off, well: Avast, thar! I be not scared!

Re:missing link to actual users, dynamic IPs, etc

[BagOBones]

True but they state in there chat area that they store a full time stamp, they just display a vague one. Probably to keep other companies from scraping their database.

Already defeated...

[MurukeshM]

... by Tor. I regularly download torrents from behind a draconian campus proxy using Tor. (Yes, I know, the Tor guys don't want us running torrents with it. But I'm too lazy to go looking for other solutions.) I'm "in the clear." :P

Re:Already defeated...

[forkfail]

Already defeated By-Tor

Yes, the Snow Dog did.

Re:Already defeated...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so you know, that makes you a giant asshole.

Re:Already defeated...

[GameboyRMH]

Use I2P or just go encrypted & peerblocked, your warez downloads are bogging down the connection of people with real problems.

Re:Already defeated...

[cjb658]

I thought Tor relays were configured to reject P2P packets...

Re:Already defeated...

[Gaygirlie]

... by Tor. I regularly download torrents from behind a draconian campus proxy using Tor. (Yes, I know, the Tor guys don't want us running torrents with it. But I'm too lazy to go looking for other solutions.) I'm "in the clear." :P

You may be "in the clear" but you're also terribly selfish a-hole.

Re:Already defeated...

[MurukeshM]

Who says downloading Ubuntu torrents provided the Ubuntu website is piracy?

Re:Already defeated...

[MurukeshM]

Indeed I'll try I2P.

Re:Already defeated...

[MurukeshM]

No, because our campus proxy has a 150MB/file download size limit. Tor helps overcome that, and I can seed too.

Re:Already defeated...

[wdef]

Fail. You're *not* in the clear running torrents over Tor because most bittorrent clients very helpfully harvest and send your IP over tor. Read the article on the Tor website. Not only are you choking the tor network, you are likely not obscuring your IP address.

Illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

And if they track any IP address from Switzerland, they are breaking the Swiss data protection laws and can be sued for damages for collecting the IP and breach of privacy.

See http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/switzerland-gathering-ip-addresses-from-bittorrent-sites-illegal.ars

What happened to another IP slurper...
"But Switzerland, which is not an EU member, has decided that it can't sanction Logistep's behavior. The country's Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner, Hanspeter Thür, took Logistep to court and this week won a major victory. The Federal Supreme Court ruled that IP addresses are in fact personal information and that companies like Logistep can't go about slurping them up for mere civil cases like file-swapping lawsuits. Logistep must cease all current copyright infringement data collection.

In a press release issued yesterday, Thür praised the court's decision. He sees Logistep as trying to "assume tasks clearly in the State's domain." Only the state can violate personal privacy, and only when pursuing criminal cases."

Re:Illegal

[Splab]

Think the same goes for quite a lot of places around Europe; Just checked my own IP and nothing shows up, if it had I'd emailed forbrugerombudsmanden and complained.

Re:Illegal

[Wonko the Sane]

And if they track any IP address from Switzerland, they are breaking the Swiss data protection laws and can be sued for damages for collecting the IP and breach of privacy.

I'm sure that the Russian courts take the enforcement of Swiss data protection laws and civil judgments very seriously.

Re:Illegal

[xaxa]

According to the first article I found, they're also breaking UK law. http://www.out-law.com/page-8060

Collecting IP addresses isn't illegal, but building a profile tied to an IP address is.

An IP address in isolation is not personal data under the Data Protection Act, according to the Information Commissioner. But an IP address can become personal data when combined with other information or when used to build a profile of an individual, even if that individual's name is unknown.

However, they're from the USA, so I doubt they care.

Don't take it seriously

[Frederic54]

From the site:

The privacy policy, the contact us page — it’s all a joke. We came up with the idea of building a crawler like this and keeping the maintenance price under $300 a month. There was only one way to prove our theory worked — to implement it in practice. So we did. Now, we find ourselves with a big crawler. We knew what it did but we didn’t know how to use it. So we decided to make a joke out of it. That’s the beauty of jokes — you can make them out of anything.

However, if you have a better idea — don’t hesitate to contact us.

Re:Don't take it seriously

[dirtyhippie]

But the data is legit - at least in my case - they got me pegged:

JSTOR_01_PhilTrans (32.48 GB)

I'm not sure why they don't list my "legal" downloads like ubuntu and debian releases. It'd be more interesting if they listed all file sharing activity, not just torrents from usually-pirate sites.

My Car

[TheNinjaroach]

Ha! They didn't catch me in the act of downloading my car.

Re:My Car

[Pope]

Yeah, but what about the bear? O_o

Bear drives, does not download.

Re:My Car

[KZigurs]

Oh my god. You actually bought the DVD?

cool

[Anonymous Coward]

now I can see what all the other people who share the DHCP pool at my ISP are downloading

Re:Not so much

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I swear, I was downloading Ubuntu for a friend. I'm a Fedora man through and through!

Re:Not so much

[PerlJedi]

I'm with you on that. I was disappointed when I went there and they didn't list all the linux distro's I'm constantly seeding.
I do find it funny though, they do list Pioneer One. That's right, shame on me for sharing a TV show that was made to be shared.
lol.

Information wants to be free, right?

[s_p_oneil]

Information wants to be free, right? IMO this is awesome.

Re:Information wants to be free, right?

[DarkOx]

Yes it does! or at least it obeys the concentration gradient. It flows for concentrated repository to out to the ether around it unless energy is applied to keeping secrets. Just like keeping your house warmer inside than out in winter requires energy, even with great insulation your slowly lose heat to the outside world so it is with information.

Which is one should be careful about creating it in the first place. Before you pull all those meaningless facts into that big database, relate them and turn them into information STOP and consider that information *IS* at some point going to flow places you can't anticipate, and make a decision about how risky that may be.

Hmm, not too great

[Anonymous Coward]

I have quite a few torrents open. Some legal, some less legal. But it seems they only listed 4 of them, and 1 of them wasn't even me downloading it.

Since I have seeded all those that they listed to a ratio of 2+, I decided to remove them.

Nice proof of concept, but I wonder if they work with any semiprivate torrent tracker.

Re:Not so much

[DurendalMac]

Well, unless your ISP has given you the same IP address for a long, long time, this site isn't going to be accurate.

Yeah right...

[dargaud]

I'm on ADSL. My IP address changes every few hours. Meaning I've got the 'same' IP as about 20 million other people. I foresaw this kind of crap a long time ago, so much so that I have a script that logs my public IP every minute in case sometimes comes knocking at the door. At least I can have a lawyer show the log. For what it's worth.

Re:Yeah right...

[viperidaenz]

The only way a lawyer would be knocking at someones door is if they got a warrent to obtain the personal details of a customer using a specific IP address at a specific time from an ISP. How would logging your public IP help you? Other than telling them they have the correct person.

So that's how they'll figure out who to sue

[SuperBanana]

Well, getting people's personal data voluntarily (well, okay, via semi-blackmail) is one way to reduce the workload for your legal staff.

Seriously, who would be stupid enough to login to facebook and FURTHER link themselves? This is just asking to be sued.

Re:So that's how they'll figure out who to sue

[zill]

Well, getting people's personal data voluntarily (well, okay, via semi-blackmail) is one way to reduce the workload for your legal staff.

I just increased their workload by a dozen names:
Oliver Clothesoff
Al Coholic
Jacques Strap
Seymour Butz
Homer Sexual
Mike Rotch
Hugh Jass
Amanda Huggenkiss
Anita Bath
Ivana Tinkle
Maya Buttreek
Yuri Nater

Re:So that's how they'll figure out who to sue

[Tanktalus]

Sounds like a good reason to create a throw-away FB page.

Re:So that's how they'll figure out who to sue

[steelfood]

There are a lot of stupid people out there. Just look at how profitable spam is.

Re:So that's how they'll figure out who to sue

[Heed00]

Seriously, who would be stupid enough to login to facebook and FURTHER link themselves?

Uhm, all those people that made sending Spam a profitable industry.

Well...

[Ben_R_R]

Slashdoting is one way to solve the problem.

Re:Well...

[steelfood]

That only works if the editors made the url an active link. Most people are too lazy to highlight and drag.

Re:Well...

[Ichijo]

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's always slashdotted." --Yogi Berra

imagination

[poetmatt]

how many of these downloads can they even validate occurred?
how many ip addresses can they even confirm are valid?
oh right, facts. forgot about those things.

Instead, it's some RIAA themed site that says "Hi, Pirate!" at the top of it.

Re:imagination

[poetmatt]

clearly we can all validate the posting of an anonymous person with no claims in it. mod up as funny for sure.

I mean after all, my great grandfather's sister's nephew's uncle's brother must be a reliable source!

sheesh.

Re:imagination

[RMingin]

Actually, if you read fully, it's quite tongue-in-cheek, particularly when your IP is clean (Go Usenet!).

Re:imagination

[NatasRevol]

Fine, it had mine too.

However, it only had one file, which I had been sharing for a while. Several files which I had just leeched & turned off were not listed.

Re:imagination

[cayenne8]

I mean after all, my great grandfather's sister's nephew's uncle's brother must be a reliable source!

Save Ferris!!

Re:imagination

[Teun]

Me to.

It was a handy list and reading it I realised I missed downloading Kubuntu 10.04, probably because I did an update.

Re:imagination

[poetmatt]

What part of "it was a joke site" did you miss?

Re:imagination

[NatasRevol]

I didn't miss it. But it's not so funny when it's listing files that I'm currently hosting.

Re:imagination

[CaffinatedSloth]

Are you calling your great uncle a liar?

Do take it seriously

[AceJohnny]

From the "Contact Us" page (which, among other things, lists a postal address in an Antarctic research base):

This site is a joke. But its data is not.

MOD ARTICLE DOWN

[Rary]

Slashdot, can we have a "Remove Article" option for articles like this that are quickly revealed to be a joke? The site doesn't track anything, and it even says so. The article is pointless.

someguyusingyourwifidownloaded.com

[xiando]

also make sure to visit: someguywhopreviouslyhadyourdynamicipdownloaded.com

"You" != you personally!

[phonewebcam]

Here, "you" clearly means someone at a single point in time accessed the internet *via* an IP address traceable to a known account holder.
This has been debated endlessly and surely is common knowledge amongst those supposed to know better.

Is that even allowed?

[techgeek0279]

Pretty creepy in my opinion.

Connecting to a tracker != downloading

[zill]

It would take me less than an hour to write a .torrent file crawler and a modified bittorrent client that kept on connecting to different trackers and requesting different torrents. I'm sure there are hundreds of code gurus on /. that could do this trivial task in half the time.

Dear courts and judges:
Connecting to a tracker != copyright infringement
Requesting a block from a peer != copyright infringement (for all we know the ISP could've used DPI to drop that packet)
Applying for a search warrant, getting it signed by a judge, and then legally seizing the computer as evidence is the only way to prove that someone committed copyright infringement. Anything less is just hearsay.

Re:Connecting to a tracker != downloading

[SuperTechnoNerd]

Yes, but the problem is that the items you mentioned are probably enough to get an idiot judge to sign a warrant.

Re:Connecting to a tracker != downloading

[mark-t]

Technically, downloading something copyrighted isn't copyright infringement either (assuming that private use copying is exempt from infringement, which is often the case), but it's a much harder case to make if (or when) one happens to already realize that what they are copying from is already infringing before they even copied it (because the copy at the other end being made publicly available would void any otherwise claimed notion of private use, and so if the person who is sharing did not otherwise have permission to make that copy for distribution, then they are infringing on the copyright, and by extension, the copy of the work they are sharing is infringing).

Re:Connecting to a tracker != downloading

[Jaqenn]

I'm curious why you think the judge would be an idiot to sign such a warrant?

I thought warrants were to keep police from going on fishing expeditions where they just show up at your house and look for something, anything, to bust you for. Demonstrating that someone at that address connected to a tracker, requested a block, and now they'd like legally seize the computer to see if the block arrived seems like the iconic use of a warrant.

Re:Connecting to a tracker != downloading

[SuperTechnoNerd]

Remember, the judges, police, and district attorney get their pay check from the same place.

My IP address?

[FellowConspirator]

They mean the IP address of my gateway, not *MY* IP address. Even then, it's not *MINE*, it comes from a pool of IPs handed out by my ISP's DHCP server and it changes periodically. The address assigned my gateway today could have been last used by the Disney Princess Bootleg Video Mafia, and I'd be a little offended if I found that I was being impugned as a distributor of low-brow animated bastardizations of classic fairy tales. Doubly so if some numb-nuts from Disney's legal department gets all uppity and litigious about it.

Not concerned

[GameboyRMH]

Dynamic IP FTW!

Tor is hilarious

[utkonos]

Fire up Tor and visit this site! It scrolls on for pages and pages!

Re:Not so much

[Ultra64]

"So it looks like this index is a load of crap."

Or maybe they don't have the resources to connect to every single torrent tracker in existence?

It had a correct listing for something I downloaded two weeks ago.

Meaningless

[SuperTechnoNerd]

But my IP address keeps changing, and I am sure some one had my current address before me as some one else will have mine affter me. Kinda makes this meaningless in my opinion.

Blatant honeypot alert!

[GameboyRMH]

WARNING! Only do this if you are an idiot! Don't unblock / log into Facebook or anything else. Odd that they presume you have an account too.

Anonymous MIA?

[Nom du Keyboard]

So where is Anonymous when you really need them.

Re:Anonymous MIA?

[RivenAleem]

Who's to say this isn't being done by Anonymous?

False positives

[sinij]

Interesting, website says that I have downloaded shows when in fact I never touch pirate torrents. So ether someone spoofing my IP or neighbors somehow got past MAC filtering and authentication. I am fairly sure my provider did not shuffle my IP address, but then I don't keep track of this. Should I, in case *AA comes knocking on my door?

Re:False positives

[wdef]

Since a lot of posters are reporting false positives, I'd say lawyers might have a good chance of shooting down the reliability of this "evidence" in court. In which case, the MPIAA etc might send the usual extortion letter but be loathe to follow up in court. But IANAL.

Bullsh!t

[harduser]

I just checked this site - it displayed a list of things it thought I downloaded, but none of those has even ever caught my fancy, so apparently it does not work in my case. I'm only using internet via 3G mobile network and each time I connect I'm getting a random IP, so the records on this site may contain all the files downloaded by the same IP, but not the same user.

Re:Not so much

[coolmadsi]

I'm with you on that. I was disappointed when I went there and they didn't list all the linux distro's I'm constantly seeding. I do find it funny though, they do list Pioneer One. That's right, shame on me for sharing a TV show that was made to be shared. lol.

I didn't think the site was about shaming; reading some of the links on the site (the privacy policy is somewhat amusing) they say they had the idea as a proof of concept, and implemented it to see if it would work, and thought they may as well make it accessible.

I checked the other day when I first saw this, and just now. They didn't have anything for me, even though I have also been sharing the Pioneer One show, and a load of stuff from Jamendo.

Site Only Lists the Foolish ..

[DiabolicallyRandom]

... And that's assuming their dynamic IP was even theirs at the noted time. Most people who download torrents on a regular basis disable DHT - and since their method of finding information is via DHT, then disabling BHT lowers any chance of showing in their lists to zero.

Pretty much useless

[msobkow]

Hi. We have no records on you.

This means you are using a private torrent tracker or, of course, you may not be a torrent user at all! It happens.

Given all the TV shows I've downloaded over the years both current and old, I suspect this site really doesn't do much if you're not downloading torrents from "big names" like The Pirate Bay. With their grotesque lack of accuracy in their date, I do hope that anybody sued as a result of the information they do collect is wise enough to fight and question the validity of the data as a whole -- it's clearly not accurate, and likely to result in "fishing expedition" lawsuits such as we've already seen from the RIAA and MPAA for years.

I'll stand up and say it:

[Thud457]

"It's a Wonderful Life" is a horrible movie.
The only reason it's remembered is because it fell into the public domain.

see you in Hell, modpoints!

Re:I'll stand up and say it:

[unjedai]

I'll stand up and say that you're wrong - or, since you're judging art, at least in the small minority. That story you linked to praises the movie and gives several reasons why it's in Roger Ebert's list of "Great Movies". You gave no reasons why you think it's horrible. The movie has a very high 8.7 out of 10 stars at IMDB.com based on over 100,000 user ratings. It was nominated for 5 Oscars the year it came out and, although it didn't win any, it has won other awards. Perhaps being in the public domain has helped the movie - but that's not the only reason it's remembered.

Re:I'll stand up and say it:

[TheSpoom]

The only reason it's remembered is because it fell into the public domain.

Which is an interesting point (whether fully correct or not): TV stations all around the country and the world have something to show on Christmas, for free, that gets them possible ad income, all due to the expiration of the copyright on that movie. Something they might want to consider the next time a copyright extension act is brought up.

Re:I'll stand up and say it:

[iluvcapra]

It helped the Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed and Frank Capra were all independently wealthy from decades of work on other movies (and in Reed's case, a self-titled television series) and were happy to afford to let one go. Henry Travers didn't mind IAWL showing on TV as long as he was getting his checks for Bells of St. Mary's and Mrs. Miniver, and Tom Mitchell was probably was too busy hiring accountants to count his Gone with the Wind royalty payments to worry about his turn as Uncle Billy.

Nowadays that sort of thing would never slip into PD, the royalty income is a lot less marginal...

Re:I'll stand up and say it:

[cheekyjohnson]

You gave no reasons why you think it's horrible.

Not really necessary.

Re:I'll stand up and say it:

[gmhowell]

"It's a Wonderful Life" is a horrible movie.
    The only reason it's remembered is because it fell into the public domain.

  see you in Hell, modpoints!

Did you even read your own link? To whit:

What is remarkable about "It's a Wonderful Life" is how well it holds up over the years; it's one of those ageless movies, like "Casablanca" or "The Third Man," that improves with age.

Re:I'll stand up and say it:

[Thud457]

fine, here's one : Zuzu can't play piano worth shit. And she just keeps banging on those keys.

Re:I'll stand up and say it:

[geminidomino]

It's a sad, crotchety, get-of-my-lawn day when you realize that people can't refer to Donna Reed by name and have people know WTF you're talking about...

Re:I'll stand up and say it:

[iluvcapra]

Zuzu was sick upstairs, Janie was playing the piano. Keep it straight.

Because it's totally accurate...

[MacGyver2210]

Hi. We have no records on you.

This means you are using a private torrent tracker or, of course, you may not be a torrent user at all!

I torrent a ton. On that IP. I don't use private trackers. I am even seeding now.

Their detection method is clearly terrible.

Re:Because it's totally accurate...

[Jane Q. Public]

I am not concerned for a couple of reasons. First, I am on a dynamic IP. It has sometimes stayed the same for nearly a year. Then it might change a couple of times in a week. There's now way to tell in advance. It might have even changed several times without my noticing.

Also, I keep my router open intentionally, so neighbors can use it if they want. And I have the strongest router signal in the neighborhood.

I don't give a damn if they download something once in a while, as long as they don't interfere with my own use.

Hilarious.

[idbeholda]

If you're going to "pirate" something, make sure to use Peerblock. Problem solved.

Re:Hilarious.

[allo]

because a blacklist is always up2date and complete. of course. and some tracking company cannot just use dsl like a normal customer. and of course they will always use ips with their company name in the whois.

Re:Hilarious.

[idbeholda]

I think you might want to read this carefully.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/12/14/0632236/sony-universal-and-fox-caught-pirating-through-bittorrent

Wow

[CapnStank]

I sort of tire of the ol' Slashdot jumping to conclusions but here's how it works:

1. They visit public tracker websites.
2. They query the tracker for a list of peers given a torrent hash (not difficult)
3. Dump all data into the database that can be searched through their website

That means your data is not on there if you're a torrent user because you're using a tracker they aren't indexing or you have a dynamic ip that they haven't categorized yet. In the same way this is why you can get false positives. All this B.S. about honey pots or fear mongering is dumb considering how straight forward this website is.

"You don't download torrents! Isn't that veeeird??

[MattGWU]

"This means you are using a private torrent tracker or, of course, you may not be a torrent user at all! It happens."

Yeah, sometimes people just happen to not pirate movies and things (and, alright, haven't needed an Ubuntu installer in a while)..just how things work out sometimes!

Mostly wanted to see if anybody else around here was up to something.

That isn't very impressive

[Nadaka]

This is nothing. My last job involved p2p analytics among other things. You have no idea how easilly the system can be subverted and how much information can be harvested. The good news for you guys is that the RIAA are cheap ass bastards who don't like to pay their bills, so the company went under and as far as I know the technology we used has been shelved.

Ignore it

[bLanark]

Ignore it.

They claim to have indexed 104.22TB in 100,800 torrents.

Most slashdotters have got that much just on optical media, let alone on spindle.

This is a drop in the ocean, it's no suprise your local starbucks isn't listed.

Does the chicken dance

[Trax3001BBS]

Oh Ya, uh huh, I'm not listed. Inflated numbers, scam, or facebook ip's
I'm not listed.

Might send a little something to PeerBlock.

for those who don't get the reference

[KingAlanI]

for those who don't get the reference, "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" is a song on the Rush album Fly By Night (and general nicknames for two of the band members IIRC)

Sometimes....

[Foxhoundz]

I'm thankful that I have a dynamic IP. It might the only defense I have if I get sued.

for those unwilling/unable to watch the video

[KingAlanI]

for those unwilling/unable to watch the video:
it's a clip from a Wonderful Life, the scene where there's a run on George Bailey's bank. George explains that the bank's assets are invested "in Joe's house, that's right next to mine. And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Makelin's house, and a hundred others". i.e. not in cash-on-hand for the depositors. at least the loans aren't in default.

Static

[newbreedkay]

too bad for everybody using static ip.

That site is rubbish

[rapidreload]

OK, I went to the site. I have a dynamic IP but I know for a fact I haven't disconnected anytime in the last couple of days, so if the site was worth anything it should have picked up my downloading of the finale of Boardwalk Empire at the very least.

What does it think I downloaded:

"Cyprus Isles - Hard Fucking Dogging.wmv"

Good work.

What?! I'm outraged!

[supercrisp]

Someone at my IP address has been downloading porn! This indexing of that must stop!

Total BS

[ternarybit]

The site says I'm a pirate and I've downloaded tons of warez and porn from a Hughes Net satellite connection capped at 500MB per day. I check my modem's quota regularly and we never use more than a few MB. Obviously either a) making stuff up or b) not accounting for dynamic IPs whatsoever.

Peer Block is worse than useless

[Fred Ferrigno]

Copyright trolls use residential ISP accounts with dynamic IPs like everyone else. By the time you've figured out who they are (and how exactly did you do that?) they've already got a new IP. The only people you're protecting yourself from are other legitimate peers.

Re:Delicious Blackmail...

[forkfail]

What do they need that info for? I'm sure that binding real names to IP's is of use to some folks....

You can sit down now.

[westlake]

"It's a Wonderful Life" is a horrible movie.
The only reason it's remembered is because it fell into the public domain.

It is a James Capra film starring Jimmy Stewart, Lionel Barrymore and a young Donna Reed. The release of so sentimental a fantasy in the immeadiate postwar years may have doomed to it to failure at the box office.

But you could say with just as much truth that 1939 was not the right year for "The Wizard of Oz," which found its television audience in the mid-fifties.

Despite the lapsed copyright, television stations that aired it still were required to pay royalties. Although the film's images had entered the public domain, the film's story was still protected by virtue of it being a derivative work of the published story "The Greatest Gift", whose copyright was properly renewed by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1971. The film became a perennial holiday favorite in the 1980s, possibly due to its repeated showings each holiday season on hundreds of local television stations.

It's a Wonderful Life

95% Fresh --- Critics ---- 94% Audience

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

But, What if it *was* a real MAFIAA honeypot.

[pgregg]

Ignore all the facebook angles, consider if someone actually wanted to build database of known copyright infringers (I refuse to use "pirate" since it isn't hijacking ships on the open seas)...

Scenario: MAFIAA would like a "high value target" database of IPs to check each time a new high-value release comes out.
1. MAFIAA have zero IPs today.
2. MAFIAA "front" puts out a "History of Torrent Downloads By IP"
3. "We" check it - and hand them our IP, which they add to the database.
3a. Whatever the site tells you back when you check is irrelevant.

When high-value release is made:
1. Pass IP database to associates who have the tools to port probe looking for torrent ports and query what they are seeding.
2. Pass confirmed hits IPs to the "Collections" dept for letters to ISPs and/or John Doe lawsuits.

Probing a few hundred thousand people who thought "crap, did they catch me?" is all of a sudden so much easier and your paranoia ironically leads to you being caught.

It's a facebook account/details farming scam

[tommyhj]

Gathering torrent IP's from popular sites isn't difficult.

But they clearly want people very badly to sign in with their facebook accounts. First they're scaring people to sign in by promising removal from their database. If you visit the site again they provide you with a choice - an impossible (!) captcha or facebook. It's social hacking.

First off - don't let them scare you. Copyright holders has all the info anyway. Second, don't ever give away your facebook credentials to a third party that you don't trust. Third, don't trust these people.

Re:It's a facebook account/details farming scam

[schmiddy]

an impossible (!) captcha

Thought I was the only one who noticed this. The captcha can not be solved -- I tried three times, and each time I was pretty sure I had the captcha correct. Each time, it simply refreshed the page with a new captcha. Something about the site smells mighty fishy, like they really really want your Facebook account details for some reason...

Its a trap!! Dont do it!

[coolate]

Logging in with Facebook shares your address, email and name, so they can link your info with your IP, so they can later sell that info, or make threats. JUST DON'T DO IT. Click the log in, then report it to Facebook!!

Re:Its a trap!! Dont do it!

[Wyzard]

Looks like it shares more than that. The source for the login button is:

<fb:login-button perms="user_likes,user_about_me,email,user_hometown,user_relationship_details,user_location,user_website,user_work_history" onlogin="oRRQ.login();">

The site has no legitimate need for all that info if it just wants to know that you're a real person.

They just want your Facebook

[Kernull]

At the time of writing this comment, they have implimented a facebook-login in order to see your list. I attempted to use their captcha device instead, because I hate facebook (which was somewhere around 20 characters long, case sensitive). I tried to enter the captcha about 15 times using different images and each time it told me I was wrong. I don't believe it is possible to login by their captcha and they are mandating the facebook.com login. I suspect this website might be a trap / facebook scraper. Earlier in the day I was able to see 'my results' which were incorrect.

Re:They just want your Facebook

[ark1]

1. Create a fake facebook page impersonating a top RIAA exec. 2. Visit this page. 3. Wait and profit!

Impossible captcha

[arobatino]

Is anyone able to actually use the site via captcha, or is it just phishing for Facebook passwords? Even if I get a captcha where all the characters are readable and unambiguous (is it "O" or "0"?), and double-check it before entering, it still says it's wrong.

Re:Impossible captcha

[wdef]

And the site appears to be communicating with Facebook (a tracker?) after you enter what might be the correct captcha.

Re:TV

[DanielRavenNest]

Not any more. As of a few days ago I sold my 2001 vintage rear-projection TV. I didn't watch it any more and it was just taking up space (if I want to watch a TV show, I do it on the PC, which has a decently large screen, and no commercials). Due to the weird pricing at Comcast, it's cheaper to have Internet + basic cable TV than to have just Internet, so I still have TV service, even though I don't have anything to plug into the cable at the moment.

I don't think its real.

[Anonymous Coward]

Captcha never works. I think they're harvesting facebook data. Also: Google cache on the page has a link called "Don't take it seriously"
Popup with this:
Don't take it seriously

The privacy policy, the contact us page — it’s all a joke. We came up with the idea of building a crawler like this and keeping the maintenance price under $300 a month. There was only one way to prove our theory worked — to implement it in practice. So we did. Now, we find ourselves with a big crawler. We knew what it did but we didn’t know how to use it. So we decided to make a joke out of it. That’s the beauty of jokes — you can make them out of anything.

However, if you have a better idea — don’t hesitate to contact us.

Additionally, the captcha code is:
success: function(data){
        if(data=='OK') location.href='/';
So if the data matches, it just reloads the page.

Plausible deniability

[0dugo0]

IIRC opentorrent trackers also feed random IPs to make exactly these kind of practices unreliable.

site works

[Nyder]

It says I downloaded Amsterdam Heavy, which oddly enough, I did.

It didn't get though:

The weird world of blowfly
The man on the train
Boy Wonder
Drive

which i downloaded at the same time.

Oh, it calls me a pirate also, totally cool.

Somewhat legit

[Random5]

Just want to confirm that I checked my current home IP, it has four entries, two of which are definitely episodes I downloaded, two are someone else's listed from a previous month. I think it's safe to say they're 'legit' insofar as they're recording actual activity and querying it honestly at least some of the time.

It's a joke

[DynamoJoe]

From the site: "Don't take it seriously

The privacy policy, the contact us page — it’s all a joke. We came up with the idea of building a crawler like this and keeping the maintenance price under $300 a month. There was only one way to prove our theory worked — to implement it in practice. So we did. Now, we find ourselves with a big crawler. We knew what it did but we didn’t know how to use it. So we decided to make a joke out of it. That’s the beauty of jokes — you can make them out of anything."

Calm down, people. It'll get funny when the RIAA subpoenas them for their database.

Let 'em...

[DiEx-15]

I don't use torrents and have 0 illegal downloads. All my music, movies, and software is 100% legally paid for...

...So, they try anything: Not only will they be heavily disappointed, but will be at the receiving end of a nice counter-suit as well!

Uncovered hypocrisy

[esocid]

https://torrentfreak.com/busted-bittorrent-pirates-at-sony-universal-and-fox-111213/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+(Torrentfreak)
Torrentfreak found some juicy hypocrisy going on:

First up is Sony Pictures Entertainment. As shown below, on this single IP-address alone a wide variety of music and movies have been downloaded. And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg, as YouHaveDownloaded only tracks about 20% of all public BitTorrent downloads. Another Hollywood studio where it’s not uncommon to download music, TV-shows and movies is NBC Universal. The employee(s) behind one of the IP-addresses at the Fort Lauderdale office in Florida downloaded the first season of ‘Game of Thrones,’ some trance music, a DVD of ‘Cowboys and Aliens’, and much more. And then there are the fine upstanding people at Fox Entertainment checking out the work of a competing studio. Perhaps downloading ‘Super 8 can be branded as “market research,” but in this instance actually paying for the DVD might be more appropriate. After all, when Fox notices that one of their own movies has leaked online they quickly contact the FBI to get the offender jailed. Ouch.

Wow

[Tolkien]

Qtel seems to do a really thorough job, unfortunately. :|

Doesn't anybody rummage around?

[frrrp]

Bottom left - http://www.youhavedownloaded.com/#seriously

Don't take it seriously The privacy policy, the contact us page — it’s all a joke. We came up with the idea of building a crawler like this and keeping the maintenance price under $300 a month. There was only one way to prove our theory worked — to implement it in practice. So we did. Now, we find ourselves with a big crawler. We knew what it did but we didn’t know how to use it. So we decided to make a joke out of it. That’s the beauty of jokes — you can make them out of anything. However, if you have a better idea — don’t hesitate to contact us.