Slashdot Mirror
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."
Beware all you clickers!
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.
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.
Except there's also a disclaiming "Don't take it seriously" link at the page; essentially, they've only made a proof-of-concept.
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.
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.
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
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.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
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."
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.
"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
Ha! They didn't catch me in the act of downloading my car.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Already defeated By-Tor
Yes, the Snow Dog did.
Check your premises.
I swear, I was downloading Ubuntu for a friend. I'm a Fedora man through and through!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
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.
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.
Please help metamoderate.
Slashdoting is one way to solve the problem.
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.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
... 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.
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.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Here I come sunny Somalia!
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.
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.