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Filesonic Removes Ability To Share Files
Ihmhi writes "In the wake of the Megaupload takedown, Filesonic has elected to take preventative measures against a similar fate. The front page and all files now carry the following message: 'All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.' Whether or not this will actually deter the U.S. government from taking action remains to be seen."
Which is exactly why things like DropBox are so useful. But the key is to only support sharing with specific users. And, of course, to not have a business model (like MU) built around pirated material.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This hunting file-sharers is meaningless, they will just switch over to encryption and other distributed forms of transfer like i2p2.de for example. Encrypted anonymizer written in Java so it runs on all platforms.
The side-effect is that real criminals will also benefit from this development and use the same means to communicate. Great, the pirate hunt will make it impossible to catch real terrorists. Is this really worth it?
"What if someone combined TOR with P2P?"
Then you get Freenet. It's anonyminity is as good as it gets - it's designed for use by dissidents living under oppressive regimes, so tracing either source or destination is all but impossible even if someone could compromise many nodes. The cost of this is performance: You can download whole TV episodes and movies, but at a fraction of the speed of a less paranoid network.
The problem with private trackers is just that - they're private.
Sure, they might be able to keep the MAFIAA out, but as it seems they had an insider at MegaUpload (they appear to have every internal mail going back to the start), nothing will prevent the same thing from happening everywhere else. So that protection only works as far as someone isn't corrupted by the MAFIAA.
The downside is two-fold:
1) Hard to get access. As you get accounts on more private trackers, it tends to be easier, but it's still not like just doing a general search and clicking on a link.
2) Lack of general access. The secondary purpose of any means to share files is the political side. Besides providing the data you want, they also need to make a statement through easy access to the data for everybody, thus massively undermining any and all attempts at stopping it. It must be a flood that makes it trivial to find and get whatever you're looking for, no matter what.
The Pirate Bay does just that. It's public, it's run by idealists, it's loud and in your face about file sharing. It makes sharing easy and access to the shared equally easy. Sure it provokes but that's just the idea! - It's all about saying to the media business that they were too late. Too little and too late. We still can't obtain a lot of the stuff shared legally. I want to watch the new Underworld movie tonight but I can't because it's not out in any form I can buy. They simply won't provide it even at a price. That's not what the world wants and if they won't sell it we have to steal it. We need to repeat this until they get it. We want access to it all - globally and simultaneously. I'm sure a lot of the so-called pirates are honest people at heart, but they're forcing us to become criminals. All these people will be happy to pay for the stuff if they were only able. I would as I want to support the production of stuff that I like. But so far they won't let me. So we need to push even harder and if necessary push them out of business if they continue to refuse common sense and basic business knowledge (supply and demand).
> If every law were taken to a referendum then we'd still be living in the dark ages.
Switzerland has had direct democracy for the last 150 years and is certainly not in the dark ages, it is working rather well. Thanks for the insult.
They do not take every law to a referendum, but the key is that they _can_ if they want. They can and they often do veto crazy laws. The ability to legally stop crazy laws without having to resort to fighting, protesting, boycotting, begging politicians, i.e. how "democracy" is obviously understood in the US, is the key.