Most Torrent Downloaders Are Monitored, Study Finds 309
derekmead writes "A new study from Birmingham University in the U.K. found that people will likely be monitored within hours of downloading popular torrents by at least one of ten or more major monitoring firms. The team, led by security researcher Tom Chothia, ran software that acted like a BitTorrent client for three years and recorded all of the connections made to it. At SecureComm conference in Padua, Italy this week, the team announced that they found huge monitoring operations tracking downloaders that have been up and running for at least the entirety of their research. According to the team's presentation (PDF), monitors were only regularly detected in Top 100 torrents, while monitoring of more obscure material was more spotty. What's really mysterious is who all of the firms are. Chothia's crew found around 10 different monitoring entities, of which a few were identifiable as security companies, copyright firms, or other torrent researchers. But six entities could not be identified because they were masked through third party hosting. Now, despite firms focusing mostly on just the top few searches out there at any given time, that's still a massive amount of user data to collect and store. Why? Well, if a reverse class-action lawsuit were feasible, those treasure troves of stored data would be extremely valuable."
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Funny)
Personally, there haven't really been any movies or music made in the past 15 years that are even worth downloading for free,
"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man!"
Oh wait, that movie's not 15 years old. So you wouldn't get it.
Re:VPNs (Score:5, Funny)
"I would assume that most people are using VPNs these days, even for casual web surfing."
The skewed perspective of slashdot never ceases to amaze me.
Re:So, back to sneakernet? (Score:4, Funny)
I wouldn't necessarily call it sneakernet though. I would call it a SOCIAL NETWORK!!
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously you're not a golfer.
EULA (Score:4, Funny)
Well, if a reverse class-action lawsuit were feasible,
No, my EULA explicitly says you drop your right for a class-action lawsuit.
Re:Name the 6 entities! (Score:5, Funny)
"But six entities could not be identified because they were masked through third party hosting."
NSA
FBI
FAPSI
GCHQ
CSE
GCSB
Please tell me FAPSI has something to do with porn...
Re:Good Luck... (Score:3, Funny)
I'm behind seven proxies.
Yea, we know -
Six of them are ours.
Yours,
The NSA
Re:This just in.... (Score:3, Funny)
Don't you mean "raping"?
That comment and your sig are offensive to those people who have gone through the horror of having their copyrights ignored.
Safety Films (Score:5, Funny)
I really do hope to meet an example of someone who pirates safety films: a thieving cheapskate who is concerned for his employees well-being.
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Funny)
Boring Torrents (Score:3, Funny)