File-Sharing Site Was Actually an Anti-Piracy Honeypot 225
An anonymous reader writes "The administrator of file-sharing site UploaderTalk shocked and enraged his userbase a few days ago when he revealed that the site was nothing more than a honeypot set up by a company called Nuke Piracy. The main purpose of the site had been to gather data on its users. The administrator said, 'I collected info on file hosts, web hosts, websites. I suckered $#!&loads of you. I built a history, got the trust of some very important people in the warez scene collecting information and data all the time.' Nobody knows what Nuke Piracy is going to do with the data, but it seems reasonable to expect lawsuits and the further investigation of any services the users discussed. His very public betrayal is likely meant to sow discord and distrust among the groups responsible for distributing pirated files."
Good thing no one used it (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, UploaderTalk is a no-name site.
Implicit permission? (Score:5, Insightful)
User data? (Score:5, Insightful)
The main purpose of the site had been to gather data on its users.
So they have a bunch of anonymous IP addresses from a bunch of public WiFi sites. Even a trusted file sharing site can put people at risk if the FBI kicks the door down and seizes the servers. So any smart pirates will take measures to protect their anonymity, honey pot or not.
In the meantime, thanks for all the disk space. It was fun while it lasted.
Whaaa? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no important people in the warez scene. That's why they can't stop it.
No name fake site that has no rep is a honeypot... (Score:5, Insightful)
News at 11.
Honestly they were barely known and had ZERO rep in the community. In fact most people never even knew about them or knew to stay away because it was too new and too unknown.
If this is the best they got, then there is no worries out there. Now find out that TPB was a BSA sting operation.... THAT is real news.
Re:As the old saying goes... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's play blackjack some time.
Re:Good thing no one used it (Score:5, Insightful)
Gotta agree there. I've more or less gotten out of that life-style and only occasionally keep track of file-sharing news when it was something big. I'd never heard of this guy or his sites.
That said, now that this story is Slashdotted... what will the Internet vigilantes do to this guy?
serious ? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they were anything serious they wouldn't have gloated that way.
Sounds so much like a whining kid trying to annoy people...
Re:Whaaa? (Score:3, Insightful)
Didn't you notice it's always the same groups that release your TV shows?
LOL, ASAP, AFG, DIMENSION, mSD?
Take those down and it will become quite annoying.
Re:Whaaa? (Score:4, Insightful)
Take those down and it will become quite annoying.
For about five minutes until another springs up. Groups such have these have become less and less important as fibre becomes more prevalent.
Re:Good thing no one used it (Score:5, Insightful)
I can (partially) forgive The Guardian for taking this story at face value, but Slashdot ought to be a bit more selective. Looks like this guy got kicked out of WJunction, set up his own site (which failed to attract much traffic), and is now claiming it was all part of a Cunning Plan to join the antipiracy industry (working for a company nobody has ever heard of, with a website that must have taken all of 15 minutes to set up). He can probably be reached for comment at his Top Model girlfriend's Manhattan penthouse (or more likely, in his mom's basement).
Re: Good thing no one used it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good thing no one used it (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like a bad and unprofessional idea to just announce it's a honeypot.
Not if you're an attention whore and a wanna-be internet vigilante.
An anti-piracy stance (in the typical MPAA fashion) is a very unpopular one on the internet. There's nothing to gain.
Well, there is something to gain; it's blackmail material. That's what the MPAA/RIAA use it for, and there's no reason you couldn't sell the information to a third party to try and extort money from them "If you don't pay us to keep quiet, we'll reveal your illegal activity to the authorities." I mean, that's pretty much classic blackmail. The data he has does have value, and if you view this announcement as a bid for potential buyers of his data, then it suddenly makes sense.
The announcement is a false flag; It isn't a signal to us that he's turning the information over to authorities, it's a signal to the criminal community to come forward and begin bidding. Now instead of it being "bad and unprofessional", it's a clever way of acquiring plausible deniability by appearing to be retarded.
Sounds more like some script kiddie who is pulling some prank or what have you. But apparently tracking down who was behind was just handed to us on a silver platter, right here. Names and address included.
Not a script kiddie; a paid industry shill. And as is typical for idiot hacktivists, a simple google search without a deeper understanding of business filings reveals that it's fingering the wrong guy; They failed to check for legally registered aliases. Incomplete investigations are incompetent investigations. Hasn't the Boston Bomber Reddit Witchunt taught us anything, Internet?
You cannot conduct a proper investigation using just google. Google is exploratory not confirmatory, and if you act on this information you will likely be exposing yourself to far more legal liability than using some badly designed "honeypot" website.
Re:Good thing no one used it (Score:2, Insightful)
An anti-piracy stance (in the typical MPAA fashion) is a very unpopular one on the internet. There's nothing to gain.
There is something to gain. After going public with this, the pirates will be nervous about joining new 'piracy' sites. Just what his kind wants.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't you believe it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not when you have to go through the "justice" system.
If you are a copyright holder, or acting on his/her/its behalf, and you seed a torrent for me to download, you have, in fact, given me the file. Since you are the copyright holder, that file was given lawfully. You cannot now turn around and sue me for taking from you what you have lawfully given. Your harm, such that there is, is entirely self inflicted.
Honeypots are a useful tool to learn techniques that the other side uses, but they are, by and large, useless as a technique to sue over copyright infringement.
IANAL
Shachar
They won't sue you for downloading the torrent, they will sue you for uploading to others without permission.
Re: Good thing no one used it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good thing no one used it (Score:3, Insightful)
There's another angle that hasn't been brought up yet:
The announcement is sowing mistrust amongst the various sites. People are going to be less willing to blindly trust whatever new sites just pop up. In turn, this will reduce the number of sites that need to be watched, allowing a reduction in costs and an increase in results.
Re:Good thing no one used it (Score:4, Insightful)
There have been no updates on the journalist's files being seized illegally. No new information has come out about it since that story. Nothing has come out since the story to make it seem that it's a hoax.
"Googling for where that story came from" reveals that it was first reported at The Daily Caller. (So would clicking on the link in the Slashdot story, for that matter.) If, in your mind, the very fact that the story comes from a conservative outlet is reason to believe the opposite of the story is true, you're a hyperpartisan troll.