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."
Re:Good thing no one used it (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it's likely he won't stay anonymous for long.
The whole thing makes me scratch my head though. Seems like a bad and unprofessional idea to just announce it's a honeypot. If I were setting it up I'd just say the site is closing down then dish out lawsuits or what have you or whatever else, I don't know. An anti-piracy stance (in the typical MPAA fashion) is a very unpopular one on the internet. There's nothing to gain.
But he even announced he's doing it again, and it's likely he'll be tracked down and effortlessly exposed.
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 [arkansas.gov]. Names and address included.
So it's a legitimate business. Well good luck against the internet, if they even take your vBulletin forum and website that was coded by fifth grader seriously. I wonder if they even know how to extract the data in any meaningful way.
Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why are essentially all of the above comments pro-piracy?
If you dreamed up your perfect world, would it contain piracy, or no piracy, or something between? Explain calmly and specifically, why.
Thanks.
Re:Don't you believe it. (Score:4, Interesting)
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
How can one tell? (Score:3, Interesting)
Occasionally I'm looking for a TV show I want to watch. It's often hard to know where to find it. Hulu, crackle, netflix, amazon are big names but there's lots of other little ones as well. So how can one tell when one clicks on a link to watch something if it's a legit site or a copyright violator. Regardless of how you feel about copyrights, my main goal is to avoid some hassle-- not worth it to me. The last thing I want is some honeypot offering me Game Of Thrones season 3 for free and then after I watch it get dragged into court or worse blackmailed with the hassle. Thus I'm not trying to find stuff that's pirated. I just want to know how I should know?
With some common sense one can figure out that if you fand something on mega upload or a torrent site that, well, chances are pretty good one should be wary. But what about a site like CookiesandCream. Lots of TV shows there. Click to stream. no torrents, no rapidshare or mega uploader. outwardly it looks legit. SO I can't tell. And there's lots of places just like that.
Furthermore there's sites that sort of consolidate things CanIwatchIt which deeplinks things so you don't even see the site it's taking you too.
While one should suspect a free lunch it's not always possible to tell. AMC and Hulu often release some episodes or all of a series for a limited time. This happens even when Amazon is charging for the episode. So you can't just assume that some major show like breaking bad, or 30 rock or the killing should not be available somewhere for free.
It used to be easy to tell. Now it's actually reasonable that someone can make a mistake. THe rise of honeypots makes this even more perilous.
Re:Good thing no one used it (Score:4, Interesting)
Entrapment doesn't really exist as a legal defense any more. The courts accept the catch-22 logic that taking an action is absolute evidence of predisposition to take that action. To win with a defense of entrapment, you'd pretty much have to prove that they held a gun to your head to make you do it. Even then modern courts probably wouldn't consider it entrapment.