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Razorback2 Servers Seized 365

An anonymous reader writes "Slyck is reporting that Belgian and Swiss authorities have raided and seized Razorback2's servers. From the article: 'Razorback2 was an eDonkey2000 indexing server - very different in nature from an indexing site such as ShareReactor. Unlike indexing sites, Razorback2's index was only available through an eDonkey2000 client such as eMule. While it does not host any actual files or multimedia material, it does index the location of such files on the eDonkey2000 network. The legality of such indexing remains questionable, however this has not deterred copyright enforcement actions.'"
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Razorback2 Servers Seized

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  • Decentralize (Score:5, Informative)

    by ZephyrXero ( 750822 ) <zephyrxero@y[ ]o.com ['aho' in gap]> on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:18AM (#14777097) Homepage Journal
    This is why decentralized file-sharing is the only way to go.... maybe now stuff like Waste or the more traditional Gnutella will gain a big rise in popularity?
    • Re:Decentralize (Score:4, Informative)

      by zwei2stein ( 782480 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:29AM (#14777199) Homepage
      Thats why eMule (THE ed2k client i might add) had Kademlia (decentralized ed2k-kinda-combatible network) running paralel to server network for quite a time...
      • Re:Decentralize (Score:2, Informative)

        by Hurricane78 ( 562437 )
        We also got mldonkey, supporting overnet and kademlia (a "remake" of overnet from emule), gnutella 2 and 1 AND some more... so as usual ther does not change a thing for most users. ;)

        will offline-poeple ever get it? ;)
    • by xiando ( 770382 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:53AM (#14777418) Homepage Journal
      I personally find anonymous Internet usage (regardless of protocol) a very good thing. http://tor.eff.org/ [eff.org] is very nice for the World Wide Web. However, it is very slow - but worth it if you want to be anonymous. The same applies to file-sharing if you like "that" kind of files. Tor can be used with _any_ P2P programs protocol and is thus highly recommended. I urge anyone who makes p2p software to immediately implement support for it. I agree decentralized file-sharing is good. Back in the 90s a lot of folks were doing centralized, they met in schools or other places and copied files. Those were called "copy-parties". The police, in their glory, rided some of those on behalf of the glorious Record and Movie Industry (RIAA/MPAA). Hmm. Now that sounds familiar. Wonder who oh who ordered the raid on the Razorback2 Servers? On a last point, please beware of this: There are information on the Internet that are very important but ignored and/or blacked out by governments and the corporate media. These video files are generally free and freely available on p2p services (like on my bittorrent TV site) but governments are willing to go to great length, even covert torture here in Norway, to shut such sites down. This is something one should consider seriously when reading about sites being shut down.
    • Re:Decentralize (Score:4, Informative)

      by m50d ( 797211 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @01:22PM (#14778074) Homepage Journal
      Ssh. Do not tell anyone gnutella's actually good now. Besides, it has the same "indexing nodes" situation.

      My money's on gnunet [gnunet.org]. Not only does it have the whole anonymity thing, but it also actually works quite well as a filesharing network.

  • Sucks... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:19AM (#14777099)
    ...because it was the biggest and best ed2k server but there are lots of others left. Also, there is KAD (kademlia - a decentralized search) which has pretty much replaced the ed2k servers for me (you get *FAR* more and way better results using KAD instead). The worst problem I see is more people will rely on KAD, increasing the server load...
    • (you get *FAR* more and way better results using KAD instead). The worst problem I see is more people will rely on KAD, increasing the server load...

      Hmmm, I worry about server load increase, and yet I post a glowing review of said servers on SLASHDOT!

    • Re:Sucks... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @01:00PM (#14777913)
      The worst problem I see is more people will rely on KAD, increasing the server load...

      Please, get your facts straight!

      Kademlia (short: KAD) is _NOT_ a centralized search facility, it is a search that goes just as much Peer 2 Peer as the downloading goes.

      You ask your "neighbours" in the network, they will ask you, they report back to you, you to them and so on...

      Therefore, your thought about "overloading the KAD-Servers" just wont happen, maybe your very own connection will use more resources for searching and giving results than before when everyone uses Kademlia but thats about it.

      Read more about Kademlia here [emule-project.net]
  • I think they're blowing it a little out of proportion with that statement.

    But from the article's description, RazorBack2 does seem to be host to all sorts of unsavory content. Not to mention party to illegal activities. Now it's gone and some other network will step in to take its place.

    I'm sure all those poor kids who don't have money to go out and actually buy CDs will now be inconvenienced. Boo hoo.
    • But from the article's description, RazorBack2 does seem to be host to all sorts of unsavory content

      According to TFA they didn't host any content savory or otherwise, they just indexed what was available elsewhere. Kind of like a search engine does. . .

      ----

      http://www.jarfinder.com/ [jarfinder.com]
      • Even Google makes an effort to filter things out, such as child porn. Claiming indexing isn't the same as actually sharing it is like saying the guy driving the car that carried some burglars had nothing to do with their crimes. The indexing servers are there to directly facilitate piracy and connect users to other users.
        • by Frazbin ( 919306 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @12:11PM (#14777537)
          Making crazy, half cocked, analogies is like driving a cart full of dachsunds through a marshmallow factory.
        • by typical ( 886006 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @12:51PM (#14777845) Journal
          The indexing servers are there to directly facilitate piracy and connect users to other users.

          No.

          Look.

          P2P filesharing does one major thing that previous mechanisms *did not do*. It spreads the costs of distribution out over all the users. That means that the original content publisher need not spend lots of money to distribute his content.

          Sure, Paramount doesn't like this, because Paramount has an *existing* business model that has been developed and can address the costs of distribution. It provides no benefit to Paramount.

          A lot of our legal publication channels have evolved to deal with (and even rely on) a system where distribution is the primary cost. Book authors get money from publishers, who perform the task of publication and distribution.

          If I run out and make a cool movie or a Linux distro or *anything*, *anything* at all that's large and that a lot of people would like, I have to offload distribution costs. There are a couple ways to do this.

          (a) Get someone like sourceforge to pay distribution costs.

          (b) Offload costs to all users.

          (c) Other approaches that haven't seem to have caught on much.

          (a) works okay for some content. However, (b) is not illegal or criminal or anything else along those lines.

          The reason that there is so much copyright infringement on P2P filesharing systems is simply because there is a lot of demand for infringing content, and the main barrier was cost of distribution. I can't print up thirty thousand copies of Stephen King's latest novel and send them out to people who want infringing content for free. P2P filesharing cuts the cost of distribution down to so low a level that this barrier goes away.

          Now, I happen to get a lot more good out of noninfringing content that is given away freely than infringing content. I use a huge amount of entirely free software every day, whereas my infringing content is the occasional ebook or movie, plus a couple CDs worth of audio that I listen to on loop. The fact that I can write a bunch of high-resolution textures for Quake II and distribute them over a P2P filesharing system at little cost to myself is phenomenal. Maybe this isn't true of everyone -- I don't know.

          All I want to point out is that shutting down of P2P servers as "criminal" is absolutely absurd. If you are *not* content-neutral, if you are doing something like "download the latest and greatest movies here" on your main webpage, then there might be an issue. However, if you are doing nothing other than providing content-neutral services, then you are simply providing a service that changes (in a good way) the costs of distribution. The fact that this conflicts with the systems that we've built up to fund content creators, which are currently adapted to a different set of costs, is simply an unfortunate quirk.

          I can understand maybe shutting down Napster, because it was definitely not content-neutral -- searching for the year of someone's album seems to be very likely to be intended for copyright infringement. But ed2k servers are content-neutral. Shutting one down simply *because* distributed distribution costs lend themselves well to infringement and because they are thus often used to infringe is simply unacceptable, in my view.
  • Interesting (Score:3, Interesting)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:19AM (#14777106)
    How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."

    I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn.
    • by Daniel_Staal ( 609844 ) <DStaal@usa.net> on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:25AM (#14777163)
      I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn.

      It's much more fun that way.

    • How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."

      That's because regular citizens "loot" these materials, while Microsoft "find" tax loopholes ;)
      • Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:34AM (#14777242)
        > > How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."
        >
        >That's because regular citizens "loot" these materials, while Microsoft "find" tax loopholes ;)

        I am erotic. You are kinky. They are perverts.
        We protect. Our allies enforce. Our enemies oppress.
        Congress appropriates. Microsoft lobbies. Citizens steal.

        With apologies to Calvin and Hobbes - if you think verbing weirds language, wait'll you try conjugation!

        • I am erotic. You are kinky. They are perverts.
          We protect. Our allies enforce. Our enemies oppress.
          Congress appropriates. Microsoft lobbies. Citizens steal.


          Well, I'd already marked you as a friend, so I can't do that, but this is a wonderful post.
        • by david.given ( 6740 ) <dg@cowlark.com> on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @12:05PM (#14777499) Homepage Journal
          ...if you think verbing weirds language, wait'll you try conjugation!

          Now, now, conjugating verbs should be done only between consenting grammatical forms in the privacy of their own paragraph.

          Remember: people have sex, and words have gender!

    • How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."

      A raid is an ability the law provides for. Content creators have just as much rights to protection by the law as "regular citizens" do. It's silly to pretend the Razorback servers were being used for some grand, benign purpose. Everybody including the server owners knows what happens on the E2DK network.
    • by Minwee ( 522556 ) <dcr@neverwhen.org> on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:53AM (#14777415) Homepage
      "How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid.""

      When they don't call in advance to let you know they're coming, it's a raid. That's what it has always been called.

      "I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn."

      Unfortunately the spell checker in the new version of Office sometimes has trouble with the names "Tuttle" and "Buttle"...

    • I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn.

      It kind of reminds me of "the borg". The Justice Department do rides and get media attention to repeat one message: "Resistance is Futile". However, we really do have some significant choices. Residence to tyranny is obedience to god.

      When it comes to Microsoft, they can not
  • Am I the only one that read the headline Razorback2 Servers Seized and tought, "well, at least pyzor is still alive".
  • Arrest Me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lbmouse ( 473316 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:24AM (#14777142) Homepage
    Here's the address of a bank down the street that you can rob if you want:

    334 South Main

    Now come arrest me.
    • There's a pirate radio station at 107.9FM

      there's crack house at 123 thug street

      There's a guy selling copied music on the corner of Bank and heron.

      You can get music through Kazaa and emule

      News flash: Google and Yahoo point to Music and movies, too.
    • More info? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @12:58PM (#14777898)
      Will you give me:
      * The floorplans to the bank?
      * The hours of the guards?
      * Details on the type of security, and escape routes?
      * Instruction for nerve agents to attack the staff with?

      At some point you would be going to far.

      You Imply that the address is not enough, well fine, its not. But there is a line, it can be crossed, and it won't get clarified by bad analogies on slashdot.
    • by worb ( 935866 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @02:36PM (#14778736)
      Razorback2 never gave anyone anything. It was simply a server which passed on information others sent to each other. From the press release:
      "The operators of this eDonkey site chose not to exercise control over files being traded by users which including those containing child pornography, bomb-making instructions and terrorist training videos."
      They chose not to exercise control just like common carriers choose not to exercise control. Would we punish phone companies for not screening all calls for terrorist threats? Of course not. They have no control over what kind of calls people make, just like Razorback2 has no control over what kind of content passes through the server. Well actually, the "content" is more like links to content...

      If you were to be used in an equivalent example, you would be a phone company which chose to let others freely place calls on their phone network.

  • I just see that the other indexing servers availble are just going to raise in popularity and replace the razorbacks postition at the top of the lists.
    Also can't they just change the location of the razorbacks?
  • by neo ( 4625 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:25AM (#14777161)
    You can link to illegal content. You're pointing to it, you aren't hosting it. It's perfectly legal. What's wrong with these people ^h^h^h^h^h^h lawyers? Is this how the new administration uses it's "terrorist" powers to do what they like when they like to do it?

    Perhaps.

    But until we the people stand up for our rights, we wont have any.
    • by amliebsch ( 724858 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:40AM (#14777286) Journal
      You can link to illegal content. You're pointing to it, you aren't hosting it. It's perfectly legal.

      I'm not an international lawyer or anything, but it occurs to me that the law might be different outside the U.S.

    • by igotmybfg ( 525391 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:41AM (#14777300) Homepage
      The servers were not in the US. This has nothing to do with the 'current administration'.
    • I know it's super-awesome to use the old "^H" joke and make cracks at the "new administration" since Bush is always wrong here on Slashdot, but next time RTFA. This wasn't in America.
    • by Beryllium Sphere(tm) ( 193358 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:57AM (#14777449) Journal
      In the US, there's an appeals court precedent about linking to illegal material [harvard.edu]. The law may depend on your (perceived) intent in making the link.
    • by Alarash ( 746254 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:58AM (#14777454)
      You can link to illegal content. You're pointing to it, you aren't hosting it. It's perfectly legal. What's wrong with these people.

      I don't want to live in a 1984-style society. But comments like this are not fair. Yes it's legal to link to illegal content, sort of. But when the _only_ purpose of a server is to link to illegal content, you have to be retarded to think it's just for research, or study or for the sake that it's not illegal.

      This intent of this server's owners is clear: they wanted to exploit a legal loop to provide copyrighted content. They played, they lost. They knew the rules, otherwise they wouldn't have tried to exploit them.

      Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free, legal downloads for a private use. But these people can't say they didn't see this coming, unless they are liars.

      • by Haeleth ( 414428 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @01:20PM (#14778060) Journal
        While you have a valid point, your language is sloppy, and I'm going to pull you up on it, because using sloppy language on subjects like this plays into the hands of those who seek to restrict legitimate fair use as well as illegal copyright infringement.

        But when the _only_ purpose of a server is to link to illegal content, you have to be retarded to think it's just for research, or study or for the sake that it's not illegal.

        Illegal content wasn't the only purpose of Razorback 2. They linked to some legal content too.

        Now, I don't deny that illegal content was the primary purpose. And it's perfectly legitimate to argue about where the cut-off should be, how much illegal use there needs to be before the technology should be banned; in the case of Razorback 2, you might even find that the vast majority of people agree that the illegal use so overwhelmed the legal use that the takedown was justified. But you should not just ignore the legal users - you should acknowledge them and present an argument that the authorities are acting in the common good when they act in a way that restricts those legal activities.

        This intent of this server's owners is clear: they wanted to exploit a legal loop to provide copyrighted content.

        This is the big mistake. You must not say "copyrighted" when you mean "unlicensed".

        This post is copyrighted content. I own the copyright to it. But you are not infringing my copyright if you read this post, and you could email this post to everyone in the world if you like without infringing my copyright, because you have my permission to do that.

        Similarly, if I compose a song, and record myself singing it, and give you a copy under a suitable Creative Commons license, you can upload that onto any P2P network you like - you will then be sharing copyrighted music that you don't own over a P2P network, and you will not be breaking any laws or infringing any copyright.

        When you use "copyrighted" to mean "unlicensed", you strengthen the dangerous myth that copyright is a special thing that only protects commercial works, and that it's illegal to share copyrighted materials with your friends. The record companies want you to believe that, because they damn well don't want you to find out that there's free music out there that it's legal to copy and share, because that threatens their business.

        It may sound like I'm nitpicking, but we live in a world where words have power. Words shape the world we live in. And if you let someone else define your words, you can only talk about the world they want to live in. You mentioned 1984 yourself: if you're familiar with the book, you're presumably familiar with Orwell's concept of the Party redefining words to make concepts like "freedom" and "democracy" literally inexpressible. We might not be heading quite that way yet, but we soon will be if we don't use words carefully rather than lazily.
    • by xiando ( 770382 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @12:10PM (#14777529) Homepage Journal
      Is this how the new administration uses it's "terrorist" powers to do what they like when they like to do it?

      You missed part of history. Please (re-)read the Patriot Act. Jaywalking is now a "terrorist" offense in the USA.

      As for Norway, Norwegian "Police intelligence" chief Jørn Holme publicly stated that "If it is not against the law, and can not be prosecuted, then we will take the measures we feel is appropriate". That basically Means that if you do absolutely nothing wrong and you criticize the Norwegian regime then they will torture you and in any way possible try to destroy you. This is relevant because the "Police intelligence" department (PST) started a surveillance, torture and sabotage operation on me after I made documentaries about 911 available on the Internet and posted a lot of information with links to it in Norwegian forums. Here they do not even use the terrorist excuse, they simply say "We do not like you, so we torture you".

      Getting my servers shut down like Razorback2 is one thing the Norwegian Gestapo Police can't do that sine they are hosted abroad. So instead they torture with microwave weapons, voice-to-scull mind-control weapons, steal my mail, harass my neighbors and on and on BECAUSE OF RUNNING A DAMN WEBSITE with information that goes against everything the criminal regime would have people believe.

      Take my word for it, getting your server(s) shut down is nothing compared to what some governments are willing to do to stop video documentaries to be accessible to the public.
    • This has happened before and it will happen again. OK so you can "hyperlink" to content, but this is "so different, its like they use a program, and its not a web browser..." Once the lawyers get their reality distortion fields locked on to the, hand picked and mind numbed, jury any thing can happen. All they need is a few precedents and money can often buy them. Remember, in the US the tomato is legally a vegetable (not a fruit) simple because it pleased someone financially. Reality and reason can ofte
    • It is not that they are judged by a judge now, they just had their servers seized for searches i suppose. In a year or so they will be releases without any consquences to the owners. This is the scenario that has happended before.

      It goes like this: the local MPAA agency tips off that there is an international organization that makes millions in copying their data and selling it. Local cops seize the servers. After a year they discover there were only some advertising sponsered hobbiest (well you can earn qu
  • eDonkey (Score:5, Funny)

    by revery ( 456516 ) * <charles@c[ ].net ['ac2' in gap]> on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:31AM (#14777226) Homepage
    Ironically, it is reported that prior to the raid, Swiss authorities had called Razorback2 and requested certain information. The raid was prompted only when they received a response in the form of:

    Information requested. You are number 563432 in the queue. Please wait...

  • I haven't used the eDonkey network in years. One of the reasons I stopped using it was because PeerGaurdian was needed to safely access the network. I'm sure that good old install-a-root-kit Sony ran the top five biggest servers and they were called 'Sonny1', 'Sonny2' etc. I'm sure I read that these were only there as honeypots.

    Can anyone comfirm this or did I dream it?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      Peer guardian does not make it safe to download copyrighted material from the ed2k network although it may help a bit. The risk is low through safety in numbers. Reccently released films and music are probably higher risk than older stuff.

      Yes, there are fake servers that filter search results or record users activitys. There are fake razorback servers active now.

      I recommend either a) using emule set to not connect to a server and using kad
      or b) turn off the options to auto update your server list from serve
  • by Anonymous Coward
    By shutting down Razorback2, the ease with which pirates can obtain illegal content online will slow dramatically

    ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa! suuuure
  • by gasmonso ( 929871 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:41AM (#14777297) Homepage

    Good to see the Swiss being so neutral on the matter ;)

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
  • by NiteShaed ( 315799 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:44AM (#14777329)
    Swiss authorities arrested the site's operator at his residence in Switzerland this morning and searched his home.

    Searched his home? For what, burned copies of Spider Man 2 and illicit Metallica albums?

    By shutting down Razorback2, the ease with which pirates can obtain illegal content online will slow dramatically.

    Two comments about this part....

    One, I hate it when they make it seem like the main users of these systems are organized crime lords sitting in their pirate CD distribution warehouses. I guess that image is more dramatic than nerds looking for episodes of StarGate Atlantis though.

    Two, slow "piracy" down dramatically? Do they actually believe this? Taking down one ed2k server, however large it is, hardly strangles p2p file sharing....

  • by Spad ( 470073 ) <[slashdot] [at] [spad.co.uk]> on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @11:46AM (#14777344) Homepage
    The operators of this eDonkey site chose not to exercise control over files being traded by users which including those containing child pornography, bomb-making instructions and terrorist training videos.

    In other news, phone directories choose not to exercise control over people they list, which include paedophiles, bomb-making experts and terrorists.
    • ... bomb-making instructions and terrorist training videos.

      Guess I'll have to go to the store and buy the MacGyver DVDs.
  • The legality of such indexing remains questionable, however this has not deterred copyright enforcement actions.

    And why should something silly like "legal" get in the way of a good enforcement action? Hey, if the president can wiretap Americans at will without a warrant, then what's the problem with confiscating a few servers and taking a business offline?

    Bunch of left wing, tree hugging whiners if you ask me. Next you'll be spouting some dribble about voting in honest elections and representative go

    • Bunch of left wing, tree hugging whiners if you ask me. Next you'll be spouting some dribble about voting in honest elections and representative government. Give those lefties an inch and they'll run this god-fearing nation right into the ground.

      Worse, they'll start talking about "Geneva conventions", as if laws should apply to the executive branch! Don't these people know we're *at war*!?!

      Just one real question, though... I'm not aware how these things work, but...

      what's the problem with confiscatin

    • Next you'll be spouting some dribble about voting in honest elections and representative government.

      You do realize you're talking about Belgium and Switzerland, right? This has nothing to do with the US, unless indirectly, in the sense that some pirates that just happen to be in the US have just one less tool to aid in p2p-powered infringement.

      Give those lefties an inch and they'll run this god-fearing nation right into the ground.

      Not that it has anything to do with TFA, but you do know that some o
  • Following the link in the story gives me:

    Spyware blocked
    The requested site is not permitted, because WinProxy has determined that it contains spyware:
    Spyware/Malware Sources
    If you think that page is mis-classified click here
    WinProxy version 6.0 R1c

    Bad ScuttleMonkey!
  • Why can't we, as an opensource community create a real completely decentralized p2p network? I have been thinking of doing this for a while and do have a lot of ideas for this. I have been online for 14 years and have seen a lot. After all we all know the problems with existing p2p networks from the past years:

    - It has to be truly decentralized. No main server. Whatsoever. Except websites to download clients. It has to be able to discover new clients/networks/etc...
    - Specs have to be open so anyone can implement a client.
    - It has to be secured. Using SSL for example.
    - It has to work from behind firewalls.
    - It has to be secure enough to differentiate dups and fake files.
    - Searches have to be decentralized, but cached, and verified for integrity.
    - Of course, it has to be ad-free/spyware-free.
    - It has to be built upon security, safety/integrity of the files and users in mind.
    - Most of all, it has to be thought off as a legal project with legal uses so it can't be stopped.

    I see no reason why this can't be implemented as a community effort? I have been a project manager for years, and for one would be willing to work/coordinate on such a project.
  • by AntiDragon ( 930097 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @12:06PM (#14777504)
    I find it somewhat worrying. It's an index, right? It's not the infringing content per se, but a list of where such content could be found. Morally, pointing the way to some of this content is wrong...but what law is it breaking?

    Look at it another way. Let's say I've learnt of someone who gives away burnt CDs. I don't have any myself but but I'm fully aware of how to contact this guy and get freebies. So in conversation I let other's know too. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything and although it may be immoral not to turn the guy in, I'm fully within my rights to share what I know. I'm basically indexing this guy's contact details for other people to obtain. How they use those details is beyond my control.

    Shakey analogy aside, where does protecting copyright end? Shall we go close down a library because a few of the books describe how to perform an illegal act (Shock! Horror! This book describes how someone murdered an innocent! No!)?

    Or am I just getting pissed off and ranting? Probably both to be honest...
    • No you are not, these points are good.

      Politicians and Cartel lobbyists seem to think that just because its done with wires and silicon platters it somehow does not deserve the same protection. Well there is no real functional difference, and your analogy is not particularly shaky either.

      I say MOD PARENT UP.
    • by Rick.C ( 626083 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @02:04PM (#14778456)
      My wife is a librarian, but I am not. (MWIALBIAN)

      She informed me that there are specific State laws (in the US) that exempt libraries from copyright laws. That is why you can go to your local library and borrow a CD-ROM game or tax software or whatever, install it on your computer and use it until you have to return the CD-ROM. Even if the software doesn't check for the presence of the CD, you are morally obliged to delete it after you return the CD.

      If the **IA wants to try to repeal these State laws, they are gonna get shushed into oblivion!
  • Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by slashdotwannabe ( 938257 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @12:11PM (#14777536)
    As long as companies like Adobe justify charging $700 for Photoshop, and rationalize it partially "to make up for the ten people who steal it", I will have no sympathy for companies who lose money to software piracy.

    As long as products like iTunes charge a reasonable price for a reasonable product (both reasonables debatable, but the point stands), I will happily plunk down my $.99 cents per song.

    In other words, don't make me feel like you're screwing me, and I won't feel like I have to screw you back.

    • As long as companies like Adobe justify charging $700 for Photoshop, and rationalize it partially "to make up for the ten people who steal it", I will have no sympathy for companies who lose money to software piracy.

      Sorry, but I'm going to have to call a bullshit on this one. The trouble with your theory is that to anyone using Photoshop commercially, $700 is money well spent. For almost everyone else, $50-70 for retail copy of Photoshop Elements [google.com] is a pretty reasonable expense.

      Besides, companies offer sof
  • If it is of questionable legality, shouldn't it be brought out in court. That way people will know if it is legal or illegal.

    While I am totally against frivilous lawsuits, having something brought to court to determine if it is legal is occassionally necessary.

    Assuming that things aren't settled on the sidelines, of course.
  • They lose again! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by plasmacutter ( 901737 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @12:19PM (#14777589)
    So.. i read this and decided to kick on amule just to check things out.

    a search for "spiderman" in the absence of razorback is still producing results.. over a thousand and still going. Not that I want or like spiderman, but hey.. it still works you **AA klods, you missed a few thousand other servers.
  • Aaaand the backup server in another country goes live in 3....2....1
  • Then it is for the courts to decide on it. If that's the case, then in any individual case it's fine for the hardware to be seized - it's just become evidence in a court case, after all.

    Yes, it sucks for those involved, but until a court rules that this is legal and they have no case to answer, expect more seizures.
  • Legal schmegal (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @12:28PM (#14777654)
    The legality of such indexing remains questionable, however this has not deterred copyright enforcement actions.

    Well, think of it this way - the content industry claims billions in annual losses. Getting sued over the confiscated servers, even for treble damages, after getting the government to do your dirty work for you is a drop in the bucket compared to that.

  • Aiding and Abetting? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 )
    I suppose they could call it that technically Since you have to be on the network to access the indexes, and you cant get there accidentally.

    Except that ED2K also houses plenty of LEGAL files, so how can you claim its only used for illegal activities? That's like saying the corner newspaper store is really just a porn shop because it has a 'backroom'.

    But then again, if you have more money then the guy you just hit, you never have to make it to an actual legal decision before they drop out.

    i wonder if they
  • by metroplex ( 883298 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @03:01PM (#14778928) Homepage
    I am Swiss, and I recall having read on the local newspapers that the authorities would "stop toleranting file-sharing" starting in the first quarter of the year 2006. This looks like a demonstration of that intention. It's possible that the "raid" just served as an example for other big networks. Everybody knows, however, that shutting down a server will certainly not stop the network it belonged from being active, and on the contrary it may well push people to find new, better, more anonym ways of indexing and sharing files. (see the shutting down of Suprnova.org and the rising of decentralised tracking for bittorrent)
  • What if... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jgoemat ( 565882 ) on Wednesday February 22, 2006 @07:53PM (#14781204)
    What if each file to be sent was split into two files of the same size that contained completely random data, but if you XORed them together you would get the original file. Each 'sharer' on the system would only share one of the two files. Anyone downloading it would get gobbledy gook unless they had the other part to the file themselves already. That way you are not actually serving the file since anyone looking at what they get from you will juse see random data. In fact, I could also create 'random' data to make the exact same data turn out to be part of a public domain movie from the gutenberg archives. This would double the bandwidth on the network, but the only sites vulnerable would be indexing sites, which you wouldn't need if peers could index themselves.

    For instance, let's say I have LINUX.TGZ and it is 5mb long exactly (old version of the kernel ;). I create a 5 MB stream of random bytes (A) and xor LINUX.TGZ with it to get another 5MB stream of random bytes (B). Then I take my MP3 of "Enter SandMan" (SANDMAN.mp3) which is also 5 mb and I XOR it with (A) to get another seemingly random stream of bytes (C). This way I can keep people from listening to my music without having (A). Then I xor LINUX.TGZ with (C) to get another seemingly random stream of bytes (D). I could then do a search for (A) by MD5 HASH and download it. Then I could do a search for (B) by MD5 hash and download it. Combining those two files would give me LINUX_KERNEL_0.99.TGZ. Now if I do a search for either (C) or (D) by MP3 hash and download it, I can reconstruct the others.

    1. Combine (A) and (B) and you get LINUX
    2. Combine (A) and (C) and you get ODE_TO_ME.mp3
    3. Combine (C) and (D) and you get LINUX

      Therefore, if I only share (A) and (B) on my hard drive, I can upload both parts needed to make LINUX to other users. If my friend shares (C) and (D) on their hard drive, it is the same, you can use both parts to create LINUX. Now if someone were to download (A) from me and (C) from my friend, they could illegally use them to recreate the SANDMAN.MP3 file, but why would someone want to break copyright law? My friend and I are just serving the parts to make LINUX.TGZ which is perfectly legal.

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