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."
This just in.... (Score:2)
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>>>monitored torrents likely to be monitored... news at 11.
"Film at 11" was the old catchphrase used by TV stations. And you're right this is hardly new information, though it is interesting to see HOW much torrents are monitored. After getting caught 3 times I decided to download stuff from a private tracker..... no more problems.
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:o cpu6502, I thought you were all about restrictive ownership of things.
Good on you, though.
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Why is that mindblowing? It's exactly the attitude people have when speeding and just as true.
And there have been some worthwhile films made in the last 15 years from Hunger (re IRA, not the Hunger Games bullshit) to El Perro.
And sometimes I like to unwind with bullshit entertainment, not something deep and clever.
(Although Slashdot's almost as good for that.)
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Re:This just in.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, no, it's not worth actually going into someone's cinema/store/house and walking off with a physical copy of the film.
Downloading is another matter.
lol@my troll mod. Did I annoy someone in the past who has mod points today or something?
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You can argue about the "legal" definition of stealing all you want, but most parents teach their children that taking something that does not belong to you is stealing.
Yes, but that kind of taking involves the other party not having it anymore. This is more of a grey area, is it not?
Are you a child or are you a responsible adult?
In this argument I can only be an adult if I agree with you, right?
Downloading copyrighted content from unauthorized sources is stealing
or so you say.
and it is unethical,
or so you say.
when you attempt to justify your actions, you are only lying to yourself.
In this case, or does this hold in general?
Jurors in court dont agree with your justifications, the laws dont agree with your justifications and judges dont agree with your justifications.
You mean the laws are unambigous and identical all around the world regarding this issue? That's some serious news!
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Informative)
it's not stealing, copying there is no theft and it was already ruled by high courts in switzerland that people that pirate wouldn't have paid for it in the first place so there is no sales lost.
http://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/ [torrentfreak.com]
I've pirated and cut cable since 1996 when i started off downloading off passed around FTP servers and Newsgroups.
I still use newsgroups and torrents nowdays and a Western Digitial WDTV Live plus with a usb wifi adapter plugged in to stream downloaded movies off a shared drive on my lan to my tv.
I pirate television due to spam, I hate a 30 minute television show is streatched to 1 hour due to commercials every 3 minutes and they play so many commercials they actually have to remind you what you were watching "will be right back with xxx show in a few minutes"
got fed up with spam in 96 so cut cable and pirated ever since, where I live we have 1 local theater within a 50 mile radius and ticket prices are 13.50 for 1 person, if I take my family that's just over 40 bucks in tickets only plus another 10-20 for popcorn/soda FUCK THAT.
I pirate movies so I can enjoy them at home with my family on my surround sound (7.1 bluray rips ftw on http://kat.ph/ [kat.ph] and can actually save money.
Why would I pay the same price to buy the movie on Bluray to go see it in a stinky, noisy, stuffy theater? movies are to be enjoyed at home alone or with loved ones, not in a gymnasium full of strangers lip smacking, gorging, laughing, glow of phone texting, etc.
Movie theaters in the 60, 70's and even 80's were a social experience, people dressed up in suits and ties, women in fancy dresses to go out to the movies, it became a social event almost as going to a church in a way. But the 90's then 2000's came long that made home theater systems as good or better quality than theaters and we now have it how it's supposed to be, movies should be an intimate enjoyment, an escape from reality which is better at home or with loved ones than a gym full of noisy, nasty, strangers.
so I'll pirate till I die :)
http://kat.ph/ [kat.ph]
http://thepiratebay.se/ [thepiratebay.se]
http://h33t.com/ [h33t.com]
newsgroups which are free since my ISP offers them freely
there are still FTP sites floating around as well still used
fuck spam television and mpaa
Theater system is dead, Strangers all up in some gymnasium to watch a movie is a dead model. It's time to adapt or die.
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This just in.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? Not in the 60's 70's and 80's that I lived in. What was different was that people were better behaved.
If where you lived was anything like where I lived, part of that was because the movie theatres had a guard walking around, and if you were disruptive, he shone a torch in your face and the second time told you to leave. If you were really obnoxious, they would snap a photo of you and ban you for a year.
These days, they don't want to pay that guy's salary, and don't really care what kind of experience you have. The main thing is to be able to sell overpriced popcorn and soda.
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otherwise you are condoning stealing because that too is cheaper.
Stealing also removes a copy from the owner. In the likely event that this is an undesirable outcome, it's highly likely that no one is condoning stealing even if it appears that price is their main concern.
Re:This just in.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pirated copy != lost sale
Price point and competition (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course cheaper isn't a reason on it's own, otherwise you are condoning stealing because that too is cheaper.
The vendors' selection of a price point is something that has gone astray here. And it's linked to competition from other entertainment devices - music and video are a smaller fraction of the pie than they used to be.
I'm willing to pay up to euro10 for a DVD, and less than that for a CD. This means I wait several months (or a year) after a new release before it reaches my price point. DVDs typically start out here at euro20+ and some CDs are amazingly priced at euro20+ when "hot". After a few months, one has a better view on whether a CD/DVD is worth getting for the long term. There was a time I'd pay the crazy prices being asked for new releases, but it passed a long time ago.
A few years ago, a survey (maybe in The Economist magazine) indicated that people were spending about the same fraction of their income on entertainment as they had 25 years earlier. However, the share taken by music and video (predominantly VHS then, DVD now) had declined significantly, while that taken by gaming and suchlike had grown, and dining out etc. had not changed much. Clearly, if we're expected to buy just as much music and video, the price has to be more attractive. They're competing with PlayStations, internet, and suchlike for money and attention.
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Insightful)
why are you pirating bluray rips, when obviously they are available for purchase. I'm sure you might have a reason other than because it's cheaper, but you didn't give it.
One very good reason in my opinion is this this [imgur.com]
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Nothing worth stealing, though.
We are sorry. Because your IP is not a US IP, you cannot view or purchase this content. You will have to wait for a year or so before this shit is available in your country at 3 times the price or more. We like to fuck you in the ass as much as possible. Well, if you're asking me, they are inducing people to donwload illegally. I and many users would love to pay a fair price and download a legal HQ copy of my favorite show, only I have to use a VPN connection to watch certain content in the US, like Hulu,
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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.
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Insightful)
> there haven't really been any movies or music made in the past 15 years that are even worth downloading for free
um... either you are deaf & blind, a troll, an idiot, an illiterate barbarian or you have a vintage porn fetish... neither of these validates your point since there are TONS of good movies made every year. They just don't play in your local theatre, but they ARE available as a torrent.
I would say that torrents are about to save the movie industry. If only independent filmmakers would realize this and skip the whole distribution channel... For instance in Belgium, if you would take the government sponsoring out of the equation, 95% of all movies are a loss. I wish they would simply release torrents and add a nice donation banner at the end of the movie. I would gladly donate (1 euro if it is a shitty movie, 3 if it was okay, 5 or more if it was awesome) !
there is NO way of doing this legally...
the most baffling part here is that it is SO FUCKING EASY TO DO ! It takes like 10 minutes to make that banner, and 10 seconds to start a torrent. WTF is stopping them ???????????
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Interesting)
WTF is stopping them ???????????
I make open source software. I have a donation link on my site and in my app. I have thousands of people using my app every day.
In an average month, I receive $3 in donations*.
That's what's stopping them - people love to talk about how they don't really want this stuff for free - they only want to be able to pay a reasonable amount of money to the people who create it. But the majority of these people rarely put their money where their mouth is when actually given the opportunity to do so.
I realize I'm comparing software and entertainment, but I haven't yet seen anything that tells me people would behave differently. If they're not voluntarily paying for software that helps them do their jobs every day, I don't see the likelihood of paying for a couple hours of one-time entertainment as being very high.
* Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to profit off of this version of my software and I appreciate even the $1.00 donations. But the data here illustrates my point nicely.
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>>> people love to talk about how they don't really want this stuff for free - they only want to be able to pay a reasonable amount of money to the people who create it. But the majority of these people rarely put their money where their mouth is
I want it for free.
There I said it.
I bet 99% of us are the same. For example I read books for free that are published online. The number of actual books on my kindle that I paid for? Zero? If it costs money I skip over it and read the free stuff instead
Re:This just in.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I occasionally drop 10 bucks on DwarfFortress. But that's because it's unique, there's nothing out there like it and I'm paying to see it keep getting made.
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Ditto here. $100 to clarkesworldmagazine.com because they had ~5 years of audiobooks that I listened to and enjoyed while at work. I figured it helps pay for the bandwidth I used, plus I want to see more audios uploaded in the future (plus it made me an "overlord" of the website).
So sometimes I spend money.
Not often.
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Informative)
If you mean "MS Office", I use LibreOffice instead because it's better, not because it's free.
I have zero problem paying for something good. I donate to every non-ad supported website that I regularly use, and many that are ad-supported (like Slashdot). I am fortunate in that I have sufficient disposable income that I can do this.
However, most people have considerably less disposable income as a percentage of their income than they did 15 years ago. The reason you're seeing more "free" content is because the realization is growing in the corporate world that "Oops, we succeeded in limiting the power of the middle and working class but now they don't have any money to buy our shit." Of course, paying people more is harder than trying to come up with cockamamie "free2play" business models.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the working and middle classes (here in America) were stronger and richer than they had ever been. People were retiring with money, leaving money to their kids, expecting political power. If you go back to that period and look at the Wall Street Journal editorial pages you will see that this was a growing concern of the people at the top economically. Minorities were becoming more powerful, more prosperous. Women were becoming more powerful, more prosperous. The god-kings of Wall Street didn't want to share space at the table and "supply-side" was invented. To cement the trend, "EZ Credit" was invented, where not only could wealth be diminished, but future wealth, generational wealth could also be diminished.
Now people don't have money. Credit has dried up. No more money left in the real estate ATM. My guess as to why new game consoles have not come out in the past several years is that there is because Sony and Microsoft's market research has told them people can't afford them in numbers like the original PS3 and Xbox.
So now the model has changed from the $199 application to the $1.99 "app". The cable TV providers are all looking for other income streams. Today, starting salary for an auto worker, in real dollars, is about $13. In 1978, the starting salary for an auto worker, in 1978 dollars, was about $17. If you adjust for inflation, it would be like a current-day auto worker making about $5/hr. Of course we're going to have to see a lot more of these "innovative" business models.
We're going to see a lot more changes like this in the marketplace as we move toward a minimum wage society.
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First, that's family income, because we now have to have so many two income households with husband and wife working and all the associated problems and costs.
Second, when you say "adjusted for inflation" that is a number that is heavily weighted for technology but not for food, energy, etc. It's a basket of consumer prices that is designed to make inflation look low. You won't see this number measured again
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IMHO You can't compare free (as in beer) software (whose author accepts donations) to paid (but reasonably) entertainment.
If you cannot obtain something legally without paying that brings another set of incentives to the table.
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Are you absolutely sure that you have thousands of users? Are you sure your donation system is legit? Are you sure you are asking for donations in the right way - visible, polite and proportionate request, etc.?
I've just finished some vague involvement in a fundraising drive via a raffle thing, i.e. selfish and altruistic components. We raised over $2000 over a few weeks via members on some forum alone. Some people are amazingly generous if you give them a reasonable proposition which accords with their int
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I will pay $1 to $10, without much thought for something in the android market.
I just hit one button, and the payment is done.
Anything much more than 1-click, becomes work, and it's not even worth bothering, just to pay a few bucks.
If I have to click a donate button, then get redirected to paypal, then sign in, then verify the amount and from which funding source, then click ok, then get rerouted back, then check later to make sure that the transaction didn't go sideways.
android market. with all it's down
The problem is, there is to much (Score:3, Informative)
Shareware for the PC in the days before I started to use Linux was just impossible to keep up. 10 dollars here, 10 dollars there... it just never ends. I recently made the mistake of paying for a license for Sublime Text 2. Then I had the need for a plugin to edit files directly over SSH. That plugin wants money too. No doubt more plugins are useful and want money too. And I still need to get a winzip license and pay for god knows how many more tools.
It is knickle and diming me to death expect the dimes are
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You know, if you are asking for money, instead of requiring payment, the solution for that problem is as simple as non-intuitive. The software developer just needs to ask for bigger amounts. That way few people will pay him more, and the donors will have an easier decision to make ("do I give $10 to this team?" 5 times, instead of "do I give $1 to this team?" 50 times).
Now, of course, when requiring payment a completely different logic applies. And what WinZip did (is it still there?) was requiring payment,
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I did the whole donation thing too -- although back in the day, we called it shareware. Fully functional software that you were supposed to buy if you continued to use it beyond a certain point (usually 30-45 days).
I think it was the point that after a hundred thousand downloads, and getting *3* checks was a bit of a turn off. Or when a guy at a computer gathering told me about this awesome software, and offered to make me a copy for free... OF MY OWN SOFTWARE. Of course, he'd been using it for a year ev
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Seriously... this is the first time I saw someone who releases "shareware" to be pissed when he sees people sharing his stuff. Wasn't that the whole point, to begin with?
Ugh. People don't know what they say when posting Anonymous on the internet. The "share" portion is as loosely tied to real-life term as "down" and "up" are tied to files "loading" in the world wide web... even more loosely, in fact. Shareware died due to oversharing: it was superseded by a mix of BBS fade-out, online piracy thanks to stolen keys, and the porting of mature FOSS software to the world of windows.
DON'T BE SURPRISED WHEN PEOPLE DON'T PAY YOU, WHEN YOU WERE THE ONE GIVING AWAY THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT REQUESTING PAYMENT.
ASK is another word for REQUEST. Donating is only different from Paying in that the software isn't
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I will be charging for the BB10 iteration of the software.
And I plan to release the current version to app world for non-free, though of course source will remain available for download and direct-install binaries will remain available. Just need to find interest in finishing up the legacy code base - it's difficult to spend time on it, when I know I can't use it under BB10.
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That doesn't prove anything, it only proves that one well-known band is able to make a lot of money by asking for donations. Radiohead is far more well-known and popular than some ssh app for Blackberries. Heck, Blackberries themselves are going out of style pretty quickly, and among BB users, how many do you think want an ssh app? Secondly, it's different markets. The people that listen to RH music aren't necessarily representative of the population in general. How successful would some country artist
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Very few people would donate. Watching movies at the cinema is often a poorer experience than watching at home, for various reasons, but it is one way to guarantee that people pay to watch your movie..
Have to agree on seeing movies in a theater is awful! I went to an IMAX showing of Batman. I loved the screen but the sound was so loud I had a headache by the end of the film -- it was like a rock concert.I really missed my home theater at the end of that movie!
Re:This just in.... (Score:4)
Yep, they frequently have the sound turned up way too loud.
Then add in screaming kids, sticky floors, crappy seats that don't let you get closer to your date, horrifically overpriced and crappy food/drinks, and insane ticket prices (you can buy a Blu-Ray for less than a single ticket), and you have to wonder why anyone even bothers with the theater any more. I will note however, that the budget cinemas ("dollar theaters", though the one here is $3 I think) are a much better deal, since the price is so much lower.
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:This just in.... (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously you're not a golfer.
Re: (Score:2)
Goddammit, where are my mod points?
Re:This just in.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That old Slashdot chestnut.
According to IMDb's these are the highest ranked films in their top 250 that were made in the last 15 years and scored 8/10 or higher:
The Dark Knight (2008), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Fight Club (1999), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Inception (2010), The Matrix (1999), City of God (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Memento (2000), American History X (1998), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Spirited Away (2001), American Beauty (1999), Toy Story 3 (2010), The Departed (2006), The Pianist (2002), Life Is Beautiful (1997), WALL-E (2008), The Lives of Others (2006), Amelie (2001), Gladiator (2000), The Prestige (2006), The Green Mile (1999), Requiem for a Dream (2000), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Untouchable (2011), L.A. Confidential (1997), Avengers Assemble (2012), Oldboy (2003), Princess Mononoke (1997), A Separation (2011), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Downfall (2004), Batman Begins (2005), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Up (2009), Snatch. (2000), Gran Torino (2008), The Big Lebowski (1998), Sin City (2005), No Country for Old Men (2007), Hotel Rwanda (2004), The Sixth Sense (1999), Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), The King's Speech (2010), Warrior (2011), The Secret in Their Eyes (2009), Into the Wild (2007), Black Swan (2010), Good Will Hunting (1997), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Donnie Darko (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), V for Vendetta (2005), Million Dollar Baby (2004), There Will Be Blood (2007), Moonrise Kingdom (2012), The Artist (2011), Amores Perros (2000), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), Mary and Max (2009), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Howl's Moving Castle (2004), District 9 (2009), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Ratatouille (2007), Infernal Affairs (2002), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011), The Truman Show (1998), The Wrestler (2008), Ip Man (2008), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Star Trek (2009), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring (2003), Mystic River (2003), Shutter Island (2010), Let the Right One In (2008) and Big Fish (2003)
Are you really trying to say that none of these are worth watching?
In fact, the only merit to your argument is that all the films that scored higher than 8.8 were made before 1997:
The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Godfather (1972), The Godfather: Part II (1974), Pulp Fiction (1994), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), 12 Angry Men (1957) and Schindler's List (1993)
There is an easy explanation for that. (Score:2)
Don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
Scare tactic away. I'm going to keep downloading.
I can get a product the media assholes won't give me at ANY PRICE! For free.
It's not even up for debate anymore. I'm not listening to the media mafia anymore. Wrong? Illegal? Immoral? Stealing from the artists?
Sure whatever you say fucknuts. I'm going to keep downloading anyway. And teach other people how to as well.
Go try to convince and have an arguement with someone who still cares. I'm going to do whatever i want.
Why? Because fuck you thats why.
And no matter what i do. I'll never be as big of a douche as anyone from the media mafia. Never.
Better products (Score:5, Insightful)
One day the illegal media cartels might actually get it, that the "pirates" provide a better product. No adverts for other films (Disney is top culprit but there are others), no trailers accusing you of being a crook despite buying a legit DVD / BluRay, no DRM... no regiuon coding, in other words, it just works. The illegal media cartels just p people off with their crappy product.
The problem is, the politicians in many countries that can sort this out have been bought and paid for by the illegal media cartels, so expect no change to their tactics.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because you dont like them doesnt make them "illegal media cartels"
But using that term does make you retarded.
Re:Better products (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, you're right. They aren't illegal. That is to say, they aren't illegal under the letter of the law (because they paid a lot of money to help write those laws), they're legal ones that write the laws that they then use to bully, intimidate, and extort individuals to pay them money while ensuring no one can form competition against them.
They totally are a cartel, though, and a thoroughly scummy one at that.
Re:Better products (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep.. if you don't like the terms the artist provides the content under, you can just do what ever you feel like.
Like when Linksys used Linux for it's routers, and didn't provide the source code... the FSF went after them for it, and they eventually settled and provided the source.
And that was their mistake. They should never have settled or provided source. They should have just told the FSF to fuck off. GPL non-compliance makes for a better product!
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Your Linksys analogy doesn't really work in this context because the end product put out by Linux and Linksys aren't the same. A better analogy would be OS X. It's based on BSD Unix. BSD Unix has a tiny market share compared to other OSes, even compared to Linux. But Apple came along, gussied it up with a pretty
Re:Better products (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep.. if you don't like the terms the artist provides the content under, you can just do what ever you feel like.
Small problem: The artist has no say in how the content is distributed. Take Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Ever seen it on TV? Can you find a copy on the internet? As a matter of fact, it's very rare to do so because Martin Luther King's dysfunctional family wants money for it. A seminal work, part of our cultural heritage, and easily one of the top 100 speeches ever given in the United States, can't be shown in public because now that King is dead, his family owns the copyright.
I do not think King, if he were still alive, instead of his shit-eating family, would say that people who air his speech should give him or his descendants royalty payments. I think, in fact, he may have been rather shocked at how his own family is participating in this new form of slavery and oppression of his people -- by preventing his own message of peace and goodwill from being heard by others.
So would you propose that we allow his speech, and that of all civil rights leaders who have died and the rights to their words passed on to their greedy children or a trust, corporation, etc., be striken from history? Because that's what copyright law has done here, and in many, many other cases.
Our children don't know much about history because it's all been revised, and then copyrighted, and then sold off piece by piece. Their only culture is a collection of brand names, pop music, and shitty internet memes. You can thank copyright law for that... it has cut off our access to the past, to our own history and culture... and most of the damage is irreparable.
Re:Better products (Score:5, Insightful)
I was stunned when I watched the Hunger Games Blu-ray this weekend as what I thought was the lead up to the main menu in fact lead to a large message: "Previews for Your Mandatory Viewing". This was a purchased copy mind you, not a rental version. Of course now the Main Menu button was disabled, fortunately the chapter skip button was not (it must not be able to or it would have been).
This button disabling shit is unbelievable, even the Stop button. Yes, the Stop button.
To paraphrase John Siracusa, everything about Blu-ray sucks, except the AV quality, which you can't get anywhere else (legally).
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I got onto the BluRay bandwagon just over a year ago. It lasted for about 4 months.
The 6th or so disk I bought was for Avatar. I couldn't get it to play. When googling I found out that it probably required a software update to my Pioneer player. Due to some weird incompatibility with my TV, the software update menu doesn't work. I fiddled with it for an entire evening, over 3 hours.
In the end I downloaded the movie and watched it that way, despite having a legal copy.
I decided then and there never to buy a
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This is why I stopped torrenting (Score:2, Insightful)
It's safer to rent movies and rip yourself, direct download links for movies, borrow an open Wifi point, and direct exchange content with friends (hard drive swaps). These methods are far safer than Bittorent. As for TV shows, those seem to be a bit unclear in terms of legality (tested in courts), and not taken to court that I am aware.
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You must make a distinction, there are different ways one can torrent things. Some ways are less secure that others... if you say just want to use some public tracker from your home pc, then sure, that's not very safe. If you want to say... have a seedbox hosted in a non MPAA, RIAA friendly country and pay that account with untraceable bitcoins using a fake email account you set up over a VPN and then only use private trackers and use SFTP to bring everything back to your home machine I'd say you're safe
Analytics (Score:5, Informative)
A friend of mine works for a UK company (musicmetric.com) that provides artist popularity data to record companies and other entities (top list providers, etc). One of their data points are monitoring of music torrents. Note that this data is not for the purpose of lawsuits but just to see which artists/albums/songs are popular in different countries and regions (even down to city level using geoip lookup). Their spiders/crawers/monitors they have deployed are, AFAIK, hosted by a 3rd party hosting provider. I also know there's another competing company in the UK doing the same thing.
Marketing companies (Score:2)
I'm guessing many of them are marketing companies, since torrent feeds give you a fairly accurate picture of what's hot or not and where without the PR spin. Otherwise I don't see much point, the legal value of an IP deteriorates quickly - either you have to send a C&D or sue now, in a year nobody knows who it belonged to.
Name the 6 entities! (Score:4, Interesting)
"But six entities could not be identified because they were masked through third party hosting."
NSA
FBI
FAPSI
GCHQ
CSE
GCSB
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Do I have to literally spell it out for you? Or you can try Google.
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...
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Sorry, Russian version of the NSA. Although....
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I dunno (Score:2)
Why does it matter that they keep track of this information. Pretty soon we'll all have an IP address and we'll be globally trackable and tracked.
Seems about right to me.
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Why does it matter that they keep track of this information. Pretty soon we'll all have an IP address and we'll be globally trackable and tracked.
I agree. When this happens I'll run an anonymous proxy and all of you can download as if from my IP address. I will become the Digital Jesus, being punished for all of your digital "sins". When they strike me down, I will become more powerful than they ever imagined...
Incorrect title (Score:5, Informative)
So only people downloading the latest movies/music are monitored.
Re:Incorrect title (Score:5, Interesting)
So only people downloading the latest movies/music are monitored.
FWIW, Pogue's column in the latest Scientific American claims that of the 10 most pirated movies over the internet, none are out there for legal rent or purchase.
Incorrect Pogue quote (Score:2)
I think you mean this article:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-hollywood-encouraging-onine-piracy [scientificamerican.com]
Pogue (don't get people started on him), said:
Note that while you added on "or purchase", the article never states this.
Which is a good thing, too, or Pogue would probably have been called out.
I don't know who 'the authority' on the 10 most pirated movies of 20
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That makes sense when you're talking about 'at that time'. I.e. in 2011, Fast Five came out, and people started downloading crappy cam jobs, screeners, eventually some R5 DVD rip, etc. as soon as they were made available.
Pogue, however, makes the observation that even now, more than half-way through 2012, none (well, only one as of this writing) of those movies from 2011 he likely referred to are available for online rental - be that Amazon Prime, BlockBuster, etc.
And he has a point there - given that peopl
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The list of top 100 would of course change over time.. the torrents are monitored not the people downloading. Likely they're recorded. Monitoring people is a whole other story.
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Define monitoring people. The IP addresses of peers are logged, according to the paper.
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"Define monitoring people."
In this sense I'd say monitoring is then tracking the activity of that IP address unrelated to the specific torrent that was just then downloaded.
Open Wifi (Score:4, Insightful)
Once monitored, who knows what else they may be doing with your IP address and it MAY NOT BE YOU. Go to somebody's yard use their open Wifi and touch just one of the Top monitored files and they'll get on the monitor list.
Hate your neighbor? use their Wifi to torrent a bunch of movies currently out in theaters. Six strikes...they probably won't even realize it is the Wifi before being banned by the local monopoly. (In my area both ISPs signed up with the content Mafia so you are probably banned from internet almost completely.)
Does anybody think it is time to start connecting their neighborhoods on their own?
Ensuring your guilty (Score:2)
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.
I blame the content. (Score:2)
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Personally, I don't care if the movie business or the music industry dies. Let them. They're almost universally a bunch of self-congratulatory assholes to begin with. There might be a lack of blockbuster movies for awhile, maybe, but I doubt it. And certainly, they can't argue that we'd be missing out on "quality" music if the music industry shuts down, because most of the crap they provide these days is marketing with a tune anyway.
People are going to keep making this stuff and, one way or another, it
Public trackers are like sleeping with hookers. (Score:2)
It might be easy but it's going to make you worry the next day and might come back to haunt you later.
Very unlikely anything would happen... (Score:2)
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It depends. (Score:2)
If you get in on a torrent when it first is released and get out as soon as you download it because you are in a repressive country like the USA, they havent even started monitoring it by the time you already quit and your IP had fallen off. RSS feeds of TV shows are your friend along with a modified program that stops seeding as soon as you have it downloaded.
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.
Boring Torrents (Score:3, Funny)
Re:VPNs (Score:4, Insightful)
no, most normal people don't care
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Re:VPNs (Score:5, Insightful)
you really live in quite the bubble if you think MOST people are using VPNs...
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Most good VPNs say they don't keep logs, or say they delete logs within 24 hours.
FTFY.
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.
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Are you counting AOL as a VPN?
Re:VPNs (Score:4, Insightful)
For my part I don't really know who to trust. How do I know that PrivateInternetAccess is a legit service, and that they are really doing what they say they do? If I'm going to pay for a VPN service, I definitely want to be sure that they are solid.
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Well, what is the disadvantage
You have to configure it, and your VPN is not necessarily covered by the laws that cover ISP's. This is good and bad of course, but if your VPN does something illegal and then declares bankruptcy there's not really anything you can do about it, if your ISP does something illegal odds are it's big enough they won't be out of business and you may get some form of restitution.
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Should you care if your VPN goes bankrupt? Just get another one...
Re:VPNs (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, what is the disadvantage? Why would you NOT want to use one?
Because unless you're running your own VPN, there's no proof or guarantee that whoever is running it isn't farming your data anyway, and just lying to you about it.
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i pay $50 a month for internet. what's the point in paying for a vpn service? what does it get me other than not being blacked out of Yankee and Met's games on MLB TV Premium?
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A bit of privacy. Some people use it to decrease the chances that they'll receive a copyright notice, too.
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Re:So, back to sneakernet? (Score:4, Funny)
I wouldn't necessarily call it sneakernet though. I would call it a SOCIAL NETWORK!!
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Have another coffee... Great times!
And then Dave asks if you can get movies, and you can so you do. Then Dave starts asking more and more.
"Listen Dave, I don't mind getting you the odd DVD, but seven times a week is asking a lot"
"I'll pay you"
And so it begins.
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What is the point of your post. Article title states: Most Torrent Downloaders Are Monitored, Study Finds
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I'm behind seven proxies.
Yea, we know -
Six of them are ours.
Yours,
The NSA
Re:Which blocklist do you use? (Score:4, Informative)