Anyone into torrents?

ben62670

I know it is taboo, but I like to try before I buy and the the FLAC files are often very good. I love to get a discography to see what they have to offer. If I like it I buy it. It works good for some movies, but I prefer to screen movies via netflix.
Ben

bobman1235

Not so much "taboo" as "illegal."

Sherardp

Utorrent is your friend.

Face

Not all torrents are illegal.

gfong

I do not use them at all.
It pisses me off when I go to search a music title, the first 50 links are wiki and torrents!

mrbiron

I used to use them religiously but have since fallen off the bandwagon. Occasionally i'll jump on Pirate Bay or Iso Hunt for a quick pick-me-up.
Back in college, i used to fill up hardrives with anything and everything just to have it. Made some nice coin selling programs to the uneducated.

As for music, i only download the FLAC files and 9 out of 10 are perfect.

bobman1235

Face wrote: »

Not all torrents are illegal.

FOr the purposes of the original post - yes they are. He wasn't talking about downloading a Linux distro, he was talking about downloading music instead of buying it.

Not saying I've never done it or never do it, just saying, be careful.

PrazVT

Utorrent + Peerblock via TPB. CDuniverse.com & Netflix for everything else.

K-daugh

Download u torrent its free go to www.btjunkie.org download music movies whatever for free then transfer to I tunes ....I'm still figuring it out though its new to me ...

Ricardo

I have no idea what that is. First time I hear that word. Seriously.

PrazVT

I have no idea what that is. First time I hear that word. Seriously.

decentralized p2p. Based on everyone upload & downloading pieces of a file / set of files. You download a .torrent file, which is opened in a torrent client (ex. utorrent). That .torrent file contains a list of trackers (hosts that keep track of number of seeders / leechers).

Seeder = person with complete file (100%).
Leecher = person who is downloading / uploading.
You'll want to make sure a tcp port is fwded to your computer in your router.
You'll want to download peerblock and keep it updated to keep yourself out of trouble.

TPB has a good FLAC section. BTJunkie works too.

JimAckley

try www.torrentz.eu. It searches the most popular sites for the same hash key, and allows you to copy/paste ALL of the trackers into uTorrent/BitTorrent.

Ricardo

PrazVT wrote: »

decentralized p2p. Based on everyone upload & downloading pieces of a file / set of files. You download a .torrent file, which is opened in a torrent client (ex. utorrent). That .torrent file contains a list of trackers (hosts that keep track of number of seeders / leechers).

Seeder = person with complete file (100%).
Leecher = person who is downloading / uploading.
You'll want to make sure a tcp port is fwded to your computer in your router.
You'll want to download peerblock and keep it updated to keep yourself out of trouble.

TPB has a good FLAC section. BTJunkie works too.

Oh. Doesn't sound like something I would want to use. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Thanks.

PrazVT

Oh. Doesn't sound like something I would want to use.

Fair enough

try www.torrentz.eu. It searches the most popular sites for the same hash key, and allows you to copy/paste ALL of the trackers into uTorrent/BitTorrent.

Nice! That'll come in handy.

bobman1235

Peer blockers have been shown to do next to nothing to "keep you safe." I mean, it's a public list.... if someone wants to find you out, they know what IPs not to use.

If you are downloading copyrighted material, you are open to being caught. Chances are slim, but the news stories out there about people's lives essentially being ruined by these lawsuits should be enough to give you pause.

jinjuku

bobman1235 wrote: »

Peer blockers have been shown to do next to nothing to "keep you safe." I mean, it's a public list.... if someone wants to find you out, they know what IPs not to use.

If you are downloading copyrighted material, you are open to being caught. Chances are slim, but the news stories out there about people's lives essentially being ruined by these lawsuits should be enough to give you pause.

Actually the act of helping yourself to content you didn't acquire legally should give you pause.

I have seen overt offers of members here to ship in no small quantity pirated music. I was surprised that moderation didn't take place in that instance.

It's not so much the download (even though it will get you a letter from RIAA/MPAA) it's the re-distribution that will really get you hammered.

PrazVT

Actually the act of helping yourself to content you didn't acquire legally should give you pause.

Perhaps. Everyone's moral compass is their own, so I'd leave those kinds of opinions out of this discussion.

What bobman said and the second part of your post are true, though. It's risky and if you haven't been downloading up to now, there's no point starting now.

JimAckley

Where can I buy one of these compasses? :biggrin: And does it need an airhole?

AsSiMiLaTeD

I don't do torrents and the like for 2 main reasons:

1 - It's theft, plain and simple. Let's set the moral aspect aside as to some that's more subjective and take a more logical approach. I like the music and shows that I watch, I want them to make more of it. The way they know to make more of it is people buy it, the more people that buy it the more likely they are to make more of it. If I'm stealing something instead of buying it then they don't know I like it, and won't make more of it. Of course one could argue that my single purchase has no bearing on their actions, but those are the same people who don't vote because they think it doesn't matter.

2 - It's not worth the risk. Saving a little cash right now is not worth the risk of being fined or put in jail for something stupid like downloading music and movies. I mean, seriously, with all the streaming options and such out there, it's just not worth it. If I'm going to jail it's gonna be for something big like bank robbery, I ain't going down for stealing a $10 movie.

A friend of mine got his internet shut off permanently when they caught him downloading - Kung Fu Panda. I was like "Dude, you got shut off for downloading kung fu panda, that is seriously weak"...

jinjuku

PrazVT wrote: »

Perhaps. Everyone's moral compass is their own, so I'd leave those kinds of opinions out of this discussion.

What bobman said and the second part of your post are true, though. It's risky and if you haven't been downloading up to now, there's no point starting now.

Perhaps Hilters moral compass was his own also. Just saying.

You do what you want.

AsSiMiLaTeD

jinjuku wrote: »

Perhaps Hilters moral compass was his own also. Just saying.

You do what you want.

Easy there, it's quite a strech to even mention those in the same sentence. I get that you're trying to make a point, but using that extreme in this discussion makes you seem like a nut and somewhat invalidates anything you have to say.

I agree that the 'moral compass' discussion is best left elsewhere.

jinjuku

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Easy there, it's quite a strech to even mention those in the same sentence. I get that you're trying to make a point, but using that extreme in this discussion makes you seem like a nut and somewhat invalidates anything you have to say.

I agree that the 'moral compass' discussion is best left elsewhere.

I know it's an extreme and non-correlative example. But the point does tend to get through with rather gregarious examples:biggrin:

Jstas

bobman1235 wrote: »

Peer blockers have been shown to do next to nothing to "keep you safe." I mean, it's a public list.... if someone wants to find you out, they know what IPs not to use.

If you are downloading copyrighted material, you are open to being caught. Chances are slim, but the news stories out there about people's lives essentially being ruined by these lawsuits should be enough to give you pause.

Most of the downloaders referenced in those lawsuits were using direct peer-to-peer sharing software like LimeWire or BearShare. It's difficult to pick a specific user out of a torrent swarm especially since most tracking sites use regional trackers but don't segregate on the actual broadcast server. That creates difficulties in tracking down the actual person doing the downloading, even if the IP address does show up on your client list in your bit torrent client.

If they do manage to track you down and sue, the are finding that the legal battle to prove you did anything is difficult at best to win. Mainly because they need a search warrant to search your computer to find the completed file. If all they have is evidence that your IP address showed up in a swarm, they have a massive amount of proof that they have to furnish to not have the lawsuit thrown out. Besides that, they also have to prove that your client was sharing the complete file. Since Seeders and Leechers are tracked differently, you'd have to hack your way in to the tracker server to find the seeder list since clients only get to see the details on the Leecher list. Unless of course, things have changed and I haven't been paying attention closely enough.

If they do manage to obtain evidence that you were naughty and they did so without a search warrant or your permission to look, the evidence is thrown out as inadmissible because it was obtained illegally and/or under duress. Even if they trick you in to saying yes to a search, that's still duress and inadmissible.

However, they need to prove that you have a complete file because I haven't seen or heard of a ruling that says a single bit packet from a torrent file qualifies as illegal and/or intellectual property since it is so incomplete and indecipherable without the rest of the packets to complete the file.

Hence the reason it's easier to go after the tracker sites like Mininova, ISOHunt and The Pirate Bay. Thing is though, once they shut one down, 10 more pop up and they get even harder to track.

I'm not condoning it or condemning it. I'm just saying that the RIAA and MPAA strong-arm, Gestapo-esque tactics are much harder and much more expensive to levy against a typical torrent user than they are against a typical P2P user.

Jstas

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

A friend of mine got his internet shut off permanently when they caught him downloading - Kung Fu Panda. I was like "Dude, you got shut off for downloading kung fu panda, that is seriously weak"...

How did he get caught downloading "Kung-Fu Panda"? Was he using a torrent tracker? 'Cause it's damn near impossible to see what data is actually traversing a torrent feed. All you can see is the amount of bandwidth you are pushing, the data rate you are pushing it at and how long the connection has been up. I know people pushing gigs worth of data a day and they have problems with ISPs throttling their connections because of it. I know they are sharing massive amounts of copyrighted and protected information but it's near impossible to track them doing it. I know, I've tried, just to see what's going on. All you can see is the basic connection info and where it's going. Some of them are running complex redirect networks which funnel any non-approved network accesses/attacks from outside the network to some other site or a dead end.

Since they are running their own name servers and DNS servers, without their actual IP addresses, it's extremely difficult to get to the torrent servers because of the redirects happening at a basic DNS level. They hit the router and the router just looks like another jump in the line. It doesn't even broadcast the correct IP address for the router when non-approved traffic hits it. One even broadcasts CNN's main domain controller address.

bobman1235

It has nothing to do with the torrent tracker; all an agency has to do is download the same torrent you're downloading, see you're one of the seeders, and that's it. Every IP that you're downloading from is listed by your client.

While the burden of proof may be difficult, the people doing the suing have endless amounts of money to keep these things going in court, while the people being sued have none to defend themselves, and thus they settle. It's bullying, but on the other hand, the people who are being bullied in general did steal, so... tough to feel too bad.

inspiredsports

Ricardo wrote: »

Oh. Doesn't sound like something I would want to use. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Thanks.

I finally had to purposely block the ports used for this type of file transfer on my (hardware) router to keep my kids from downloading files.

I found several contained viruses. Illegality of some and viruses in others makes me leery. Be careful.

WilliamM2

bobman1235 wrote: »

It has nothing to do with the torrent tracker; all an agency has to do is download the same torrent you're downloading, see you're one of the seeders, and that's it. Every IP that you're downloading from is listed by your client.

While the burden of proof may be difficult, the people doing the suing have endless amounts of money to keep these things going in court, while the people being sued have none to defend themselves, and thus they settle. It's bullying, but on the other hand, the people who are being bullied in general did steal, so... tough to feel too bad.

Odds are you will never actually get sued, too many people doing it. But they do send out thousands of "take down" notices everyday. Most ISP's will shut you off after you have received two or three of them. I know a couple of people this has happened to, and around here there is only one high speed internet provider, so now they have no internet, or worse yet, dial-up! Not worth the risk in my opinion.

Fongolio

I'm surprised this whole thread still exists. The entire discusion is about an act that is considered criminal in most parts of the world. And let's be totally honest here, file sharing in all it's various forms is one of the biggest contributers to the demise of the compact disk and to the detrimental change recently to the music industry as a whole. That and big box retailers are the two biggest contributers. Sad but true.

Jstas

bobman1235 wrote: »

It has nothing to do with the torrent tracker; all an agency has to do is download the same torrent you're downloading, see you're one of the seeders, and that's it. Every IP that you're downloading from is listed by your client.

While the burden of proof may be difficult, the people doing the suing have endless amounts of money to keep these things going in court, while the people being sued have none to defend themselves, and thus they settle. It's bullying, but on the other hand, the people who are being bullied in general did steal, so... tough to feel too bad.

The IP address list you are talking about does not distinguish between seeders and leechers and is never a complete list. To get the seeder list, the RIAA/MPAA need to break the law themselves.

In addition, if the seeder is not in a country with privacy laws sympathetic to the Gestapo, then they are SOL and not get a complete list of leechers.

Add to that the fact that you could be downloading "Kung-Fu Panda" and then send me a copy of the tracker so I can download it too and then grab a list of clients in your swarm, you can compare them against my swarm list. Neither list will have the same list of active addresses.

Also, that clients list shows all clients, not just seeders or leechers. You can be getting a file from a leecher who either has the file complete or is getting that file faster than you are downloading it. That's the thing about bit torrents. They transfer bits in a datastream, not actual files. They are usually encrypted too because you need the tracker's secret decoder ring to rebuild the file. Also, most clients refresh the tracker list at timed intervals. When that happens, all connections drop and pick up a whole new list of connections. To be able to watch any of that traffic from a specific client, the amount of dumb luck you would need to have to get anything worth while is quite impressive. Even if you were able to grab it, you couldn't reproduce the results reliably enough to verify that it wasn't a fluke anyway.

The only way to track a torrent based downloader reliably is compromise their system and to do that, you need to circumvent the law in some way. If you do that, any proof you furnish in court is thrown out and the trial ends up going down as a mistrial.

Peer2Peer downloading is different. That is easy to see who the connections are since they are straight up file transfers doing a fairly simple network copy.

bobman1235

Fongolio wrote:

And let's be totally honest here, file sharing in all it's various forms is one of the biggest contributers to the demise of the compact disk and to the detrimental change recently to the music industry as a whole.... Sad but true.

If by "true" you mean "made up," sure. That premise has been shown false time and again. I'm not defending illegal downloading -- it's wrong -- but what you're saying is just blatantly untrue, or at the very least completely unprovable. Technology changes. The market changes. End of story.

Jstas wrote: »

The IP address list you are talking about does not distinguish between seeders and leechers and is never a complete list. To get the seeder list, the RIAA/MPAA need to break the law themselves.

Why does it need to be a complete list? They're not suing everyone, they're suing random people (and a very small number of random people at that).

In addition, if the seeder is not in a country with privacy laws sympathetic to the Gestapo, then they are SOL and not get a complete list of leechers.

Again, they don't need a complete list. They need at least one IP, which they can get. And most carriers (AT&T, Comcast, Verizon) have shown to be compliant in giving up the names of customers based on IP. So I have no idea what Gestapo you're talking about.

I'm not trying to refute your facts, you're obviously very well-versed in the technology involved. The fact remains that all the RIAA / MPAA need to do is find ONE IP address to target, find ONE internet provider that will provide the name of the customer with that IP address, and then spend a bunch of money in court to get that person to settle. These groups have huge resources, I have no doubt that no matter hwo difficult it is, they will find a way. Getting caught at this point is akin to the odds of winning the lottery, but that doesn't make it impossible.

rdb2001

No offense but the people who are still using limewire and peer to peer sharing are crazy anyways. Those places are filled with viruses. Newsgroups are a another story. But its all wrong but to each its own.