Anyone into torrents?

inspiredsports

Here's another thought: How many people read the 8-10 pages of the various software installation agreement documents before pressing "Agree"?

Many allow for detailed "backdoor" communication (and logging) between your hard drive and the software publisher.

I wonder what happens if a music publishing company buys into a company that you have given permission to access your hard drive and compile logs.

txcoastal1

FYI...while setting up an apartment complex wireless internet backbone this I was on an open network . someone had downloaded the Ateam movie from torrent. comcast sent out a notification letter they even put the ip address and the computer name in the letter. We had to reply stating what firewall and black lists we had put in place....or they would fine and cancel service ...it's all part of the new anti piracy laws

bobman1235

inspiredsports wrote: »

Here's another thought: How many people read the 8-10 pages of the various software installation agreement documents before pressing "Agree"?

The latest iTunes store thing I had to agree to on my iPhone was fifty-four pages. WTF.

gimpod

Let's face it boys and girls downloading CD's and DVD's that you didn't pay for is plain and simple stealing. How would you feel if someone stole the fruits of you labor. ?

Fongolio

bobman1235 wrote: »

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.

I can show you statitics that show as file sharing rose, cd sales declined. Can you show me evidence to support your claim that what I say is "blatantly untrue"?

And is there any doubt that Walmart totally changed the landscape of what you could and couldn't buy in a retalil outlet for cd's? Their corporate morals changed what we were "allowed" to listen to on cd.

Illegal file sharing changed the technology. Not the other way around. Unless you argue that first there was the mp3 and then there was Napster. After Napster everything changed and Napster started life as completely illegal. Steve Jobs jumped on board when he saw that the change from file sharing was permanent and he figured out a way to legitimize it AND make money off it. A lot of money. Perhaps you should read the book "Appetite For Self-Destruction - The Spectacular Crash Of The Record Industry In The Digital Age" by Steve Knopper. Besides being an excellent (although somewhat depressing) read, it's very informative as to what has really happened in the last 30 years.

Jstas

bobman1235 wrote: »

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).



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.

Why? Burden of proof. That's why.

You can have the IP address but you cannot view the traffic on the IP address. Not torrent traffic at least. Other P2P traffic, yes, not torrent traffic. You can't see what is in the datastream unless you have the tracker info. To get the tracker info, you either need to have published your own tracker and be able to track where the traffic is coming from or you need to break in to someone's system and get it.

Furnishing and sharing out your own info has been discounted in court several times as entrapment because you can't commit a crime to gain evidence to convict a person of that same crime. Sharing out protected intellectual property, even if you own the rights, is against the law. You need to have written proof from all stakeholders in the intellectual property of the permission to share the intellectual property in the specified manner. Getting that could be easy enough but then you have to trick someone in to using YOUR tracker. At that point, you need to prove criminal intent otherwise, there is not reasonable doubt to even put it before a jury and the evidence gets tossed. It's happened several times so far.

The RIAA and MPAA have both employed hackers to build stuff like rootkits and even actively attempt to break in to systems, gain evidence of illegal activities and then bring suit. Before the trial even starts, the evidence is reviewed and if they have used that evidence they gained through illegal means of active or passive compromising of a system, it's deemed inadmissible and their case goes out the window yet again.

You can easily get this info from a P2P client like LimeWire (which is why it got shut down) because they are doing essentially a network copy across a portal. It operated like Citrix and ran in a self-contained environment where, when you started your client and signed in, you were running in a separate environment that allowed you to access other clients in that environment without being in their domain, workgroup or what have you. It's easy to track that info and find the culprit. It's labeled in every packet header that comes across the system.

In torrents, it's not necessarily masked but it doesn't need anywhere near the level of info needed to get the packets to the right spot. All that info for the file is in the tracker, not the data. So when you are transferring data, all you get is a bitstream from one IP on a certain, unused port to another IP on a certain unused port on another network. The tracker provides the info for where those bits go in the puzzle. It is not illegal to share or transfer a single file packet from a single host. It is not illegal to share a tracker file either. If you are not sharing the complete file to any single leecher in the storm, until a court ruling comes along that redefines that, you are not breaking the law. Because of how the torrents are set up, it is difficult to prove, under current definitions and laws, that anything illegal is happening.

It's got nothing to do with how much money/resources you can throw at the lawsuit. It has everything to do with how the law is defined and how well you can argue your point to convince a jury that wrongdoing has, without a reasonable doubt, happened. So far, that has been tried and failed miserably. Which is the reason they go after tracker sites. The tracker sites list the actual file names and descriptions so you know what it is you're trying to get. The tracker sites that have been shut down haven't been shutdown because of any actual file sharing 'cause all they are sharing is trackers. Most aren't even sharing the actual tracker, just a link to a tracker and you download that tracker from another site which is usually pretty well protected against dunderheads like the Gestapo. They have been sued and threatened with laws suits over intent, not actual wrong doing. They only go after the largest ones because they are the ones to make an example out of. On top of that, they haven't really succeeded in shutting them down just requiring that they monitor the content on their tracker sites more closely. For the 9 or 10 LARGE tracker sites, there are 100 smaller ones, probably thousands of them out there. They won't stop them all and they can't really win a case against an individual user either.

Again, I'm not condoning or condemning. I saw posts made with statements based on incorrect info and I'm trying to either find out where the info is coming from or maybe give someone the right info for the future.

Whether it's stealing or not is not what interests me with this. This isn't just about stealing but more about your personal rights online as well as the issue with allowing those who do not understand the technology to make the laws which garner unfair punishments and give far too much leeway to one side of the coin. On top of that, I work computer systems security for a living and I find the whole idea of torrents and how clever some of these people are, fascinating.


And, Gestapo = MPAA/RIAA I'm not sure why, in the context of my posts, that wasn't clear since I use the terms interchangeably. I call them that because that is how they operate. Like the Gestapo, they use brutal and abusive methods to crush people who do not share their views and refuse to bend to their will. While yes, it may be stealing, at the same time, the MPAA and RIAA are not the police, they do enforce the law and their methods of breaking the law to bring suit, the massive waste of taxpayer dollars to put trial upon trial in the courts and their mistreatment of the artists they are claiming to be protecting is pathetic and smacks of fascim.

Defining fascism as a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power and forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry and commerce and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism. Granted, the MPAA and RIAA aren't a government nor a nation so nationalism and government are not apt terms. However, replace those terms with the idea of a bureaucratic hierarchy within the organizations as a governmental system and their mantra about protecting artists rights yet neglecting to pass on any compensation for the artists I.P. and you pretty much have your control of commerce and industry while aggressively propagating your ideal of a law or systems of laws.

Granted they do so within the U.S. Legal system but they are abusive and unreasonable. I don't agree with their tactics. While stealing is morally and legally wrong, in this instance, I think the term civil disobedience is more apt. Problems like this will always be with us because of that small percentage of people who just want to buck the system for the sake of it. However, this reaches much farther than that small population and that tells me that there is a problem somewhere that society has decided to self-adjust. Either the laws are too prohibitive in the wrong direction or the RIAA and MPAA have a product that they value higher than the market will bear, there is a problem and it needs to be addressed.

Current methods of address are obviously inadequate and need to be revisited in another manner because it's really not getting us anywhere as is.

bobman1235

Fongolio wrote: »

I can show you statitics that show as file sharing rose, cd sales declined. Can you show me evidence to support your claim that what I say is "blatantly untrue"?

And is there any doubt that Walmart totally changed the landscape of what you could and couldn't buy in a retalil outlet for cd's? Their corporate morals changed what we were "allowed" to listen to on cd.

Illegal file sharing changed the technology. Not the other way around. Unless you argue that first there was the mp3 and then there was Napster. After Napster everything changed and Napster started life as completely illegal. Steve Jobs jumped on board when he saw that the change from file sharing was permanent and he figured out a way to legitimize it AND make money off it. A lot of money. Perhaps you should read the book "Appetite For Self-Destruction - The Spectacular Crash Of The Record Industry In The Digital Age" by Steve Knopper. Besides being an excellent (although somewhat depressing) read, it's very informative as to what has really happened in the last 30 years.

- Correlation != Causation. About a billion different amazing things in the technological world happened during that same ten year span that you're talking about. Does increased processor speed also directly correlate to the decline of CD sales?

- I made no comment about Walmart

- MP3s existed before Napster. So did file sharing. Napster was invented in the dorm room above mine (I'm not kidding) at Northeastern while I was there, and before it was released people were already sharing music and movies and everything else.


Hey look, a real study : http://news.cnet.com/2100-1027_3-5181562.html

Jstas

Fongolio wrote: »

I can show you statitics that show as file sharing rose, cd sales declined. Can you show me evidence to support your claim that what I say is "blatantly untrue"?

Yeah, it's called economic downturn.

Jstas

gimpod wrote: »

Let's face it boys and girls downloading CD's and DVD's that you didn't pay for is plain and simple stealing. How would you feel if someone stole the fruits of you labor. ?

ad hominem attack - argument to the man. It's fallacious and plays to personal emotional response in wrong doing. Not exactly unrelated but at the same time, flawed logic. Especially since each response from each person is likely different. To gain any proof of this statement one would need to conduct pretty extensive population polling to not only gain a picture of the majority view and get a discernible pattern but also a sample size large enough to adequately represent the population as a whole. In a population of 350M+ people, I'd expect a poll including at least 475,000 survey respondents or 15% at a minimum.

My response to your question (which is honestly "begging the question" as well) would be -- depends.

inspiredsports

Back to Ben's Q. We've beaten this up pretty good now. Bottom line is it's probably better left alone. Look for clearly free downloads from a reputable source (like Trent Reznor is doing with his newest Nine Inch NAils offering) and leave the rest alone.

gimpod

Jstas wrote: »

ad hominem attack - argument to the man. It's fallacious and plays to personal emotional response in wrong doing. Not exactly unrelated but at the same time, flawed logic. Especially since each response from each person is likely different. To gain any proof of this statement one would need to conduct pretty extensive population polling to not only gain a picture of the majority view and get a discernible pattern but also a sample size large enough to adequately represent the population as a whole. In a population of 350M+ people, I'd expect a poll including at least 475,000 survey respondents or 15% at a minimum.

I'm not sure I understand you argument here but then again it's a moot point. Downloading music, movies and other things that you didn't pay for is illegal plain and simple. It's the law.

My response to your question (which is honestly "begging the question" as well) would be -- depends.

Oh really, Let me put it this way: It's payday and you didn't get your pay check so you go to the boss and ask what's up and he says "I'm not paying you because I don't want to". Same thing not getting payed for the fruits of your labor.

gimpod

inspiredsports wrote: »

Back to Ben's Q. We've beaten this up pretty good now. Bottom line is it's probably better left alone. Look for clearly free downloads from a reputable source (like Trent Reznor is doing with his newest Nine Inch NAils offering) and leave the rest alone.

IMO the only way to fly.

WilliamM2

As stated above, it doesn't really matter whether they can prove you downloaded it or not. They send a take down notice to your ISP, your ISP finds out who had that ip at the time of the infraction, and sends you a take down notice. Too many, and your ISP cancels your service to avoid any lawsuits, or at least Charter does. I know three people it has happened to.

None of them were sued. The ISP can't turn your personal information over without a court order, which would probably require more evidence. But they will shut you off.

Jstas

gimpod wrote: »

Oh really, Let me put it this way: It's payday and you didn't get your pay check so you go to the boss and ask what's up and he says "I'm not paying you because I don't want to". Same thing not getting payed for the fruits of your labor.

No, it's not the same thing. Stop with the analogies. I don't feel like going over the false logic behind your statements ad nauseum.

Jstas

WilliamM2 wrote: »

As stated above, it doesn't really matter whether they can prove you downloaded it or not. They send a take down notice to your ISP, your ISP finds out who had that ip at the time of the infraction, and sends you a take down notice. Too many, and your ISP cancels your service to avoid any lawsuits, or at least Charter does. I know three people it has happened to.

None of them were sued. The ISP can't turn your personal information over without a court order, which would probably require more evidence. But they will shut you off.

You're 100% right. The ISP is a private company and they are free to act as they see fit if the security of their assets as well as the possibility of any illegal activities opening them up for legal liability poses a threat. They do not need a court order to shut you down for violation of your contract agreement.

However, if the RIAA or MPAA want to go after you in court, it's much more difficult for them to do.



These are our rights. Just because a few are abusing them and breaking laws in their names it does not give the RIAA and MPAA license to go to court and do their best to remove those rights from the general population over the wrongs of the few. Stealing music is one thing. However, there are many more legal and valuable piece of intellectual property disseminated through P2P means. Suing the torrents and other Peer2Peer sites/software companies out of existence hurts society as a whole.

The MPAA and RIAA should stop worrying about suing their potential customers and concentrate on making good stuff that people want to buy.

Oh and an example of useful torrents...Project Gutenberg.

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Project Gutenberg is the place where you can download over 33,000 free ebooks to read on your PC, iPad, Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, Android or other portable device.

We carry high quality ebooks: Our ebooks were previously published by bonafide publishers and digitized by us with the help of thousands of volunteers.

All our ebooks can be freely downloaded: Choose between ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats.

No fee or registration is required, but if you find Project Gutenberg useful, we kindly ask you to donate a small amount so we can buy and digitize more books. Other ways to help include digitizing more books, recording audio books, or reporting errors.

Over 100,000 free ebooks are available through our Partners, Affiliates and Resources.

Essentially, they digitize books that have hit public domain and offer them up for free download. There is a torrent tracker site whose link I have at home but can't access here at work. That site hosts the tracker files for torrents of every book that Project Gutenberg has published online. Not only does it provide another avenue but by using a torrent server to aggregate the download files, the bandwidth toll is distributed across the peers and not PG's servers. This greatly reduces bandwidth costs as well as overall costs and allows them to focus more resources on the digitization process.

If the RIAA and MPAA have their way, that will go away and that, would honestly be a tragedy.

ben62670

Just a little note. I only do it to try an album. If I like the album I buy it. Some disks and artists are hard to find, or it is something that someone says is good, but I have never heard. I used to just watch the video on youtube, but the SQ is so poor. I almost bought Jazz at the Pawnshop, but I tried one of the disk and saved myself over $60 on a set of CD's I would never listen to.

PrazVT

Just a little note. I only do it to try an album. If I like the album I buy it. Some disks and artists are hard to find, or it is something that someone says is good, but I have never heard. I used to just watch the video on youtube, but the SQ is so poor. I almost bought Jazz at the Pawnshop, but I tried one of the disk and saved myself over $60 on a set of CD's I would never listen to.

ben - I do the same thing now days - if I like it, I'll order the CD online. If / when iTunes starts offering DRM-free Apple Lossless files, I'll do that too.

Don't feel like you have to explain yourself - but all said and done, be careful.

ben62670

If you want to hear it before hand you have to. If Amazon and others would put up better samples then I would just try those.

inspiredsports

ben62670 wrote: »

Just a little note. I only do it to try an album. If I like the album I buy it. Some disks and artists are hard to find, or it is something that someone says is good, but I have never heard. I used to just watch the video on youtube, but the SQ is so poor. I almost bought Jazz at the Pawnshop, but I tried one of the disk and saved myself over $60 on a set of CD's I would never listen to.

Child **** is a bad analogy, but it is illegal and you don't want those types of files on your hard drive (or records of their download on an ISP's server).

Penalties are maybe not as bad, but why would you intentionally download music/anything to your computer if you are not sure it is legal. Even if you delete it, the record of it's being downloaded to your modem's IP address exists in a log somewhere out there on a server between you and the source.

Whatever, that's just my .02 cents worth.

Bobsama

I've torrented significant portions that I rarely listen to...


My most recently listened to albums (according to Last.fm) and their legal status...

1. Tift Merritt -- See You on the Moon (legal)
2. King Crimson -- Starless and Bible Black (illegal)
3. Iron Butterfly -- In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (illegal)
4. Carla Lother -- 100 Lovers (legal)
5. Birdie Busch -- Penny Arcade (legal)
6. R.E.M. -- Automatic for the People (legal)
7. Blue Oyster Cult -- Secret Treaties (legal)
8. Catie Curtis -- Sweet Life (legal)
9. Tift Merritt -- Home Is Loud (legal)
10. The Perishers -- Let There Be Morning (legal)
11. The Church -- Priest=Aura (legal)
12. Cowboy Junkies -- The Trinity Session (legal)

And the funny thing is, had I not torrented King Crimson and Iron Butterfly, I'd probably never have listened. As a student, money is tight. In the future, I'll almost surely buy the King Crimson discography and perhaps Iron Butterfly too.

Anyways, yes, I torrent. I usually grab FLAC files. As a leech, risk is low. I've never seeded an illegal torrent. In fact, the only torrents I seed are outdate Linux distros or family pictures. I've found that torrenting them is easier and safer than uploading to Facebook or ImageShack.

Jstas

inspiredsports wrote: »

Child **** is a bad analogy, but it is illegal and you don't want those types of files on your hard drive (or records of their download on an ISP's server).

Penalties are maybe not as bad, but why would you intentionally download music/anything to your computer if you are not sure it is legal. Even if you delete it, the record of it's being downloaded to your modem's IP address exists in a log somewhere out there on a server between you and the source.

Whatever, that's just my .02 cents worth.

That record on the ISP's lists has been shown several times to not be reliable. Mainly because, if someone has compromised your system through spyware/adware or other malware, they can spoof your IP address or actually run through you computer to download their ill gotten gains. No record even shows up of it being on your computer. With the way people surf **** and play online, offshore poker anymore it's more common to find an infected computer rather than an uninfected one. It does show up in the server record though. But that's not necessarily definitive proof. If the record on the computer is deleted and was deleted a fair distance in the past, it could very well be overwritten several times over. The only way you are going to find the record of that data passing on to or through your computer after it's been deleted is through some expensive forensics work by an impartial 3rd party to maintain that whole impartial jury thing.

Bobsama

If they can't find local evidence of ill-begotten gains, the record is basically worthless. To obtain a search warrant from nothing but an ISP record is pretty near impossible. It's like obtaining a search permit because your neighbor said that, last week, you didn't stop at a stop sign at the end of your street.

RIAA is like a nosy neighbor who tries to track you from across the country and then goes out of its way to get you in trouble for it.

skrol

Not to mention that torrents are a fantastic haven for some really good viruses.

ben62670

skrol wrote: »

Not to mention that torrents are a fantastic haven for some really good viruses.

Music is pretty safe. It's when you are going after the pirated software you get nailed.

Jstas

skrol wrote: »

Not to mention that torrents are a fantastic haven for some really good viruses.

That's why you verify file size with the MD5 checksum file. If it's more than 5% off, there's something attached. Delete it.

headrott

I have never downloaded any official release instead of buying it. I have downloaded a number of bootleg video and audio CDs/DVDs though.

Greg

PrazVT

Well that is on google's head not ours

inspiredsports

Bobsama wrote: »

If they can't find local evidence of ill-begotten gains, the record is basically worthless. To obtain a search warrant from nothing but an ISP record is pretty near impossible. It's like obtaining a search permit because your neighbor said that, last week, you didn't stop at a stop sign at the end of your street.

RIAA is like a nosy neighbor who tries to track you from across the country and then goes out of its way to get you in trouble for it.

You don't have "cop in a box" cameras in your neck of the woods?

Right now they only have them on traffic lights (and any ticket issued is legally binding). Stop signs can't be far behind.

Sherardp

I don't have a 200meg Fiber line for nothing. I don't download movies, I hate watching copies on the 126" screen, it sucks. Music, mixtapes though is different.

avelanchefan

Well I for one do torrents, have been doing them now for over 7 years. Been caught twice. The first time was on a public tracker (ISOhunt) that my son decided to download from. Got dinged for downloading the music from the video game Vice City.

Second time was on a private tracker from probably the best and "most" secure torrent site out there. That one freaked me out a little bit. Contacted the admins on that one, and a lot of people got hit, and they were planning a little attack of their own when chatting with them about it on mIRC. The admins were not happy that somehow the MPAA got into the site from an invite.

I mostly did it for the Wii, XBOX, and Xbox360 games. I have now moved on from that. But I still check out three torrent sites daily. I have a TV torrent site, a regular torrent site, and a music torrent site I belong to.