Torrents, Supposedly Anonymous ?

[MrADeveci]

The admin for EliteTorrents, which uses the BitTorrent technology to file share, was hit with jail time. EliteTorrents.com was the largest US based BitTorrent tracker and the administrators of the site are seeing the law put to full use against them. They are expected to be sentenced in December with jail time and fines being the penalty.

The FBI releaased the following, “This groundbreaking case demonstrates the commitment of the Department of Justice to prosecute individuals who use new technologies to undermine the copyright laws. It also serves as an example to those who believe that there is anonymity in cyberspace.”

It was believed that EliteTorrents.com was implementing the “private tracker” technology that is believed to be more anonymous than public trackers and this news will probably hit the BitTorrent community quite hard. You are not as anonymous as it may seem.

This is claimed to be the first criminal enforcement action against copyright infringement on a P2P network setup that utilizes the BitTorrent technology. This doesn't look good for file sharers. The admin. is expected to have a year sentence followed by a possible 2-3 years supervision (under strict watch with hardly any access to the Internet) plus a $3k fine.

With allofmp3.com facing some of the same legal issues, this just sets the standard for future lawsuits and sentencing.

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/7877/

(please note, I do not condone illegal piracy)

[aido]

No P2P system is truly anonymous fella, the problem is the agencies can just fire the same tracker file up as you and they can log everyone's IP that is uploading, it's why I stay away.

None of the systems are actually safe, you never actually know if you're accessing a honeypot, for now it's safer to just leech, not a good thing for the scene to be honest, but less hassle as they aren't doing leechers at the moment, only people actually sharing the content...

Even the topsites which are as secure as you are gonna get have been compromised in the past, think back to the DrinkOrDie days, the general public seem to use P2P a lot, although I'm noticng a trend where more and more people are starting to use pay FTP dumpsites, a lot of them have good stuff pre'd too, just something I've never bothered getting into, kind of lost interest a bit after the old BBS days!

[MrADeveci]

I know what you mean mate, maybe I should have re-phrased what I said ........ I meant, torrents were supposed to be 'safer' ... if you know what I mean.

I remember the IRC days ................ damn, that was like 10 years ago ! :o

I may have to call you up sometime about the news thing we were taling about the other week ;)

[aido]

No danger pal, afternoons are best for me, will get you up to speed on it :)

Haven't actually got your mobile nunmber, I'll drop you a PM mate :winky:

IRC hey, blimey yeah that used to be a PITA finding stuff, I'd sit and scour ****loads of networks looking for stuff, did actually used to get some great channels on there that were hidden on the smaller networks, just used to be a nightmare keeping up with them!

I was a ******* when I was younger back in the 9600 baud modem days for ringing up BBS's across the world, nearly creamed myself the first time I got Elite access on one of those

I do feel a bit sorry for the fellas who get done here, they think they're safe because they're not actually providing the illegal content, just pointers to it, but the industry in the USA has friends all over the place and they're taking the ***** a bit now, starting to infringe on people's rights for content you purchase, that you're not allowed to legally copy anymore!