Displaying items by tag: File Sharing

There is an old (very old saying); “don’t poke the bear”. It is one of those saying that people toss out to remind us that there are some things that you should just not do. It is a saying that the gang over at the MPAA, RIAA, BSA and even members of the US Government should listen to (maybe we should tell them). Unfortunately for them they have not only poked the bear, but have kicked it too. This group of people is so out of touch with the way the world works that they actually think they can control technological progress. We are talking about the constant attempts to control the internet, communications and anything that travels over it; all in the name of maintaining a broken and outdated business model.

After almost 2 days The Pirate Bay is back online. There is no reason for concern as the problem was just a broken power distribution unit. The power went off on Monday and it seemed like it was just a standard blackout that happens every few weeks. However, the problem was in a power distribution unit at their data center and considering kind of data the The Pirate Bay has they decided that someone who they know should replace the broken part. They decided it was too risky for them to let a random employee from the hosting facility to fix this issue, so they took their time to do it themselves.

While downloading any sort of files via BitTorrent you are sure to leave a trace, and the whole BitTorrent system is under constant surveillance. uTorrent has decided to improve their users privacy by randomizing peer-id's, but the users IP is still public and relatively easy to find. If you can’t or don’t secure your privacy via VPN (Virtual Private Network) you will leave a trail that can cause some legal consequences; that is if you download illegal material. As mentioned above, there are two ways of tracking users, via IP addresses or via peer-id's and so far the peer-id has been a constant for BitTorrent and uTorrent users.

With all of the hype going on around recent news conferences from big companies (like Intel, Microsoft and Apple), not so many people noticed that Demonoid’s domain name servers were updated.  Even though that doesn’t mean they are coming back it is still a small sign that they are not completely dead. Demonoid's tech admin said that they are “not looking into putting the site back up at the moment.” The Site was taken down last month after they were DDoS-ed. Demonoid was hosted in the Ukraine and local authorities stated that Interpol asked them to take action against the site owners that were in Mexico.

Gottfrid Svartholm has been imprisoned in Cambodia for over a week and now it looks like authorities have finally arranged his transfer to Sweden. Bertil Olofsson, Head of the International Section of the National Police said that Svartholm is indeed coming back. The problem is that there are no direct flights from Cambodia's capital Penh to Sweden. Because of this they will first have to travel to Bangkok, Thailand and then fly to Sweden. During the flight he will be escorted by a police officer and official from the prison service.

There was a lot of activity today on Kim Dotcom’s, the famous Megaupload owner, Twitter feed. Dotcom revealed in series of announcements that “We are building a massive global network,  All non-US hosters will be able to connect servers & bandwidth. Get ready. ” and he didn’t forget to put in a word about legal services “They abused the wrong guy. I am going to turn this world upside down. Power to the people. Bye bye Echelon. Hello Freedom.“. After he told us in July that Megaupload will be back bigger, better, faster, free of charge and shielded from attacks, today he asked for “Developers of up/download & file managers, email & fax tools, VOIP & video apps“ to email him in case they are interested in getting early API access.

After an announcement that they will include ads in new uTorrent client, BitTorrent faced a huge wave of disapproval from its users and have agreed to take a step back. The original plan was to force advertisements for every customer in the upcoming version of uTorrent, but they decided to make it optional. If you consider the general opinion on ads, we believe that most of users will chose not to see them.  The ads will come in the form of sponsored torrents that will reach a user base of 125 million active users worldwide. We must mention that BitTorrent asked their users what they think about the forced ads they were about to implement.

As we follow the MegaUpload case and by extension the case of Kim Dotcom and six other managers in the company we are finding out more and more about the US governments case against the file sharing site. Yesterday we published a two part article about some of the tactics used in the case that has slid from being active and interesting into a long siege with the US attempting to stop access to both funds and legal representation. Now we are finding out more about the original “evidence” against the corporation and the seven individuals.

There is nothing like a little drama, just as there is nothing quite like seeing the big copyright holders having to actually prove their case. In no other recent case has this been more important than the in the criminal copyright case against MegaUpload. If you remember the Us DoJ went after the file sharing site some of their managers and the owner Kim Dotcom. Since the seizure of all of their servers property and money there have been some pretty major issues with not only actual evidence, but the warrants, seizure and more. There is even some talk that the DoJ committed some pretty bad procedural errors that might get the whole thing thrown out.

We have always been a strong supporter of net neutrality and in general keeping the internet open as a communication and cultural tool. There are many, many people and organization that do not support this and still more that only pay it lip service. We have found what we can only call hypocritical in one of the more open countries out there; the Netherlands. At the same time they have passed a law on Net Neutrality, they have also ordered ISPs to block The Pirate Bay.