Shortly after the movie’s 19th December release date an illicit copy of the movie appeared on the Internet. According to producer John M. Jacobsen the recording was made in an empty theater, prompting suspicions that a projectionist was involved.

“I think this is totally reprehensible, and I wish we knew who is behind it,” Jacobsen told Norwegian media. “Anyway we will go after those who have done this quite mercilessly. There are ways to track these things down.”

An investigation was immediately launched by the Filmkameratene studio, to be handled by the Simonsen law firm with notorious pirate hunter Espen Tøndel at the helm. Technicians went to work, systematically going through every copy of the movie sent out to find a match – that meant checking 103 analog and 20 digital copies.

Their detective work paid off. Simonsen said they had not only tracked the correct copy but also identified the IP-address from where the movie was first uploaded to the Internet. They took the information to the police but were notified that the case would not be a priority for them. Simonsen responded by taking the case to the courts.

Simonsen, a law firm which since 2006 had held a license to monitor alleged pirates and collect their IP-addresses, demanded that the ISP connected with the IP-address hand over the identity of the subscriber, something it had thus far refused to do. The request had the support of the Norwegian telecoms authorities which in this case made a special exception to the country’s Privacy Act, enabling the person’s identity to be handed to a group other than the police – if the court agreed.

On May 5th 2009, Simonsen received the decision from the court but the verdict was kept a secret from the public. Espen Tøndel said this was to prevent the possibility of evidence being spoiled. This lack of transparency caused an uproar, with thousands of Internet citizens demanding to know the verdict in this important case. Many argued that if there was evidence to be spoiled, it would’ve been spoiled by now.

Today in 2010, the verdict is still a mystery to the public, but at least one of the parties is disappointed with the court’s decision.

“I can confirm that the case is being appealed to the Supreme Court, but I can not confirm which of the parties has submitted the appeal, as that may indicate what the results were in the previous hearing,” said movie industry lawyer Rune Ljøstad.

The Supreme Court will now have to decide if it’s acceptable for privately owned companies with financial interests in the outcome of a case to be given the power to obtain the identity of an Internet subscriber behind an IP-address, whether or not they committed the alleged offense.

Despite the leak, Max Manus did incredibly well in Norway, breaking all records. Its 2009 theater run yielded almost NOK 200 million across 1.16 million tickets and the DVD sold 400,000 copies in the same year. From recording a loss in 2008, movie company Filmkameratene made a profit in 2009.

“There is a dramatic change for the better for us in 2009,” said producer Sveinung Golimo. “So we are not now concerned about the future.”

Privacy campaigners will look toward the forthcoming Supreme Court decision before sharing in his optimism.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

All that is set to change as Norway’s Post and Telecommunications Regulator has just decided that if a court feels there is good enough reason, it can force ISPs to hand over the names and addresses of illicit file-sharers to copyright holders. This means that they can now be pursued through the courts, or more likely, through “pay up or else” type threats.

The decision to allow courts to force ISPs to hand over file-sharers’ details relates to one particular case brought by Simonsen, a company that is licensed to investigate illegal file-sharing on the web. It’s believed that the decision will be applied to future requests of the same nature.

Post and Telecommunications Regulator director Willy Jensen said it was time to make online a “legitimate and structured place,” not of anarchy. “Cultural life on the web is important, so we can’t allow a situation where artists copyrights are broken,” he said.

Simonsen law firm works with notorious movie industry lawyer Espen Tondel, who previously sent a letter to ISPs ordering them, among other things, to disconnect alleged file-sharers. The ISPs refused to compromise their customers, but with this new decision it looks like they may be forced to do just that in future.

Interestingly, the decision of the telecoms regulator opposes the views of the Norwegian Minister of Education who believes that the music industry should embrace the Internet instead of fighting it. “All previous technology advances have led to fears that the older format would die. But TV did not kill radio, the Web did not kill the book, and the download is not going to kill music.” the Minister said earlier.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

TorrentFries is the codename for a medium-sized tracker that thousands are using right now, and the inspiration behind a brand new site which is a must-read for potential tracker owners of the future.

The TorrentFries blog is a unique insight into the inner-workings of running a tracker, via a retrospective look at the actual developments in the two year lifespan of a real-life site. “We need more trackers out there, and it’s up to you to make them,” says CurlyFries. “So, learn from my mistakes and the things I’ve accidentally done right and you’ll do just fine.”

The first post on TorrentFries sets the scene and provides some of the background, with further posts covering many aspects of running a BitTorrent tracker. From conception, to choosing the right software, staff management, contingency plans, finance, and techniques for getting traffic to the site. Further updates are promised at regular intervals.

TorrentFreak caught up with CurlyFries who told us: “I think it’s something that the torrent community has needed for a while.”

Indeed, the site truly is unique and a very interesting read, invaluable for anyone looking to expand their knowledge before taking the plunge into tracker ownership. TorrentFreak spoke with someone taking his first steps as a site admin and asked him what he thought of the site: “I’m pleased to see this blog. I’ve lurked on the TBDev site for a while but found it a bit intimidating and felt embarrassed of my noob-ness so I’m happy to get these tips.”

CurlyFries is promising an update every 5 days to the site, until he runs out of things to say.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

No more slow downloads, viruses, or adware/spyware required to find the files you are looking for. The Rhever application has a built in easy-to-use search engine to find what you are looking for and does not require you to troll websites looking for .torrent files.

Unfortunately for Rhever, there is no Internet ‘buzz’ around their brand, people just aren’t taking about it, which is a bit strange for such a seemingly great product. If you do a search, 95% of the stuff you’ll find are press releases – and they only appear to be designed to worry people onto their new service.

They play an awful lot on the closure of TorrentSpy in their attempts to generate fear, uncertainty, doubt – and new business for them.

The ‘launch‘ press release lays off most of the scare tactics but is still littered with strange and misleading statements. Rhever spam is posted on dozens of forums, like this one and there are also some ‘interesting’ articles and blog posts around (tagged ‘Rhever’) proclaiming the end of BitTorrent sites. Even Digg doesn’t escape Rhever spam submitted by the company itself.

Also, Rhever use the most contentious music industry statistics to ‘prove’ that other P2P networks are dangerous, and refer to the IFPI as “respected industry analysts.”

If the fear doesn’t work, maybe the comedy angle will get them some subscribers? Rhever has produced a series of (admittedly quite funny) promotional animations showing the benefits of using Rhever over existing file sharing networks. Take a look at the ‘Rhever vs LimeWire’ video below which says that Rhever has done the impossible – and completely eradicated viruses from its network. In its own words:

Each of its [Rhever's] 60,000 servers are run by an administrative team that monitors the servers for any rogue files – viruses, fake uploads and other negative features that are removed instantly

LimeWire vs Rhever

BitTorrent vs Rhever . In this video you will find the secret of the Rhever network..

So it seems Rhever is selling access to good old Usenet and advises its subscribers to use NZB files to get their material, recommending its own (currently non-operational) site to get them – NZB.net.

Considering that Rhever’s strategy is to worry people about the legality of their chosen method of sharing files so much that they sign up, they’re quite cavalier about their own legal position. NZB sites in the US don’t have a great lifespan and offering a full package with Usenet seems very brave.

Finally, here is the KaZaA vs Rhever video:

Rhever is keen to play on the adware bundled with KaZaA, and that proves interesting when armed with WHOIS.

Rhever.com and NZB.net are both owned by a company called JMH Media. JMH Media are the current owners of the MySpaceBar.com domain, which was previously connected to the Scam.MySpaceBar malware. Unsurprisingly, McAfee doesn’t like it at all.

I’m not exactly inspired with confidence to try this Rhever but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained! Time to sign up. Unfortunately, no matter what I put in I get errors, a point not lost on the solitary poster on the Rhever forums:

No mention of prices anywhere. No contract information. No proper terms or conditions. No company information. No privacy statement. No contact information. No postal address.

There is however, a link to the Rhever client, named ’setup.exe’…..

Maybe Rhever’s fear-marketing has got to me? Far from being scared into leaving BitTorrent, all this uncertainty means that i’m too scared to even install ’setup.exe’ due to what might be inside it – an instinct I acquired in my days as a LimeWire/KaZaA user. I think something just backfired.

Well then, another couple of hours wasted looking for The Holy Grail, only to realize that much like the French soldiers in the movie of the same name, I already have one.

What we really need now is a talented animator to make a proper ‘BitTorrent versus Rhever’ video….

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

TorrentFreak spoke to the admin of a BitTorrent tracker to find out how he stays safe, not sorry.

Introduction

“I’m fairly paranoid and I find that’s a good start point” he told us. “I’m probably overly cautious, but if that’s what it takes for me to sleep right, that’s cool. I’m nothing special and not a huge target but I don’t leave much to chance, even though I don’t have much to worry about compared to the really big boys. I don’t claim to be an expert on security, I’m self taught only, but I’m happy to share my precautions with you (and happy to hear from others on where I need to improve!). I know of admins who run their trackers from their parents residential ISP account with little extra care at all, so any protection is better than nothing!”

Below, our admin gives a breakdown of some of the measures he takes to stay safe. Although an experienced security aware user might spot some holes in this series of measures, it’s interesting to see the lengths to which people will go to protect themselves when seemingly, others take few precautions. This article is entirely consistent with the admin’s message, but at his insistence, it has been re-written by TorrentFreak:

Identity is Everything , If you never tell anyone, no-one will ever know

If the authorities/MPAA/RIAA don’t know who I am or where I live, they can’t threaten me. When I’m working on the site I use either an encrypted connection via an Internet connection available in these premises (my name isn’t on the bill, adding another layer of confusion), or a secure VPN over a local open wireless network. For me, hiding my activities from any ISP accounts even remotely linked to me is important, as I don’t want any ISP to be able corroborate anything specific about what I do. If approached by a 3rd party for information (with a request like “can you confirm that such-and-such connected here at XX:XX time”, for example), they know little or nothing about what I’m doing, throwing any gathered evidence into doubt.

I think the recent OiNK bust was quite a wake up call. I for one was laboring under the misconception that copyright issues are mainly civil and I really only thought through evading civil actions. Once the police get involved, they can find out pretty much anything about you from anyone. Thanks to what we learned about the OiNK bust, my improved security measures should save me from the police too, in the small chance they are interested in a relatively small fish like me.

Registering a Domain

The WHOIS for the site’s main domain is protected, for that added layer of annoyance, although even this isn’t foolproof. Our main domain name isn’t owned by anyone who has anything to do with the site, so it’s pointless threatening that person, even if they find out who it is. It might not stop them making threats so just in case the domain owner complies, other domain names point to our server too and every user is aware of these. None of the domains are owned by me.

Paying for Stuff Online

When we need to pay for something we use disposable credit cards, and the same via PayPal. We also have a few other PayPal accounts scattered around which we run unverified, then dump when PayPal start asking questions. ‘We’ is a term I (we!) get into the habit of using often, it’s less focused than ‘I’.

Using Email

Use a few varied accounts and try not to ‘cross contaminate’ them by doing *any* personal stuff on them at all , site business *ONLY*! If your email address typed into Google returns results other than to do with the site, you are taking risks. Ideally a search would produce nothing at all. In addition, I always hide my IP when I pick up or send email.

Security When Using Other Sites

They’re not, but I act as if all file-sharing forums are insecure. I work on the basis that someone on the staff could be a security risk so I make a policy of never discussing site business on other sites, unless I’m asking general questions. I’d certainly never say “I’m the admin of etc-torrents, hi!” on an open forum and wherever possible I use other aliases.

Find a good host you can trust who doesn’t ask for much verification of identity

Our site has had a few hosts since it began a few short years ago. The first was a friend of a friend of a friend who accepted us with no formal contract or ‘paperwork’, paid from any old PayPal account. For a while we just got users to donate directly to the host which meant I didn’t need to get involved at all. The second and third hosts were people who had established (anonymous) reseller accounts with big ISPs. As long as they got their money, they didn’t ask any awkward questions like: ‘What’s your name and address and credit card number?’ I communicate with any host using disposable email addresses (or something like Hushmail) combined with some sort of anonymizing system previously mentioned. I guess even more precautions could be taken, but time is time and we all have to do some productive work in the end!

Server Location

I would never choose a host in my own country and I’d never put a server in a country where my worst anti-piracy enemy is located, the legal wheels turn too easily. But if the wheels do turn really easily and your host hands over your personal details, you will have been clever enough to make sure that they never had the correct information in the first place. Pay your host on time and be a good customer, you need him onside.

Online Identity

Ok, so I may be a proud super admin (j/k!) but I’m not too keen to spread my nick around carelessly or needlessly. I try to resist the ego trip, even though it can be fun using your ‘power’ to get stuff you wouldn’t normally have access to! Remember, even online nicknames can be a source of identification over time. In my opinion, any admin who features himself on Facebook or MySpace in a way that could be linked back to his torrent activities, really needs a psychiatric evaluation. But I know of a couple who do and so far, they’ve survived. Maybe I’m crazy, and they’re all sane. It’s possible!

Security on the Site, Choosing and Dealing with Staff

Any logging on the server or control panel info excludes staff members details, so a rogue moderator with a grudge can’t get any useful information, should someone try to make it worth their while to provide it. No-one on the site knows anything really useful about me, even within my own team. None of us have ever met in real-life, but I make it my business to learn as much about them as possible, just in case. The very closest people to me on the site know my first name, I guess that’s ok?

Wrong!

I never let anyone know anything important about me, no matter how small. Small clues can easily add up to answers when put together like a jigsaw. Let people think they know your real name if you like, it’s functional and no-one really gets hurt. For the survival of the site I believe it’s acceptable for me to lie about my country of origin, my age, marital status and even my sex, but beware, pretending to be a girl will get you LOTS of attention! Look after the small things and everything else looks after itself.

It’s also a good move to encourage my staff to be security conscious too but I don’t force my regime onto them. I find that when choosing staff it’s best to never let people with inflated egos get close to you – they tend to have big mouths too. They generate tension and trouble and YOU will become a target with their boasting and trigger happy attitude. I like quiet, considered staff because i’m paranoid!.. but this style doesn’t suit everyone.

Try making other forum accounts and act like a normal user on them. You’d be surprised at what people will tell you about your own site that you didn’t already know when they think they aren’t talking to anyone important.

Site Donations

Anonymous PayPal accounts (or in a 3rd party’s name) are completely desirable. Although I suggest a level of transparency in showing users how much money in donations are received, making these records public provides a level of evidence of financial income to the site and you just know that this would be used against you at some point, should the shit hit the fan. If you know and trust your host, why not let users donate directly to him?

Don’t Break the Law!

Running a tracker is a gray area in most country’s laws but I try to stick to some basic guidelines to not show blatant disregard for things that are surely illegal in most places. Under no circumstances would I seed any copyright works on my own tracker. I saw an admin recently who had uploaded 4tb of warez and was showing off his stats for all to see. Why take the risk?

If you get a DMCA type takedown request, take the torrent down! The Pirate Bay guys are going crazy at me now I guess (they’re entitled to hold their own style of course!) but I see no point in doing anything unnecessary to annoy copyright holders, especially us small guys who don’t have many resources.

Do unto others as you’d have done to you!

Try and make good contacts at other torrent sites as they can be a valuable source of information. Try to stay out of conflict with others and be known as a problem solver, not a problem maker. A good reputation is a must to maintain admin karma ;) No-one wants online enemies, especially in huge numbers! People with a grudge and keyboard can really fuck you up. Don’t badmouth people to others unnecessarily , you have no idea who they know, who they might tell and what it could lead to.

A few basic tips to hopefully keep the right side of the law

1. If you can’t be identified, they can’t do anything against you personally.
2. Always respond to proper takedown requests. Be courteous, don’t make enemies.
3. Never seed anything yourself and don’t operate a seedbox. If others operate them on your tracker, that’s up to them.
4. Don’t run any kind of pay-to-download service unless you like police attention.
5. See 1

Final Thoughts About Being Anonymous

Being as anonymous as I can is a must for me and it helps me feel safe. It’s probably already past a healthy stage and it does have drawbacks. A few of my staff I love, I really do, they’re great guys but I can never let them know my true identity, which is sad for me because maybe we could become more to each other than just text on a screen. If I thought even one person knew who I was, my confidence in security would fall dramatically.

Being anonymous can be a quite lonely experience as you struggle to keep the very things that make you an individual, private, while constantly having to view people that probably don’t deserve it, with suspicion. But in the end you gotta keep the torrents going, so it’s all good.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Interview

TF: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Please introduce yourself.

CS: My name is Christian Solmecke and I work as a lawyer in Germany at the Cologne Chambers of Lawyers Wilde & Beuger. There I work in the field of Internet law/New Media. Presently we are defending about 500 file-sharers against the German music industry.

Obtaining identities behind IP addresses

TF: We have written many times here on TorrentFreak about the P2P tracking company Logistep and how they track down alleged file-sharers. They are collecting data about internet users all over Europe yet their activities are not welcome in Italy or France. Their methods of getting user data from ISPs seem to questionably legal from a European standpoint (according to Juliane Kokott, Advocate General to the European Court of Justice) – why are they allowed to continue with these actions?

CS: First of all it has to be stated that the statements by Juliane Kokott at the European Court of Justice were construed in various ways. As far as I understood Ms. Kokott, the storage and the disclosure of data is not to be made impossible in general. The disclosure, however, is to be subject to control by the state.

TF: Are there ways for media companies to get data from ISPs about who an IP address belongs to in civil cases?

CS: At present, civil law does not provide a claim for disclosure of identities behind IP addresses for the rights owners (media companies) from the ISPs. For this reason the rights owners choose to gain disclosure via criminal procedures. Based on the data provided by Logistep and other P2P tracking enterprises, an offence is reported. The public prosecution service is obliged to investigate because a copyright infringement is a criminal offence in Germany. Here the legal situations differs from e.g. the Spanish system in which copyright infringements can only ever be committed within a commercial context. As the statements by Juliane Kokott relate to a legal action initiated by the Spanish music industry, they are not necessary fully transferable to all European legal systems.

The big question is if a German counsel for prosecution can, within criminal law proceedings, get information from the ISPs about who a certain IP address was assigned to at a certain time. Many legal practitioners argue that a court order is required before the data in question may be disclosed. In practice, however, the ISPs react directly to the requests by the counsels of prosecution and disclose the addresses without one. Most of the criminal proceedings are discontinued as the counsels for the prosecution regard these cases as petty offences. The music industry lawyers then authorise access to the records and thus obtain the address of the person behind the IP address. After this the civil law proceedings begin.

The future of disclosure/discovery

TF: This situation whereby the court’s time is wasted on these so-called criminal cases – just to get names behind IP addresses – is a terrible waste of public funds. Does this method have a future?

CS: In the future, obtaining disclosure via criminal proceedings is to be stopped. A civil law is planned for obtaining identities behind IP addresses. The rights owners (e.g. the music industry) are to be allowed to make an immediate request from the ISPs as to who a certain IP address belongs to. This rule is to serve the realization of the EU enforcement guidelines.

The big question here is if the rights owners (movie/recording industries) shall have such a claim for disclosure without prior obtaining a court order (which, of course, would entail expenses). Some German parties have different opinions. If I have correctly understood Juliane Kokott, a judicial caveat is an essential requisite so that our German copyright may remain consistent with the corresponding European guidelines.

European Data Retention

TF: On the 10th November 2007 the German Federal Parliament adopted the new EU data retention directive which essentially requires that ISPs spy on their customers and gather data about what they do on the internet. Who can access this information?

CS: Since the beginning of January 2008, the ISPs ARE required to store data about their customers for 6 months. This amendment was brought about by the EU data retention directive. The purpose of data storage, however, is the disclosure of data to the enforcement agencies in criminal cases. This storage rule is designed exclusively for the prevention of terrorism and the prosecution of organized criminals. The German federal Attorney General, Brigitte Zypries has stated that the data isn’t supposed to be disclosed to private parties such as the music industry.

TF: So can this data stored for use in future criminal cases be used in a civil case?

CS: As of today this question remain unsolved. If I have understood Ms. Kokott correctly, such disclosure would not be consistent with European law.

Challenging the accuracy of P2P tracking systems

TF: Logistep use a system called ‘The File-Sharing Monitor‘ which is a fairly secret piece of software based on the Shareaza P2P client. They use this to gather ‘evidence’ against alleged file-sharers yet this system is unlicensed and unaudited for accuracy by any official body or government. Cameras used by the police to detect speeding motorists need to be examined and calibrated carefully so why is the ‘evidence’ collected by this system allowed to be used when Logistep don’t allow it to be examined?

CS: In an exemplary legal proceeding at the Amtsgericht (Munipical Court) Frankfurt, we are currently having an expert clarify if the evidence logged by Logistep is accurate enough to be used as evidence in court. According to our opinion, various possibilities of manipulation exist in the whole chain of evidence.

Privacy

TF: Do P2P tracking companies breach privacy laws?

CS: Up to now, no German court , as far as is known , has ever dealt with the question if collecting data by Logistep infringes upon data privacy law. Of course one could argue that the respective user consciously discloses the data by connecting to the internet. This controversial question is certain to be discussed in future.

Production line threats, risky Germany

TF: Logistep and their legal partners have threatened many thousands of people all around Europe, including the UK. We haven’t heard of any cases going to court. Have you heard of any cases actually going to court in any country in Europe and if so, what was the outcome?

CS : We estimate about 200,000 file-sharers have received threatening letters in 2007, in Germany alone. There a hundreds of filesharers in Germany who are being subjected to claims in courts. Most of this is carried out by the music industry but here the tracking was conducted by Pro Media GmbH and not by Logistep.

Mostly the music industry won these court cases. However, I have knowledge of one case where two numbers were inverted and the wrong owner of an IP address was identified.

Is an IP address alone enough evidence to identify a particular individual?

TF: TorrentFreak is in contact with many people who have received threatening letters in the UK and in many of these cases we’ve seen proof that the bill payer is not the one who committed any offense. Surely this threatening of innocent people is causing a problem?

CS: Frequently the truly infringing parties are not subjected to the claims, but the owner of the IP address instead. In most cases, children were the infringing parties and their parents were subjected to the claims. The parents then are then held liable as it’s felt they contributed to the copyright infringement. In this matter, too, diverging German court decisions exist. Some courts say that parents can only be held liable if they fail to instruct their children sufficiently or secondly, secure the computer in such a way as to render file-sharing impossible.

TF: Requiring that the parents block the use of all file-sharing software is a little too far don’t you think?

CS: According to our opinion, a complete blocking of file-sharing software cannot be accepted. File-sharing software in itself is not illegal. Solely the copyright infringement committed with it is illegal. However, the courts bring forward the argument that file-sharing software should be blocked because mainly copyright infringements are being committed with it.

TF: Accusing the bill payer regardless of if they did anything or not is a very blunt instrument. Are they really responsible for what others do on their connection? Are parents responsible for their children’s actions on the internet?

CS: There are some indications of a move towards a system which limits the liability of the bill payer. For example, some courts deem that simply instructing a child not to download is sufficient. A recent decision of the court in Frankfurt stated that adult family members don’t even have to be instructed or controlled by the bill payer unless they are suspected of committing any file-sharing activity. Another court said that a company could not be held liable if an employee used the company internet connection to commit copyright infringement.

Calculating compensation for rights holders

TF: The bottom line is always money, we know that. What sort of financial punishments are people being subjected to?

CS: The lawyers’ fees are calculated according to the amount of compensation. In standing jurisdiction, German courts presently assume compensation of 10,000 euros per song. German filesharers provide an average of 300 songs to upload. This would mean compensation of 3 million euros per case. Typically, based on these figures, fees for a single warning letter amount to 16,000 euros.

The threatening/warning letters amount to “just” 3,000 euros to 10,000 euros, but they point out that theoretically they are entitled to demand much more. Unfortunately many German courts concede to the music industry. Presently the District Court (Landgericht) has decided that in a case of uploading 50 music tracks, compensation amount of 500,000 euros may be assumed. In my opinion, this is a dramatic situation.

TF: It is indeed. Thanks for your time. Do you have anything to add?

CS: We publish fresh daily news (in German language) concerning filesharing cases on our internet site www.wb-law.de.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Earlier this year, the anti-piracy company MediaDefender was torn apart when its email system was compromised and hackers laid the company’s secrets bare for the world to see. Some months later, the SuperTorrents (ST) BitTorrent tracker has been the victim of hackers. According to a so-called ’scene notice’ circulating at the moment, the 35,000 member site was compromised when the hackers discovered that the admin of ST used the same password on a lot of other sites, as he does on other accounts – email etc. This is the same mistake that MediaDefender made.

The notice begins:

Now this is the story all about how Ersan’s life got flipped turned upside down and I’d like to take a minute and just sit right there and tell you how Ersan became the prince of a town called bel air. This weeks source of lulz is provided free of charge via a site called supertorrents.org and the nicest Administrator you’ve ever met, Ersan.

The hackers discovered that the same password secured the site’s PayPal donations account. They claimed that due to the admin of ST making derogatory comments about a religious group, they decided to donate all the site’s available donations – over $2000 – to an Internet portal dedicated to that same religion.

While the hackers said they had fun deleting and disabling some more minor accounts like the admins YouTube account, they had rather more malice in mind when they managed to get access to the admins Gmail account (same as MediaDefender again). They discovered the admin’s real name, address, age and even the car he drives. After having fun making a mess of the account, the hackers said: “At this point we just deleted his account, because maximum lulz were achieved.”

The hackers then accessed the site’s admin panel for communicating with their host: “we logged into his [hosts] account panel where he hosts the supertorrents seedboxes and canceled them.”

The hackers give an explanation of the way they compromised the site:

“This all began a few days ago. Me and some friends were scoping around supertorrents irc network, when we discovered that they had a public prechan. Upon discovering this moderate scene security problem some friends and I decided to check the security of said prebot, turns out it was not so secure. Upon rooting the box and grabbing the unsecure predb and some scripts to play with we then rainbow tabled’d his password hash”

The motives for hacking the site seem to be twofold. Many Scene members consider torrent sites to be to blame for compromising their security and there does seem to be indication that this provoked the hacking in part. Money is mentioned quite a lot, in that it seems the hackers are annoyed at the level of donations at SuperTorrents, even appealing to the members to consider where their money is going.

It’s also claimed that many torrent sites are getting their releases from the same place and there are suggestions that this supply to the BitTorrent community should be strangled.

No doubt the MPAA will be delighted to hear this.

Update: More information is coming through which suggests that Ersan feels that his address hasn’t been compromised and he doesn’t drive the car the hackers say he does. Ersan says that his host did not cancel the seedboxes and he further says that his Google email (far from being deleted) is actually recovered and the password has been reset. He continues: “From what I can tell, the server that they’re talking about was not rooted, but I’m going to reload the OS on it anyway. This has no effect on SuperTorrents in any way, it just screws with my personal email and finances for a few days. The worst part is not knowing the extent of the damages that have been done, if all that was done was what was stated above then I’ll be fine. If they downloaded all of my emails and chat logs or something then I have a real problem on my hands”

Update 2: The hackers seem to have responded: “Nice attempt at damage control. :/ We do have your real street address, among with a few others you were using. If we were just going to blank it out anyway, whats it matter? Shouldn’t you be happy we did that, I guess we could go with the unedited copies of your name and addresses for the third notice. You just made an order XXXXXXX.com (lol, nerd) would you like us to post the usps tracking number & address? (1) Your address is talked about many times in google chats, once again you’re lucky we dont post them here. You did buy a BRANDX(car), for $12,000. Heres some screenshots (2&3). We could always post more information about it, as we have your entire email box from a few weeks ago until now. Would you like us to? was it your father or brother that you got the carfax for, lol?”

In reponse to Ersan’s claim that the host did not cancel his servers: “Correct, [host] did not cancel your servers, they did however cancel your account. Oh well I guess we can’t win them all.”

The hackers then go on to deny that Ersan has recoverd his Gmail account and provide some sort of screenshot as proof. They also ask Ersan to stop sending ‘forgot my password’ to his own account as “it’s not helping.” They then go on to use Ersan’s real name and in what could be seen as a veiled threat say: “Be thankful Eric, that we didn’t give you the raging that was easily possible with all of the email and google chat logs we have. We PROBABLY won’t release those, but hey you never know! :)”

thanks r10t

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

We’ve carried articles in the past about the Scene. So legend goes, these people are ultra-secretive but of course there’s always a few who like to talk, despite being targeted by law enforcement in cases such as Operation Fastlink and Operation Buccaneer.

Last week, an administrator of a Topsite (an important guy, near to the top of the so-called ‘Piracy Pyramid‘) linked to some very famous release groups, broke cover in a very rare interview with Trond Bie of itavisen.no, seemingly giving away quite a few secrets such as the security techniques used by the Scene and the locations of some of their servers. He also explains why the Scene dislikes torrents and sites like The Pirate Bay, and reveals how some torrent sites manage to get Scene releases so quickly.

In the interview, the Site-Op mocks the efforts of Norwegian police in trying to shutdown the Norwegian Scene, joking that Norwegian law prevents them from being caught in the traditional ways. This attitude could’ve been the thing that attracted the eye of Espen Tondel, the aggressive MPAA/IFPI lawyer who also talked about action against torrent sites recently. RayJoha, a reader of TorrentFreak who did a lot of work on this article, contacted Tondel and asked him a few questions which you can read at the bottom of this article.

The Interview (translation from Norwegian, courtesy RayJoha)

The guy we talked to is one of the few administrators of a Topsite in Norway. He’s in his mid twenties, is a student of programming and has been a part of the Scene for many years. He first became a Topsite Site-Op in 2003 and has since been responsible for adding users, banning ruleset violators and programming automating IRC-scripts.

In addition to being a Site-Op he also has his own home-based server where he downloads movies, games and TV-shows to and from the Topsites. He has a very fast Internet connection which make it possible to download a DVD movie in minutes.

Everybody keeps everybody informed

In addition to categories such as games, software, music and movies we have a news category on the Topsites warning against raids. Lamers are also posted in this news category. It’s also possible to find out who leaks warez to trackers and the P2P community. Those who leak will be banned from the Scene. It is very easy for the police to find those people who are spreading torrents.

It’s not unusual to have 30 TerraBytes of warez on a Topsite. Last summer German police raided a Topsite which had 40 members. The following was posted on Topsites news sections to warn the entire Scene, (from German):

New police action in Germany. This morning 40 members got a visit from the BKA, (Bundes Kriminal Amt). All user accounts etc…. Everybody that has visited the site is in great danger!

I miss you

Laws must change?

Changing the laws will have no effect. The MP3 legislation… the only thing they do is make it difficult for ordinary downloaders/torrent users – those who download from a website, torrentsite, Limewire or with any other P2P software. It would be easier for the government if the police could create their own ‘entrapment servers’, but they could only hurt the Scene, not destroy it.

What’s the probability of getting caught?

HaHa, there’s almost no chance of getting caught in Norway. The Norwegian police cannot do anything illegal to get somebody. By law, they cannot set up servers to entice users to join. All the users in the network know each other. Members of the Scene have joined only through someone vouching for them. I do it because it’s a learning experience and fun. I learn a lot about running servers, programming, (C, C ++, Java and scripting). I started with this before I realized I could have a career in programming. When you learn a few programming languages it’s quite easy to pick up new ones.

His interest in file sharing has been there for years, but it took some time before he became a Topsite Site-Op. He reveals that there are lot of Norwegian ISPs, especially those that deliver fiber connections, that have Topsite servers as customers.

The first time I became a Site-Op it was 2003. I started setting up servers on my own, but at that time we had no affiliation with the Scene. There are lots of sites on Lyse, Hafslund and Sandefjord and I also know that servers are found around university campuses.

The Site-Op tells us that he has no plans of quitting piracy, even when he gets a real job in the software business.

It’s real hard to catch pirates, i’ve learned. I get to understand how it works, making it possible to protect myself against it. Anything that comes to market is cracked even before we post it. There’s no point for the industry in spending millions on copy protection.

The social side of the Scene

Is there a social environment in the Scene or is it just IRC chatting all the time?

Nobody sees anybody. The IRC OPs knows who the others are, but normally we don’t know who they are in real life. We only use nick names.

The Site-Op feels it’s easy to replace persons that are arrested in raids with some exceptions. Game crackers [people who remove copy protection] can’t easily be replaced. There’s just a few people with their skills around.

It’s correct that you can’t easily replace a cracker, it’s a real genius game. Sometimes we might lose everyone, but they’re real hard to catch. Let’s say they manage to cripple the Game-Scene, but they still have to deal with movies and music, and thats something Mr. anybody can do. [Rip movies and music]

The FBI are allowed to set up fake servers, but they are not successful in their endeavors. If the Norwegian police are going to catch anyone they have to adopt the same strategy. You can’t take down Topsites without resorting to illegality: they’d have to distribute copyrighted material. Actually doing something illegal. note: strictly prohibited in Norway

Site-Op’s responsibilities

I don’t know any informants, but there is a strong possibility there are some. If the Scene discovers this the individual will be banned with the help of Topsite news and barred from access to any resource within the Scene.

As a Site-Op he has a series of tasks perform in order for the site to work properly.

A Site-Op adds users and makes sure the ruleset are obeyed. He’s programming and scripting. Linux servers are almost always running glftpd.

Pre-Information

The Site-Op is one of a selected few who has pre-information. Pre-information is information about a specific warez that haven’t been shared with anyone yet. The different groups, (Razor1911, Fairlight etc), have their own folders on the Topsites with not yet released content. The competition is fierce when it comes to being the first to release a movie or a game.

When a “ware” is pre-released a so-called Race starts. A Race means that every Topsite tries to be the first to distribute. In this way the Scene is almost like an economy in itself. First to market doesn’t mean monetary survival but rather the gain of Respect.

There are unbelievably few people that has pre-information. Only Admins can browse all Pre-folders. One shouldn`t sneak a peak on a pre. It’s a rule not to browse on somebody else’s folder.

The Site-Op’s connections with the ‘Big’ people in the Scene

A Site-Op communicates with the real ‘big-wigs’ in the Scene – the ones that really puzzle the game and movie industries. The largest groups use their own IRC servers to communicate, while the Topsites often use Linknet with SSL.

We are in direct contact with Fairlight and the others. We talk to them on IRC. A great proportion of them are Linknet. The largest Topsites have their own servers giving them increased security.

Additionally, the Site-Op reveals that many Sceners post internal information on Wikipedia.

The scene harbours ill feelings towards the torrent community. According to the Scene they are stealing their warez and posting it on trackers. The Scene is of the opinion that it’s real easy to bust people that posts warez on torrent sites like The Pirate Bay.

What happens is that people leak from the Scene to torrent sites just before a release. That indicates that these lamers have access to early sites. And if you are the one of those that does this you are categorized as an Insecure user and therefore banned from the Scene. So, to be clear, this is the only connection we have to the torrent scene.

Dislike of The Pirate Bay

We, as Site-ops, have no fondness for The Pirate Bay. We do not want to talk to the press because it pressures the police to focus on us. As a software programmer I dislike file sharing, because of the small companies that suffers from it. Members of the Scene learn a lot and find it to be a fun experience. The top Sceners buy the music and the movies on DVD anyway.

As an example I have purchased, ( With money ), FlashFXP to support the developers. This is software I use a lot. If you follow this thinking the best thing to do is to get rid of all the file sharers, mainly because it`s so insecure. The police are able to just walk in and identify the sharers. END

Q+A: Espen Tondel, MPAA/IFPI lawyer

Q: Is there anything in this interview that gives you tips on how to get these guys?

Let me put it this way – we have a considerable amount of information about these sites. We know how they work.

Q :Do you think this article [the original interview] will make it easier to bring the Norwegian Scene to justice, considering that he reveals what kind of software and which ISPs they’re using?

From my point of view the Norwegian Scene will be brought to justice, we possess a lot of information.

Q: Norway has always been at the forefront of technology development. Do you think Hollywood should target Norway first?

Norway is obviously a good place for tech development and we have necessary legislation hence Norway is a good place for pursuing these kind of activities. We have the full backing of the Motion Picture Association in doing that.

Did this guy give away too many secrets or is Tondel simply bluffing? Time will tell.

Update: Some people are naturally questioning the authenticity of the guy claiming to be a Site-Op. The author of the original article, Trond Bie from Norway’s ITavisen has just confirmed that he conducted this interview at his home and all the time he was watching the Site-Op doing ‘administrative stuff’ on the topsite which he says, couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Media Defender, a notorious anti piracy gang working for the MPAA, RIAA and several independent media production companies, just launched their very own video upload service called “miivi.com”. The sole purpose of the site is to trap people into uploading copyrighted material, and bust them for doing so.

However, in comments made to Ars technica, Media Defender’s Randy Saaf chose to rubbish our claims, calling it an ‘accidentally un-secured internal project’.

From the emails we cannot be sure that it’s an entrapment site or that it is related to the MPAA (perhaps it’s a legit a P2P video client?), but it does look suspicious.

Unfortunately for Media Defender – a company dedicated to mitigating the effects of internet leaks – they can do nothing about being the subject of the biggest BitTorrent leak of all time. Over 700mb of their own internal emails, dating back over 6 months have been leaked to the internet in what will be a devastating blow to the company. Many are very recent, having September 2007 dates and the majority involve the most senior people in the company. Apparently this is not the first time that a MediaDefender email leaked onto the Internet.

According to the .nfo file posted with the Mbox file the emails were obtained by a group called “MediaDefender-Defenders”. It states: “By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contains information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services,” and “A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account”

Note: The mbox formatted file is circulating publicly on BitTorrent, completely unedited. However, for publication here we have removed the username and password logins for Media Defender’s servers, and replaced them with asterisks and avoided publishing emails of a personal nature, e.g pay negotiations etc. We believe that the emails are the real deal and all the info posted here serves the public interest.

At first we couldn’t believe that it was real, but after we scanned through the e-mails it became clear that it was indeed the real deal. Hundreds of IPs and logins to their servers, lists of their decoy/entrapment trackers, decoy strategies, the effectiveness of their fake torrents (in many cases with a breakdown of success, title specific), high and low priority sites, .torrent watchlists, information on their monitoring of competitors, pictures of their weekend trips and even the anti-piracy strategy for dealing with The Simpsons Movie leak:

# REMINDER: “The Simpson’s Movie” premieres this Friday (to Torrents).

* Decoy files are available in torrents MDfile server.
* Use Public Trackers for pre-Leak releases.
* Create two new trackers for this project.
o Ebert to inform Torrents of these new machines.
* Send a list of 5 release names from each torrent team member to Ebert.
* REMEMBER to input torrent file into interdiction if a real Leak is available this weekend.

It’s impossible to sum up all the juicy details in one post as the amount of information is staggering, so as much as we’d like to tell you about the custom Media Defender software (called ProxyMaster) included in the leak, we’ll focus mainly on the MiiVi case.

Let’s start off with their response to our story about MiiVi.com.

From: Ben Grodsky
Sent: Tue 03-Jul-07 20:19
To: MIIVI; Randy Saaf; Octavio Herrera; Steve Lyons
Subject: MiiVi got Dugg

Looks like the domain transfer has screwed us over:

http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-gang-launches-their-own

-video-download-site-to-trap-people/

http://digg.com/users/AcePup/news/dugg

-Ben

And the response from Randy Saaf himself.

This is really fucked.
Let’s pull miivi offline.

Apparently our reports about MiiVi made them really paranoid. They are worried that reporters will apply for jobs just to find out more about their secret project.

From Ben Grodsky, Media Defender

Subject: care in interviewing

Given all the recent Digg, SlashDot and derivative online articles about MD, be careful what you say in job interviews. Specifically, I’m concerned about giving any information BEYOND what’s already on the mediadefender.com website. I’m worried about someone interviewing for a position just for the purpose of getting more info to post online. For example, if anyone asks anything about MiiVi, just reiterate what Randy has said online (it was an internal video project that we probably should have password protected; we were in no way directed to, or working with, the MPAA on that project; NO part of the project was a honeypot designed to trap downloaders).

Seemingly every last detail of the MiiVi preparations are laid bare for all to see, such as these attempts to deal with some unexpected content. Interestingly, if MiiVi was only an internal operation, where on earth did this content come from?:

From Ben Grodsky, Media Defender

Dylan,

I wouldn’t normally e-mail you directly about MiiVi stuff, because a lot of what I say about this is total crap (so keep that in mind) and Jay filters the crap from the important stuff for you. Is there a way to add this hash/title to the porn filter explicitly?

hash=30755326A4E4B28E678BFF8CB2AF5FC4A4FBF710&i=3 (the title is Celebrity deathmatch: Korn vs slipknot and the exact URL is http://129.47.9.160/zonie/media.php?hash=30755326A)

I just flagged it as Other Terms of Use violation. It’s a warthog (or maybe it’s a big bushy dog, I can’t tell) having sex with a woman and NOT a Korn vs. Slipknot mash-up video.

If this is a big deal, don’t worry about it for now.

And, If MiiVi was an internal project only, how does that sit with these attempts to generate lots of traffic?

Dylan,

Another thing we can do to increase Google and other search engine traffic is to get more link-ins. At the next MiiVi meeting, I’m going to ask Randy for permission to incentivize people to link-in a MiiVi video on their MySpace. Colin is already doing this and it helps the word-of-mouth spread, even if the link-ins are nominal. I’m not sure what we could do in the link-in regard early on, but getting the cumulative ~1000+ MySpace friends of MediaDefender employees to see MiiVi link-ins can’t hurt….

Colin — start coming up with a list the list of keywords and descriptors for hidden metadata entries, per Dylan’s e-mail below.

Thanks,
Ben

One can only speculate what the MiiVi client might’ve been capable of, should it have gotten off the ground:

From: Ben Grodsky
To: Jay Mairs
Cc: Randy Saaf
Sent: Wed Jun 20 23:36:54 2007
Subject: miivi emule spoof

Jay,

Do you think it would break a lot and take more time than its worth for the MiiVi application/installer also to act like Serge’s Proxy client and spoof on eMule?

-Ben

Just about every aspect of the company’s operations on every file sharing network is revealed in the emails, including their fake eDonkey server and Soulseek activities, not to mention payroll issues and discussions about what to eat for lunch.

Of course, Mr Saaf was always very keen to distance MediaDefender from MiiVi, as this email shows:

From: Randy Saaf
Sent: Wed 6/13/2007 12:54 AM
To: Colin Keller
Cc: Ben Grodsky; Steve Lyons; Jay Mairs
Subject: miivi emails

Colin:

Set up your email so that you always reply with a ckeller@miivi.com, dmca@miivi.com, or an info@miivi.com address respectively. I don’t want MediaDefender anywhere in your email replies to people contacting Miivi. Steve and Ben can help you set up your email for this. Make sure MediaDefender can not be seen in any of the hidden email data crap that smart people can look in.

I am setting up ckeller@miivi.com to forward to ckeller@mediadefender.com.

R

They made up fake company (MiiVi Inc.), edited their own Wikipedia entries and hosted Miivi on IPs that couldn’t be traced back to MediaDefender.

Ben E:

Can you please do what you can to eliminate this entry? Let me know if you have any success.

R

From: Jay Mairs
Sent: Tue 7/3/2007 9:59 PM
To: Steve Lyons; Randy Saaf; Octavio Herrera
Cc: Ty Heath; Dylan Douglas; Ben Grodsky; Ivan Kwok (gmail)
Subject: Re: MiiVi got Dugg

Steve, please redirect miivi.com to point to an ip that’s not one of ours (random ip or whatever).

Dylan, if there’s nothing critical running on the miivi server, please shut the computer down. If there is something critical on there, please let us know ASAP.

MediaDefender took down MiiVi.com but it seems they aren’t ditching the project but instead looking for a new name because domain names are really important for internal projects:

From: Randy Saaf
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 4:44 PM
To: Jay Mairs; Colin Keller
Subject: FW: New miivi name.

Do you like vidber.com or bivvid.com or vidorama.com?
——————————————————-
Reply from: Colin Keller

Vidorama would be my first choice (though it is a bit 70’s, kind of like a bad video rental store). Vidber doesn’t spark much interest (kind of ends too abruptly), and bivvid I’m not really feeling.

Or maybe they’ll just change the domain name to something similar, and move things round a little?

Subject: MiiVi (currently on www.viide.com)
From: grodsky@mediadefender.com
Date: 23/07/2007 18:05
To: michael.potts@artistdirect.com

Michael,

When you get a chance, we would love you to start taking a look at www.viide.com. That is the current home of our MiiVi site. We have totally locked-down the site, while we improve the look and feel from the blogosphere saw. Accordingly, to access the site you will need to login using the following login/password *****/**** (we have also made a login/password for Bobby, in case you think we could use some help with our graphics :) — *****/*****).

Once you log on the site, surf over to www.viide.com/download.php to get our application. The website currently acts a GUI for the application. When we go live with the site for the general public, there will also be a java applet that also minimal/one-off type use of MiiVi (but this feature is inaccessible with the current locked-down version of the site).

From: tabish@mediadefender.com
Date: 27/07/2007 23:56
To: MIIVI@mediadefender.com

I’m not sure if you guys are planning on going live with the Viide domain name….but in case you are….you might want to remove all references of Miivi on the homepage of viide.com before it gets Googled or someone public comes across it. For example, at the bottom under terms of service and on the HTML Title where it says “MiiVi, Inc”, and probably the default image of the skyscrapers (which are the same as Miivi).

Also, the WHOIS information is still linked to MediaDefender, Inc.

-TH

Yes, they need to get on top of the WHOIS situation before someone sees it.

After the MiiVi incident, we later reported that Media Defender owned the p2p.net domain name. A little later, our claims were proven correct when they made the p2p.net domain link back to our own article, which it still does to this day. We took this as a compliment and this is what the guys had to say about it:

From: Ben Grodsky
To: Jay Mairs; Ben Ebert; Octavio Herrera
Sent: Fri Jul 13 12:18:02 2007
Subject: FW: p2p.net on digg and torrentfreak

this is too funny. torrentfreak accused us of buying p2p.net on ebay earlier this year. Randy found out and redirected it to that vary article on torrentfreak. now there’s an article about the redirected p2p.net!

We admit it, it was quite funny at the time and proved that even anti-piracy guys have a sense of humor but sadly, it’s doubtful that the comedy will extend through this latest episode, as it’s expected that thousands of file-sharers will dissect and disseminate their commercially sensitive data into every corner of internet.

For a business model that gets its life-blood from piracy, in a twisted way this leak is likely to help generate even more business and develop the market. Funny old world.

Update: MediaDefender Phone Call and Gnutella Tracking Database Leaked

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

In addition, it turned out that US authorities had threatened to put Sweden on WTO’s black list if they didn’t take the Pirate Bay down. This threat should have have made the Swedish government move even quicker. By now we all know that the raid was highly unsuccessful, the Pirate Bay Bay was back in action within three days, and it still is. However, this does not mean that the MPAA and US authorities have given up their goal to take the Swedes down, they continue to lobby for their cause.

MPAA’s John Malcolm said in a recent interview with The Guardian: “The bottom line is that the operators of The Pirate Bay, and others like them, are criminals who profit handsomely by facilitating the distribution of millions of copyrighted creative works.”

Pirate Bay admin Brokep, also known as Peter Sunde, is used to claims like this by now and responded: “I don’t like the word untouchable, but we feel pretty safe, The US government is losing popularity every day in Europe, and people don’t want to see us give in to them.” Piracy is part and parcel of the lifestyle of today’s youth according to Brokep. “I started off copying disks on my computer when I was eight or nine,” he said. “You should never tell people where they can’t go or what they can’t do.”

It turns out that the legal actions following last years raid probably won’t be sufficient to take down The Pirate Bay so Hollywood is looking for other means to make The Pirate Bay look bad. Over the past few months they were accused of willingly facilitating the distribution of child porn, having ties with right-wing extremists, and being millionaires thanks to some very lucrative advertising deals. None of this is true of course, but for now it’s the only weapon the antipirates have.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

We are delighted to reveal that Logistep’s European tour is not running as smoothly as they would like. Bullied file-sharers have stood up, made a noise and governments – and the Courts – are listening and taking strong action.

Italy

A few months ago, Peppermint Jam (a German record company) and Techland (a Polish videogame company) recruited Logistep to help them carry out a massive anti-P2P campaign in Italy. As usual, they offered guarantees to ISP’s of the accused that their monitoring software is flawless in its data gathering and using a relatively unknown law firm from northern Italy, sent out 3636 threatening letters to P2P users who they accused of breaching their copyrights.

Each recipient was sent a ‘pay up or else’ letter demanding around 330 € for the SINGLE downloaded song and a signed declaration that they would never download any copyrighted material ever again.

Many people got very scared by these demands and paid up, not realizing that paying up would be seen as a clear admission of guilt. However, as the news circulated, national media got involved and so did others – consumer and civil rights associations, up to and including the government.

On July 18th, Rome’s Law Court dealt a massive blow to the Logistep business model when it approved a petition by two important Italian ISP’s (Wind & Telecom Italia) to keep their customer’s personal data secret when approached by companies who tracked their customers using the Logistep software.

The Court decided that the Logistep software violated the privacy of those monitored so the information cannot be used in a lawsuit. In Italy, it is only permissible to breach the privacy of electronic communications in extremely important cases. P2P file-sharing, it has been decided, is not important enough to be included.

According to privacy laws, a private citizen or a company can only harvest personal information to defend their rights in Court and this is only allowed if the harvesting has been done in a legitimate way and if the contender (in this case Peppermint Jam and Techland) have already succeeded in obtaining the data. Clearly in these cases, they had not obtained all of the information as they were requesting some from the ISP’s.

This is a major defeat for those who attempt to enforce copyright in Italy. The Court appears to have established that those who conduct private investigations on P2P networks are doing so illegally and have no legal standing to demand customers private information from their ISPs. If they cannot get the information from ISPs, this means they have no address to send their threatening letters to. No threatening letter means no-one is bullied into paying up extortionate amounts of money whilst being denied a fair hearing.

France

A press release dated 7 July 2007 brought the good news to French P2P users accused of downloading the ‘Call of Juarez’ from Polish publisher ‘Techland’. Through their Parisian lawyer, Techland managed to obtain the names and home addresses of those it accused and sent out their usual threatening letters, this time demanding 400 € to leave their victims alone.

However, after complaints by lawyers and French ISPs, the orders which made it possible for Techland to obtain P2P users identities and home addresses were withdrawn. Essentially, France agrees with the Italian stance that electronic privacy is far more important than anti-piracy activities.

According to the press release, “The processing of data in personal matter relating to suspected infringements or real supposes that a preliminary authorization of the CNIL (Data-processing National Commission and Freedom) is necessary.” Techland did not gain such approval to monitor French internet users.

Additionally, it appears the Court was not happy that citizens were not allowed to exercise their rights as the French legal system allows as they were denied “a contradictory procedure making it possible all the interested parties to be represented in front of the judge within the framework of the use of a peer to peer software”. In other words, people were denied a fair trial but for those who have already paid their seemingly illegal 400 € fine, all is not lost. The cancellation of the orders for Techland to obtain private information means that the accused can now exercise their legal rights to a proper hearing with the possibility of getting their money back.

In future, any businesses or individuals wishing to breach standard privacy laws to monitor file-sharers on the internet, must first get their activities sanctioned by a judge.

UK

Although there has been no comprehensive legal review of Logistep’s actions in the UK, if they continue along the same road, it’s just a matter of time. According to a user on Slyck Forums, the Government-run and highly respected UK Trading Standards has declared claims against UK citizens as “very shakey” as lawyers “offer no evidence that the game was ever on your hard drive” and they accept that “there is no proof that you, or your computer were involved in offering the game for download.” Without such critical evidence, it’s staggering that lawyers have the nerve to even accuse people and clearly, a Court case is the very last thing they want – that’s why they rely on the bullying tactics.

The German courts have had enough of Logistep and their partners, as have the Italians and the French. With UK Trading Standards stating that cases against UK citizens are ‘very shakey’, things are looking bad for the Logistep business model.

Add to that the statement last week from the Advocate General to the European Court of Justice declaring that EU law does not allow Internet Service Providers to be forced to reveal the personal details of people accused of file sharing, it seems defeat for Logistep and their partners may be just around the corner.

We would like to thank Max Marino for his invaluable input to the Italian section

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Whether they like it or not (and many members don’t) ‘The Scene’ became the number one unofficial supplier of unauthorized media to the internet, distributed by others via P2P protocols and networks such as BitTorrent and ed2k. This position attracted a lot of unwanted attention from law enforcement and resulted in high profile busts such as those in Operation Fastlink and Operation Buccanner. The existence of ‘The Scene’ was no longer a closed secret, with people even making internet TV shows about it.

In an interview with a Scene releaser (a person who puts the content onto a server called a ‘Topsite‘) we get an insider’s view of The Scene and get some interesting comments about P2P.

The Interview (loosely translated from German)

Q: The scene is regarded of many people as the “Warez Scene”. What is the “scene” for you?

For me the scene is like a competition, the best group has the highest status. The real scene is just a small elite group. Most of the “scene web sites” have nothing to do with the scene. They only try to make as much money as possible, and bring the real sceners in danger.

Q: How did the scene recover after the large busts in the middle of 2005?

The scene does not only go back a few years, it goes back to the 1980’s. What I mean by this is that the scene can be weakened but after a short time it can regain its strength. Old groups go and new ones replace them.

Q: Since then did the competition between the Groups grow or decrease?

As I said, after the busts in 2005 new Groups came. Many disappeared but nevertheless some turned into well-known Groups.. The competition remained about the same.

Q: How does it look with the servers? The servers that were seized at that time, were great machines. What about the 11Tb monster?

These servers stand abroad and with the most wondrous methods to hide them from the law. Some interesting hiding methods circulated before the raids.

Q: To your knowledge, how many people were arrested?

Actually none. Every now and then so-called “szeneNfo” files circulate in which people are warned. That prevents people from getting arrested.

Q: Is the rumor true that a married couple were condemned because they were both group members?

I hear the rumor today for the first time however why should not that not have passed?

Q: Why did the groups start getting attention?

In former times as the releases did not leak onto file-sharing networks, no-one was really interested in us as we were just a few computer enthusiasts exchanging material in a small circle. Since then everything leaks to P2P and the public gets access, so we are hunted [by the authorities]

Q: Are there any measures to prevent releases for leaking?

Briefly after the raids we made some coded releases, there were no leads however.

Thank you. Those were my questions, now come the visitor’s questions.

Q: Joe: Where do the programs and movies come from?

They come to the hands of the Groups in many diverse ways. Either someone buys the things, or maybe they work at the manufacturing company or obtain it from a rental company.

Q: Jackbox: In which countries are you hosted?

Actually in all. But to use a server in countries like Germany or Austria is highly dangerous.

Q: Jackbox: How did you become a member of The Scene?

A good friend invited me as thanks for helping with the group.

Q: Rene: Is there a big chance of being caught?

It all depends how one behaves. Someone who has servers in Germany and sell copies has a bigger chance of getting caught than someone who is more careful, has its server abroad, and doesn’t get involved with people he or she barely knows.

Q: Denis: How do you ensure that the names or data associated with persons involved do not become available, as everyone leaves traces on the internet, even when surfing?

I would leave this gladly unanswered. What I can say however, is that naturally the servers do not have any log files.

Q: Denis: Why would someone be involved in this activity when it is such high risk? Is it money? Power? Fun?

The latter. Money? No. This “power” does not bring me in my material life anything. Thus, it is the fun that makes this “hobby” makes so interesting.

Q: Denis: As a site admin, I am interested in how the servers are secured?

Host the server in a “safe” country abroad, don’t keep any server logs, and make sure the non removable disks are encrypted.

Q: Robert: How is it possible to guarantee that no-one infiltrates the group?

There is no one way to do this, it’s down to experience. One should know each group member over time and work together.

Q: Robert: Is there any software which one could not crack yet?

Clearly. But since I am not active in this area, I cannot give you any information.

Q: Robert: How much traffic do you register on your servers?

It’s naturally different from server to server, but the traffic runs into tens of Terrabytes.

Q: Robert: Is there competition between the different groups and if so, how does this manifest itself?

Clearly there is competition, and everyone wants to be the best and fastest. This is apparent from the NFO files which show that the groups do not greet each other in a particularly nice way.

Q: Robert: What do you think about the claims of the software industry which say they have huge losses from piracy?

Each clear-thinking person will probably believe me that these “losses” are not due to the scene. Just because someone downloads an expensive piece of image editing software it does not mean that the person would have purchased it. But the software industry states that each pirate copy is equal to one lost sale.

Q: Christoph: Why is it not possible to close the holes in the Scene which allow the releases to leak to P2P networks?

Since there are many people in the scene, there are naturally also many leaks. That is probably the largest disadvantage of the scene becoming so large. The releases are uploaded to P2P networks without the consent of the Group.

Q: Christoph: It is clear that the Scene has a hatred for P2P. What do you think about the FXP and invite-only torrent sites?

The FXP scene mostly release only into the P2P nets. These “invite only torrent” sites belong just as little to the scene as other warez sites. They make money with the fact and bring the Groups into danger.

Q: Cyberfreak77: What will happen if one day copy protection is abolished and it is possible to copy content without concern of being punished?

The release groups will still try to be the fastest to release!

Q: Cyberfreak77: Do you think that the content owners quietly realise that illegal copying and file-sharing gives publicity to increase DVD sales?

I do not think this is impossible. If I see a good film then later I will buy it. I download to test the film to see it is worthy of being bought.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

HA: Aye. It’s taking some getting used to, being the chairman of an organization with so much potential. It’s a common factor among us in the pirate movement that most of us have never been involved in politics at any high ranks. Although there are a few downsides to that, it seems to work in our favour. We are able to do things differently because we don’t know any better, but it turns out that we tend to to things more efficiently than other organizations and
parties.

TorrentFreak: When was Young Pirates formed?

HA: Just this weekend actually. That’s when the first and founding board meeting was held. The farthest distance between board members is well over 1500 km, so we held it online, inside a collaborative text editor. That way the protocol was more or less ready for publishing when we were done. We just passed the 1000 member limit by the way, securing government grants.

TorrentFreak: What’s your answer to all those who might claim that Young Pirates is established only to bring government funds to the Pirate Party?

HA: It’s a healthy distrust! It’s not a secret that we and the Pirate Party work towards a common goal, and that we will closely coordinate our efforts. The Pirate Party used up the little resources they had and more (members chipped in with considerable funding for material) in the election. As much as we’d want to help them out, we can’t just push money their way. We will receive government funding for our activities, and we must openly show where our money goes. To just give them money would not be acceptable.

They will however provide us with bandwidth and a system to manage our bookkeeping and memberships – in fact, they currently do all of that for us, and we will pay them for that. It will be considerably less than we would pay a commercial company, so we are really pulling the longer straw in this agreement.

TorrentFreak: The Pirate Party and the surrounding movement has been a very grassroots initiative. Work is almost exclusively done out of idealism, without monetary incitements (the members doesn’t get paid). Does that influence the kind of things you can do, i.e. can you use a more aggressive or provocative approach than other, more established organisations, as you have no political careers to protect?

HA: Actually, in a certain way it rather makes us less aggressive than other political parties. We have always had the agenda that the goal is to get these points of view and argument taken into account when decisions are made. We strongly feel that a root cause behind today’s intellectual property laws, is that the politicians don’t fully understand the dismay that their agenda is causing. We want them to understand this, that’s primary. To get into parliament, is secondary.

That’s why part of our work will be to talk to other parties, to present our arguments and influence them incorporate our ideology into their agenda. I can’t really think of another party that would do that.

TorrentFreak: How have you been able to do things more effeciently than other organisations and parties? Can you use your relative inexperience as an excuse to solve problems in a non-conventional manner?

HA: Absolutely! We do it all the time. The founding board meeting was held with a combination of Google Docs and a group chat. The order of our candidates when the Pirate Party ran for election in September was decided by an online direct-democracy election in which all members where allowed to participate. The membership to the party requires no physical paperwork, and is handled through an online registration and payment through SMS. We are able to register members in real time, and member can change their own personal information by logging in to our system. That saves us a lot of work.

The pirate movement works much like an open source project, and has more or less the same pros and cons. During the election, the agenda was; if you have an idea for a campaign – just do it! As long as at least three party members thought that something was a good idea, it was a “go”. This is how the Young Pirates federation will function as well. On the other hand, nobody likes the boring stuff – like bookkeeping and filing. One of our first priorities, if we get
funding, will be to hire someone to do that for us.

TorrentFreak: What is the main purpose of Young Pirates, and what will their activities be?

HA: Of course, we will be promoting free information, abolished patents and a protected private life. Bringing these points of argument into the public debate and into parliament in Sweden, Europe and Worldwide is the main purpose of Young Pirates. But exactly what will be done is up to the members.

The Young Pirates federation is a sort of umbrella organization for many local Young Pirate organizations around the country. They do the real footwork. The federation board will look over the budget, act as a central node, set out guidelines for the organization and coordinate bigger efforts. A few early stage ideas are concerts featuring pirate-friendly artists, campaigns promoting open-source for government institutions, educating the public about file-sharing techniques and setting up pirate organizations at schools and universities. Being a youth movement, we can be more provocative and
edgier than the Pirate Party.

TorrentFreak: How is Young Pirates organised regionally?

HA: In local, semi-autonomous organizations with separate budgets. In rough terms you can say that the members belong to the local organizations, and the local organizations belong to the federation

TorrentFreak: What are its formal ties and relations with the Swedish Pirate Party?

HA: There are close ties between the two. All members so far have been recruited there, and many local organizations require their members to also be members of the Pirate Party. Actually, everyone that becomes a member of Young Pirates is offered a years paid membership in the Pirate Party. Without the Pirate Party, there would be no Young Pirates.

TorrentFreak: And finally, what is in store for Young Pirates in the near future? What are the immediate plans, and when do you think the Swedish public will start noticing your presense?

HA: The board is on a short hiatus until after christmas. After that we will start to build the organization from scratch. We will form work groups to deal with the most basic areas; building a website, defining standpoints and establishing a presence in schools and universities. There is a lot to be done! The first annual annual Young Pirates federation congress will be held in March or April. Before that we will have to have a sturdy organization up and running. How soon until we start making noise will be up to the members, but judging by the previous pirate achievements, I’ll bet it won’t be long.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The documentary attempts to summarize Hitler’s (secret) life including WWII in only 52 minutes, which is impressive. Most interesting are the interviews with Hitler’s sister, and other people who were close to him.

The historical facts may not always be correct, but the documentary is definitely worth watching if you’re interested in the story behind Adolf Hitler and WWII.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Unfortunately not everybody knows every movie listed, so you probably want to check some extra info on IMDB. To make your life a little easier, skender wrote a script to list all the movies on publicdomaintorrents by their IMDB rating.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Seedler was founded a while back but was actually brought to life almost three
months ago. The reason for it was to create simply the best site around due to
the fairly low quality of sites at the time of conception, though now it seems that
we’ve got some competition. We’re working hard to make Seelder the best and
we’re only getting positive feedback about it so far.

Q2. What makes seedler so unique?

Various things.

Its speed — it was built from the ground up with performance in mind so that it will
scale well and our perform any other site as demand rises.

Its automatic categorization — take a look at the TV category, its size, selection
and completeness is unparalleled (Though we’re still making tweaks, it will be fully
working shortly).

Its automatic spyware removal features, we fight spyware and crapware and
proactively remove thousands of torrents. Torrents removed cannot return.

Its ease of use and its clean and lightweight design.

Its lack of advertising whatsoever.

There are many under the hood features which I can’t elaborate on
because that would undermine their effectiveness. Though if you are a
regular visitor to the site you just might notice them if you have a
sharp eye. ;)

Also since most of the torrent site operators are so inquisitive and
just “snatch” our good features into their sites within days we prefer
to keep it quiet about the internals. ;)

Q3. How many torrents does seedler list at the moment?

At the moment we have a little over 150K, though we’re growing on a
daily basis at an average of 2000 per day.

Q4. How many visitors does seedler get, and how big do you want to grow?

It doesn’t get as many as we would have liked it to get. We obviously
want to be the biggest and best, as everyone else does.

Some of Seedler’s secret features would only become effective as it
grows more.

Q5. How is seedler funded, will it stay ad free? do you get any donations?

It’s a personal project of a group of friends, it’s already getting pretty
expensive for the “reward” we are getting in return. We’re not looking
to make money, we’re just looking for the appreciation on our good
work and the knowledge that we run and operate the best site out there
without compromises.

We don’t ask for donations at the moment. It may happen in the future.

Q6. Did you get any legal threats? How did you handle those?

Yes, we do get them from time to time. So far we’ve simply ignored them
for the reason that we believe information should be free and downloads
are not theft, This is simply the way of the 21st century, live with it
or don’t live with it.

Unbiased studies also show that the popularity of free downloads affect the
“industries” in positive ways, so then we feel even stronger regarding
our position.

The MPAA/RIAA/BSA are commercial organizations, their sole existence and
profits depend ONLY on how WELL they can SCARE the industries into
giving them funds and power to manage, run and execute campaigns to
scare people. Therefore making stock holder richer and richer with
every success.

Q7. Are you planning to fix the crappy translations :)

Yes! Unfortunately no one has offered help nor feedback about any of the
translations so far.

Q8. Do you have any future plans for the site?

We are making changes on a daily basis, our to-do list is huge and is
constantly growing rather than becoming smaller. We’re understaffed
and under-supported and are forced to do the work ourselves in our own
free time.

We have a bunch of great features that don’t exist on any sites, more on
that in due time at seedler.org

As for plans, we’ve got plenty, time will tell if we are able to execute
them.

Q9. Do you drink beer? Which brand?

Yes, we drink Seedler! our own home made beer. Just kidding.

Q10. Anything to add to this?

We always have a lot to say, so whenever you want to listen to some
rants just give us a buzz. But seriously, we feel that we are different
from most other sites;

1. We will never promoted or will promote spyware on our sites, in any
shape or form. There’s a new trend in the torrent scene and some of the
most popular sites seem to be ACTIVELY promoting spyware/adware, in
the shurt run this hurts hundreds of thousands of their visitors but in the
long run it would hurt them, too. Should we decide that we go into advertising,
we will never make it excessive.

2. We are here to stay, unlike various sellouts out there we are
planning to fight whomever fights us. In the long run the free man will
win.

In order to have the motivation to keep working on Seedler and paying
its costs without intoducing any advertising we need everyone’s help in
making it more popular.

Give them a visit, It’s worth it!

Seedler is down at the moment

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.