Just over a month has passed since the first stable public release of the software and PeerBlock has now managed to clock up more than 100,000 downloads. To mark this milestone, TorrentFreak caught up with Mark from the project for the lowdown.

Mark told us that the creation of PeerBlock was inspired by him upgrading his PC from 32 to 64 bit in order to utilize 6gb of RAM. Everything worked fine – until he tried to get PeerGuardian (another IP blocker) to work.

Having hacked away and jumped through hoops to get around driver-signing it would still only work half the time and often crashed without warning. As a software engineer who has worked in the commercial sector for more than 13 years, Mark – who admits to being “an arrogant bastard who truly believes he can do just about anything better than just about anybody,” decided he could find a solution. It was “put up or shut up time,” he told TorrentFreak.

Noticing that the PeerGuardian code was open-source but hadn’t been touched for a couple of years, Mark contacted another developer who had the same thing in mind, but having heard nothing back, he went at it alone.

“I started setting up a Sourceforge.net project for it so we could get free source-control, but they took too long to set it up for me so I instead created a project over at Google Code where it was ready within minutes,” he told us.

Having heard from a few people who were interested in helping out with the development side – “night_stalker_z” who’d earlier started trying to hack the PG2 code into shape, “DarC” / “DisCoStu” who wanted to help out with fixing up the installer, XhmikosR who rewrote the installer, and some testers, things moved forward.

After facing troubles due to the lack of a “signed driver” for 64-bit versions of Vista (which resulted in Mark having to set up a registered company before they were allowed to buy a $230 code-signing certificate), a couple of blogs wrote articles on PeerBlock which attracted some much-needed publicity to the project. This resulted in 10,000 downloads in just one weekend.

“We’re still getting donations from people and we now have enough to pay for next year’s annual code-signing certificate, and we’re saving up to be able to rent our own VPS with full root access etc, upon which we’ll be able to build a ‘real’ online-update system, a custom web-app to tie our forums/issue-tracker/website all together, and some other neat things,” Mark explains.

The first stable release of PeerBlock came out on September 27th, and as of November 5th had clocked up an impressive 100,000 downloads. The site now receives up to 7,000 visitors each day.

Aside from fixing one or two bugs, the team has lots of new features planned for PeerBlock. Anyone that has tried to surf the web with a blocklist in place will know how painful that can be, so PeerBlock will have some new features which allow the “whitelisting” of certain apps, such as a browser, the creation of a proxy server to let users configure PeerBlock to listen on certain ports, possibly an integral “AdMuncher” style ad-blocking feature on a per URL basis (as opposed to just an IP-address), and an encrypted chat feature.

TorrentFreak asked Mark why users should choose PeerBlock over the competition.

“Well, first off we need to ask ‘Who IS the competition?’ The only ones I’m really aware of are: Protowall by the folks over at Bluetack which is closed-source and I don’t believe was ever updated for Vista, and Outpost Firewall, which is closed-source and basically just a hack add-on to a more professional firewall product,” he responded, while noting that uTorrent’s built-in IP-filtering feature only handles one manually-updated list.

“We protect your entire machine, and give you the option to try out any P2P app you want – this freedom of choice is a very important thing, I think. And since it does everything automatically, including list-updates, it’s one less thing to think about,” he added.

Another important question relates to the blocklists that have to be used in conjunction with PeerBlock in order for it to block anything.

He told TorrentFreak that he’s a big fan of iblocklist, who serve up a staggering 10TB of blocklists every month for free. The site doesn’t create the lists, but does offer those from Bluetack, including the Level1 list (renamed to ‘P2P’ in PG2/PeerBlock, which contains both Gov and Anti-P2P IP-addresses) and others.

Mark admits that even in a best case scenario, the available blocklists aren’t 100% effective. That said, there have been studies which show that using blocklists along with software such as PeerBlock can help speed up downloads, but no-one knows how many of the potential “bad IPs” are covered by currently available blocklists.

P2P aside, Mark says there has been feedback to suggest that PeerBlock discovered a Conficker infection on a user’s machine that their anti-virus programs missed, and can also stop ads appearing in browsers that lack in-built blocking.

One other exciting thing for the future of PeerBlock is porting it to the Mac. Mark says they’re saving all the donations for additional development and this is the most-requested request right now.

Users of PeerBlock are encouraged to give as much feedback as possible to Mark’s team, via their forums, IRC (#peerblock on freenode.net) or email.

PeerBlock can be downloaded here.

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

What bothered us the most is that the item conveniently mixed file-sharing with commercial piracy, while linking it to organized crime, human trafficking and child prostitution. This setup is a bit misleading to say the least. That aside, the claimed role that piracy plays in organized crime is based on an MPAA-funded study we have previously debunked.

The MPAA’s stance didn’t really surprise us that much though. Their job is to manipulate public opinion in the hope that less people will engage in illicit file-sharing. But it was disappointing to see that CBS didn’t care to bring someone in to counter the arguments of the anti-piracy lobbyists.

No, instead they managed to get director Steven Soderbergh on, who joined the movie industry trade group by providing more twisted facts. Reciting the MPAA’s propaganda, Soderbergh said he wished the Internet was never invented. “Piracy is costing Hollywood $6 billion a year at the box office,” he told the reporter, adding that “as the margins of profit shrink, fewer projects get made, which means fewer people go to work.”

These statements are both inaccurate, or at least highly doubtful. The $6 billion statistic Soderbergh is referring to actually comes from an MPAA-funded report for which the sources were never revealed. In fact, the MPAA itself had to release a statement saying that they “made a mistake” with one of the figures, but they continue to use the report nonetheless.

Similarly, Soderbergh’s claim that “fewer projects get made” was debunked only last week after Sony boss Michael Lynton made a similar statement. The opposite seems to be true. Hollywood is far from bankrupt. In the past decade box office earnings actually increased significantly.

The only piece of the entire item that was pretty accurate and worth watching was the explanation of how BitTorrent works. John Malcolm, a former Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA shows that his work for the trade group paid off, as it turned him into a BitTorrent expert (video below).

The entire piece is disappointing nevertheless. It fails to ask the questions about why people download movies illegally and acts as if the movie industry is a powerless victim. Perhaps Hollywood should start to see the millions of illegal downloaders as potential customers instead of thieves. There’s a huge demand for online entertainment, so why not compete with piracy instead of spending millions of dollars fighting it?

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

Today’s report is based on data from over 17,221 unique users in a few dozen public BitTorrent swarms, collected by the Tribler P2P research team at Delft University of Technology.

The results in the table below show the market share for each individual client. In common with our previous reports, only 5 clients reached the 1% threshold, the remaining 14 that were encountered are grouped in the ‘other’ category. Some clients were not identified by libTorrent (rakshasa) and those ended up in the unknown ‘category’.

The changes in market share compared to our September report are also included, and these show some interesting trends. First of all, uTorrent extended its user base and now has a massive 60 percent market share. Vuze, BitComet and BitTorrent’s Mainline client all lost market share.

Transmission, on the other hand, keeps on growing. Its market share increased 23 percent and might take over BitComet’s fourth place soon. More on this in our December report.

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

The German-based anti-piracy outfit DigiRights Solutions (DRS) recently published an interesting PowerPoint presentation (in German) which shows how copyright holders can make millions from pirates. The document reveals some rather shocking statistics that show how illicit downloads are more profitable than legal downloads.

The presentation starts with some basic information on the various file-sharing networks, and details how the company’s software can detect illegal downloads and automatically send out requests for damages to alleged pirates. Their setup is similar to those at DigiProtect and Logistep who run comparable operations all over the world.

After finding out the addresses of alleged file-sharers they send out requests for damages directly, usually in the range of a few hundred dollars (or in the UK, around £600) per infringement. Thus far, little has been known about the actual profits generated by these operations, but this is exactly what the last part of the DRS presentation covers.

DRS says it generally sends out emails to alleged file-sharers requesting them to pay €450 (650$) per offense. According to the company they get to keep 80% of the money, leaving 20% for the copyright holders. The anti-piracy outfit claims it uses the money to cover their IT costs, administration costs, attorney fees and other costs.

So, for every illegal download the copyright holder gets €90 (130$), and that is where the presentation turns into a marketing talk where the company explains how piracy can be turned into profit. They start by comparing the profitability of legal and pirated downloads.

A legal online purchase of a song brings about €0.60 into the pockets of the copyright holders compared to the €90 per alleged file-sharer that pays up. So, the copyright holders get 150 times more from pursuing filesharers than from selling actual music, the company claims.

However, not everyone who receives a letter will pay up, but DRS says that an impressive 25% of all recipients do without asking questions. This figure is much higher than most people assumed previously.

But we’re wondering off here, let’s talk business.

DRS states that it’s realistic to track and pursue about 5,000 filesharers per month per title. Considering that 25% of those people pay the €90, then the copyright holders would have to to make about 150,000 online sales. Which is equal to the number of sales that are required for a Gold record award in Germany.

Ca-ching!

Companies like DRS have managed to build business models around piracy where the only purpose is to exploit copyright. Thus far they have been active in the UK (with ACS:Law) and Germany, but it’s just a matter of time before they expand their hunting grounds.

DRS and partners are by no means interested in protecting the rights of artists or how to deter people from sharing copyrighted work, it’s a solid cash machine. Undoubtedly it also raises questions whether these extortion practices should be allowed, or whether local governments should intervene.

Thanks Gulli.

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

However, the Pirate Bay ’spirit’ doesn’t end at the borders of the Internet. To prove this, the people behind the Kiosk of Piracy installed a copy of the site on a local WiFi network that is open to the public but not actually connected to the Internet.

“The Kiosk is not connected to the Internet in any way, but the interested public is invited to use the service in a WiFi-radius around it,” the people behind the project write on their weblog.

Even in a worst case scenario where anti-piracy outfits manage to shut down the Internet because it assists in copyright infringement, people will still be able to trade files. As the Kiosk of Piracy people explain:

“With our newest project, we are joining the work of the dear people and groups which managed to duplicate the contents of The Pirate Bay on other places in the Net. We want to show in a very physical way that the Internet is neither a machine nor controllable in any way – it is just a system of agreements which work in any circumstances. We don’t need the Internet – the magic can happen anywhere.”

The downside is that this old fashioned file-sharing network will cause some logistical problems, unless you live in Weimar, Germany. But then again, everyone can setup a similar system in his or her backyard by using some old hardware.

For those interested in visiting the Kiosk of Piracy, a map of the exact location is available below. Detailed download instructions are available on the spot.

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

In a recent interview Tim Kuik told the readers of a Dutch magazine that he is the proud owner of a Sony VAIO laptop. “It was once confiscated from a hacker,” Kuik added, noting that he couldn’t give out any more info because of the type of people his organization deals with.

This confession of the Dutch anti-piracy boss raises some interesting questions. Although BREIN often assists the police in raids and investigations, they are nothing more than a private non-profit organization and hold no law enforcement powers.

Even if they did, using a confiscated computer for personal use might break a few laws. So how did Tim get his laptop? Did he steal it?

We can only guess, but there are plenty of examples where similar anti-piracy outfits gain access to goods that were initially seized by the police. In the UK cases of TV-Links and FileSoup, the private anti-piracy group FACT was placed in charge of the seized property instead of the police.

Similarly, in the United States the RIAA often plays the role of law enforcer instead of sticking to their lobbyist position. They even employ ‘investigators’ who work on cases together with the police. Can we really allow these biased groups to influence the work of real law enforcers?

These developments are worrisome to say the least. The line between law enforcement and the anti-piracy lobby is getting more and more blurred. The police are raiding houses of people based on misleading information from anti-piracy outfits, and as a reward they seemingly gain control over confiscated goods.

Back to the confiscated Sony VAIO. Tim Kuik has effectively stolen the machine if he indeed got ‘his’ laptop from a raid BREIN was involved with. And by stealing we don’t mean that he made a copy like most pirates do. So who’s going to tip off the police now?

Update: Tim Kuik told TorrentFreak in a response that he acquired the laptop legitimately. The laptop was given to him by one of the parties involved in the case who received it as compensation. We have the verdict, but it doesn’t mention the laptop.

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

One band embracing file-sharing are Toronto-based melodic folk rock group Great Lake Swimmers.

In an interview earlier this year, the band’s lead vocalist Tony Dekker said that although he doesn’t share files himself and would prefer it if fans got music from legitimate sources, he’s OK with it since people are “spreading the word about a band they love through file sharing.”

Now, in a recent interview, Dekker recalls their performance at an Ontario music festival in 2008, after which Robert Plant said he liked the band’s songs. Getting noticed by a big name was a boost for them but it was the band’s transformation from playing small venues to becoming more widely known that he says demonstrates the power of a new type of marketing.

Dekker says that this development of the band’s wider exposure is down to the modern equivalent of word-of-mouth promotion. We know it as “file-sharing” and it is this technology that Dekker says has allowed the band to move far beyond its Canadian roots.

“It’s not just something that’s specific to a region anymore. It’s global. It’s global word-of-mouth,” he says.

“People can share ideas, share music files and stuff, and I think it’s good. It’s good for music because you don’t have to scratch far below the surface to find interesting music that doesn’t have the machinery of a big record label behind it,” he concludes.

Indeed, as the anti-filesharing antics of the big labels continues to further alienate them from their artists’ fans, finding good music that they have nothing to do with is becoming more important than ever.

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

The interest has been absolutely unprecedented. Issues that niche sites like TorrentFreak have covered for years are now suddenly mainstream fodder, the public’s interest peaking along with their interest in real-life participation in the file-sharing phenomenon. The existence of The Pirate Bay has played a huge part in this new awareness but, as is often the case, it became a victim of its own success. No amount of bravado and no amount of public support would enable the world’s biggest file-sharing site to continue the work indefinitely – at least not in its current format.

A few P2P sites have previously tried to gain legitimacy or avoid legal action by “going legal” to a greater or lesser extent, but nothing really compares to the revolutionary plan put forward by GGF for The Pirate Bay.

Due to the mass press coverage, almost everyone has heard about the audacious and wildly ambitious plan to keep the site going with (hopefully) all of the torrents still on board, to allow people to carry on sharing while paying them to do so, selling off excess bandwidth to ISPs and paying the rights holders. And taking responsibility for any copyright claims that may come along. And selling Pirate Bay branded merchandise including vodka and baby accessories. And, of course, making a profit.

We’re continually informed by GGF CEO Hans Pandeya that the multitude of problems that have made the press almost daily are part of a conspiracy against him, and that people need not worry since all the funding is in place. The purchase of the world’s biggest tracker will go ahead as planned he says, providing the GGF shareholders agree.

But what about the current users of the site, the people who know the site best and have its future close to heart? You’ve read the stories, unencrypted the rumors and experienced the drama. So, regardless of if you’d like it go ahead or not, or whether you’d just like the whole thing to just go away, what do you really think of the deal’s chances?

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

Now, following an announcement by ARTISTdirect CEO Dimitri Villard, it seems that the sullied names of both MediaDefender and Media Sentry will be consigned to the archives as the company rebrands the pair under a new name: Peer Media Technologies.

Despite the hacking chaos that all but destroyed Media Defender’s business, coupled with the controversy when Media Sentry’s investigative tactics were deemed illegal in several US states (and was promptly dropped by the RIAA), ARTISTdirect is still touting the pair as a force to be reckoned with – albeit with a new coat of paint and a new name.

“The combination of MediaDefender, the leader in Internet Piracy Prevention (IPP) with Media Sentry, the leader in business and marketing intelligence derived from P2P channels, creates a true powerhouse in the field of intellectual property protection,” says a notice on Peer Media’s shiny new website.

CEO Dimitri Villard also announced that he had hired ex Macrovision and Blackwave director Terri Denver as head of worldwide sales at Peer Media.

According to ARTISTdirect, the rebranding and consolidation of MediaDefender and Media Sentry under the Peer Media banner will benefit the customer base “by offering higher quality products than either company did previously.”

Services being offered by Peer Media include spoofing and decoys on file-sharing networks, sending cease and desist notices to ISPs to forward to their customers and sending the same to file-hosting sites carrying copyright content. Other services include monitoring networks for leaked movies and music, and assessing demand for media by monitoring what file-sharers do on the Internet.

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

Today we present our second report based on data from over 165,000 unique users in more than 400 public BitTorrent swarms. The data for this BitTorrent client comparison is collected by a researcher known as ‘xXx’ of the Tribler P2P research team at Delft University of Technology.

The results in the table below show the market share for each individual client. In common with the June report, only 5 clients reached the 1% threshold, the remaining 20 that were encountered are grouped in the ‘other’ category. Some clients were not identified by libTorrent (rakshasa) and those ended up the the unknown ‘category’.

The changes in market share compared to our June report are also included, and these show some interesting trends. First of all, uTorrent kept its dominant lead and even extended its market share to 56.81 percent. BitComet – ranked fourth again – is this month’s loser with a drop of 38 percent, falling from 6.50 to 4.71 percent market share.

On the winning side we see gains for Transmission and Vuze. Transmission’s market share increased to 44 percent and may move up a few spots if it maintains this growth rate. More on this in our October report.

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

Founded way back in 2003 – a light year in BitTorrent terms – UK based FileSoup is one of the original torrent sites and has built a solid reputation while keeping a surprisingly low profile, particularly considering its status. It has already outlived The Pirate Bay by around 9 months and is believed to be the oldest community still around today.

The search warrant for the owner of FileSoup was issued under Section 109 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and authorized the gathering of any evidence related to the illegal distribution or file-sharing of copyright films. Notably, since 2005 FileSoup hasn’t operated a tracker but links to metadata which links to material hosted elsewhere. It has never hosted any copyrighted content.

Known online as TheGeeker, the owner of FileSoup was arrested and taken to his local police station. The charge: Suspicion of downloading copyrighted movies. He told TorrentFreak that his site had been under FACT investigation since February this year.

“I asked them [police] while still at home if I could contact a member of my family so that someone could come and make sure my dog was catered for, they said that I couldn’t. On the way to the police station I asked if they could contact someone to take care of the dog or if I could make a phone call, they again said I could not,” he recalls.

But the police’s lack of sympathy for Geeker’s pet was just the start. He says that before being put in a cell he was given a ‘Notice Of Entitlements’ sheet, a document explaining how a prisoner should be cared for. One section explained:

Keeping in touch: As well as talking to a solicitor and having a person told about your arrest you will usually be allowed to make one phone call. Ask the police if you would like to make a phone call. You can also ask for a pen and paper. You may be able to have visitors but the custody officer can refuse to allow that.

But Geeker soon discovered that things were different in his case. “I asked again as I was put in the cell, if I could contact someone or make a phone call, I was told no I couldn’t do that, I asked why and was told that the Inspector had put a block on any and all communication from me to anyone.”

Each time an officer called on Geekers cell, he asked permission to let someone know of his arrest. He also asked to contact his lawyer. Seven and a half hours later and both were effectively still being denied.

Around 4:45pm a policeman appeared in Geeker’s cell with a 12 page list of items seized from his house, and demanded a signature that would indicate that the items were his. Of course, it was impossible to say if the items they had in custody were indeed the ones on the list, so Geeker declined and the policeman stormed out of the cell.

“What do they take me for, a complete idiot!” says Geeker. “No one in their right mind would have signed to say any of these items were their property, especially if they’d not been there when it was seized!”

At 5pm Geeker was finally allowed legal representation, where he questioned that surely “downloading” was a civil issue, not a criminal one. However, the movie industry anti-piracy group FACT are known to frame things differently. In previous cases they have insisted that donations are profit and therefore constitute a criminal copyright offense. It is probable they have done the same thing at FileSoup and this could be why Geeker was arrested and not sued.

Geeker then had an interview with two police officers which was recorded on a machine which malfunctioned throughout the interview. In common with other FACT-run cases, the nature of BitTorrent proved difficult for law enforcement to grasp, with Geeker having to explain how everything worked – including what URLs and domain names are.

Upon leaving, Geeker was informed that in common with other cases in the UK such as that against TV Links, the private anti-piracy group FACT was in charge of his seized property, not the police.

Geeker was eventually released on police bail a little after 19:30 with his offense listed as “Distribute Article Infringing Copyright”. He must return to the police station in October.

Geeker says his home was a mess. “I got back home just before 8pm to find my belongings had been turned upside down, the dining room was a like a whirlwind had gone through..[]..they’d turfed out all the drawers of the desk, chucked back what was of no interest to them, left a pile of paperwork scattered across my desk and table with wires everywhere, talk about a nightmare!”

And Geeker’s dog was pretty upset too. “My dog was extremely traumatized, he’d been barking almost non-stop all day long the neighbour told my Dad when he went over at about 6:30pm to feed the dog as I hadn’t got back yet. My dog rarely barks at anything, now he barks at the least little thing, I am SO annoyed that they have done this to him!”

The FileSoup site remains open. Stay tuned.

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

Founded in 2003, isoHunt is one of the oldest BitTorrent sites that remains around today. The site has millions of pageviews a day and searches through more than 2 million torrent files, which totals an impressive 1729 terabytes of data.

Gary Fung, the founder of the site, is in charge of daily operations from his hometown Vancouver in Canada. Below is a picture of Gary sitting behind his 2008 Mac Pro hooked up to a Dell 30″ LCD monitor (3008WFP).

What’s really keeping the site up and running is not his Mac though, rather the 14 servers located in Ontario, Canada. Below is a picture of the server rack currently in use. Gary told us that he is working on adding another cluster in Europe soon.

isoHunt is currently using four dual quadcore Opteron 2352’s for the web servers. The site’s database runs on three additional servers, two Opteron and one Intel Nehalem based. Four old dual core AMD nodes are used for various background processing, one Intel, dualcore Xeon is used by the search backend and two more for load balancing.

Below you’ll find another picture isoHunt’s server rack, all wired up. We thank Gary for sharing this with us, and we will continue our behind the scenes series this weekend with a brand new workspace of another torrent site admin.

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

“So this is my mission control, believe it or not I bought most of this stuff with baccarat winnings,” he told TorrentFreak, while sharing two pictures of his home base with us. Below he walks us through his current setup.

Desktop 1: My fastest desktop is a Dell XPS 630 with Intel® Core™2 E8400, 2GB RAM, 500GB SATA + 1TB external., and Dual nVidia GeForce 9800GT video card. This machine is hooked up to the very nice 25.5″ Samsung Syncmaster 2693HM monitor.

Desktop 2: The computer next to the XPS is a home built Athlon 64 3GHz, 1GB RAM, 250GB SATA, and it’s hooked up to 17″ Samsung SyncMaster 173P.

Laptop: The laptop is the Samsung X460: Intel Core2 Duo P7350, 3GB RAM, 14″ WXGA screen, and weighs only 1.29kg.

Server: The server I’m setting up to send to a data center is the IBM 326m with Opteron 280, 4GB RAM, 73GB 15K SCSI.

Misc: I have a little apple in my diet, I use my jail broken iphone for monitoring servers & tethering on the go. For all my paper work I use the Canon MP620. The speakers & sub are the Altec Lansing VS4221.

To top it off the BTjunkie founder told us that his Internet connection was just upgraded to a 30Mbit connection. Below are the pictures of his current setup and links to the larger sized images. In a few days we continue this series with the workstation of isoHunt’s Gary Fung.

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

In addition, MediaSentry is lacking the proper license required in some states to actually perform the evidence gathering. Michigan is such a state, which spurred a father of an alleged file-sharer to dispute the legitimacy of RIAA’s (former) partner so the evidence provided by them can be discounted.

If found acting as a Private Investigator within the state, the company committed a criminal act. That would have a significant negative impact on any evidence they provided to a court case, indeed it might disqualify it entirely. Without the evidence of the alleged infringement provided by MediaSentry, there is no case to answer.

Enter the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth’s (DELEG) Bureau of Commercial Services (BCS). They regulate and maintain the lists of professional licenses in the state. Their investigation has turned up no license, but more critically, no evidence of payment from the RIAA either. Without that, there’s no business being performed, which means there’s no need for a license. As such, the BCS has closed (thanks to Ray Beckerman) their investigation.

However, while the case is closed for now, the letter does say it can be reopened if new evidence on payments is produced. Since the case came out of a current lawsuit (SONY Music Entertainment v. Kruger) it shouldn’t be hard to get evidence of the business relationship admitted into evidence. Once that’s done, MediaSentry might be in some hot water.

As the BCS later states, “The Court may impose a civil fine of up to $25,000 for a violation of the Act. The Court may also find a person practicing without a license guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment.”

MediaSentry’s pirate snooping amateurs might be working for free – but that’s unlikely – as we all know the RIAA’s position on getting anything for free…

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

A self-proclaimed Internet and digital addict, Fry claims to have owned the second ever Mac sold in the UK and has joked that he has owned every smart phone available today. Indeed, he recently wowed Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson by showing him a pretty unusual use for his iPhone. Fry even has more than 500,000 Twitter followers.

So, unlike many who speak about Internet issues, there is a good chance that Stephen Fry actually knows what he’s talking about. Yesterday, to an audience gathered for the iTunes Festival in London’s Camden Town, he was a little more honest than most would’ve expected on the issue of illicit downloading, even if just hours before he revealed that he was finding his appearance unnerving, admitting, “I haven’t the least idea what I’m going to say.”

But it came good in the end. In a speech about copyright and the future of music introduced by Stuff’s editor-in-chief Tom Dunmore, Fry poured scorn on the music industry for attacking the public in file-sharing cases. “Making an example of ordinary people is the stupidest thing the record industry can do,” he said.

Noting a problem that was earlier outlined here on TorrentFreak, Fry said the Digital Britain report did not represent the views of the public, but those of “industry insiders” instead.

While Fry is pragmatic about the piracy situation, he’s not a supporter of large-scale infringers, described by him as those who download on an “industrial scale”. When asked how he felt about his own media output being pirated, Fry said: “I’m against cynical bootlegging but I work in a very molly coddled, overpaid business.”

But unsurprisingly for a clued-up digital native in 2009, there are some kinds of piracy that Fry isn’t completely against. He told the audience at London’s Roundhouse that he is a BitTorrent user himself and has grabbed episodes of 24 using the protocol.

Interestingly, he went on to reveal that he had also downloaded the season finale of House, the hit US show which stars the comedian most known for partnering Fry, Hugh Laurie.

However – and drawing a somewhat interesting analogy – Fry said that in the end, illegal downloaders may well feel a little guilty over grabbing something without paying for it. “Most of us feel guilt when we masturbate,” he said, “even though we live in 2009.”

Appearing a little concerned that his slightly pro-piracy stance might be misinterpreted, Fry then appeared on his beloved Twitter. “Well, finished my bit. Hope I’m not misunderstood. Such a pity if I get misrepresented as a ‘help yourself and be a pirate’ advocate.”

Not at all Stephen. The fact is there could be as many as 6 million people in the UK doing exactly as you are doing, largely because there still isn’t an attractive, workable, widespread and convenient legal alternative. You set the example. You buy lots of media and download too, which proves that participating in one doesn’t exclude you from the other.

Pirates are customers too. Even famous ones.

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

CinemaCube connects to your regular TV. It has an HDMI port and supports HD content up to 720p. It has all the usual analog and composite connections, S-Video and S/PDIF and plays back a multitude of formats including Xvid, DivX, AVI, H.264, MP4, MP2, RMVB, WMV, MP4, MKV, JPEG, BMP and PNG. Audio formats are also supported including FLAC, AAC, OGG and WAV.

Crucially for TorrentFreak readers, all of the above media can be acquired via the machine’s built-in BitTorrent client or from your existing PC archive via the built in 10/100 network socket.

Of course, there are many other set-top style boxes with these type of capabilities these days but what sets CinemaCube out from the competition is what it doesn’t have.

For starters the device doesn’t have a built in hard drive. Instead, CinemaCube has USB 2.0 connectivity which means that you can use your own external units or take advantage of small and cheap USB memory sticks which simply plug in.

For green-minded individuals, due to the lack of a hard drive CinemaCube doesn’t have a thirst for power consumption either, using only 10 watts of electricity when downloading via BitTorrent.

Perhaps most importantly, the device also lacks a big price tag. Unlike other admittedly higher-spec boxes, CinemaCube from brite-View costs just $89.99, putting it in reach of even the most frugal BitTorrent user.

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

After its transformation into a pirate tracking outfit Nexicon launched its Getamnesty program which offers copyright holders a chance to turn piracy into profit. They cleverly circumvent privacy protection laws by using ISPs to forward settlement requests for various copyright holders to alleged infringers. One of their most successful partner programs is the Payartists website which is a misleading name to say the least.

The money collected through Payartists is not going to any artists at all. The only artist they collect ’settlements’ for on the site is Frank Zappa, and he passed away in 1993. All the settlement money collected now goes to The Zappa Family Trust which is headed by Zappa’s widow.

Most recently a new Nexicon franchise emerged, as the ‘Video Protection Alliance’ (VPA) has teamed up with several porn studios to track down and force settlements from alleged copyright infringers. The methods they use are very similar to Getamnesty and Payartists and are designed to get cash payments from illicit file-sharers without even having to first find out who they are.

The process is simple. Their software monitors BitTorrent swarms and other filesharing networks and records the IP-addresses of those people who share the work of their clients. It then automatically sends an email to the ISP linked to the IP-address with a request to forward it to the associated customer.

Thus far, this is very similar to the warning letters that the movie and music studios have been sending out for years. However, there is one big difference. The emails sent out by Nexicon to alleged infringers contain veiled threats of legal action if they don’t choose to settle within 10 days.

In their email they write that “it may be beneficial to settle this matter without the need of costly and time-consuming litigation.”

If you don’t settle they are “prepared to pursue every available remedy including damages, recovery of attorney’s fees, costs and any and all other claims that may be available to it in a lawsuit filed against you.” To make it even more scary, they point out that ISPs might cut your Internet connection if you don’t comply.

In the FAQ on the VPA website it is noted that consulting a lawyers is an option, but it would be a rather silly thing to do since it will cost more than the settlement itself. “It is likely that the cost incurred to retain a lawyer will exceed the settlement amount offered.”

Indeed, the settlements are rather cheap compared to the fine that was handed out to Jammie Thomas recently. The settlement offer for an adult movie is close to the retail price of a DVD and for a single Frank Zappa track you’ll pay $10. In comparison, Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $80,000 per song.

However, because of these low fees and the use of threatening language we cannot help mentioning the word ‘extortion’ once more. Even if they handle with the best intentions they should adjust their tracking software to be more accurate. We confirmed at least one case where they sent a settlement offer to the wrong person, and we’re pretty sure that this is not the only mistake they’ve made (here’s another one).

Still, even people wrongfully accused of sharing [insert obscene porn title here] may be inclined to pay a few bucks rather than risk being taken to court. The threats are worrying enough for some people to pay for an offense they didn’t commit. But there might be an even easier way out.

Unsurprisingly, very little happens when the threats are ignored. A Manhattan College employee dealing with DMCA notices wrote recently. “We have not passed the settlement info on to the students linked with the allegedly infringing IP address and have not had any follow up notices from them.”

This aside, we are not aware of any legal action taken by any of Nexicon’s partners to back up their threats. To the best of our knowledge they don’t even have a proper license to act as private investigators which is a felony in several US states and renders the ‘evidence’ they have in their spreadsheets useless.

Our advice, if you get a settlement offer from one of Nexicon’s partners please forward it to your spam folder – after forwarding it to us first of course.

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

Today we present a more robust report based on data from over 150,000 unique users in more than 400 public BitTorrent swarms. The data for this BitTorrent client comparison is collected by a researcher known as ‘xXx’ of the Tribler P2P research team at Delft University of Technology. The research team will continue to supply TorrentFreak with bi-monthly updates so we can discover new trends and shifts in the usage of the different clients.

The results in the table below give the market share for each individual client. Only 5 clients reached the 1% threshold, the remaining 19 that were encountered are grouped in the ‘other’ category. Some clients were not identified by libTorrent (rakshasa) and those ended up the the unknown ‘category’.

Both uTorrent and the third placed mainline client are developed by BitTorrent Inc, meaning that the company holds an impressive two thirds of the market. The only main contender at the moment is Vuze, formerly known as Azureus, with nearly 17 percent. BitComet, which used to be a major contender, is in fourth place with just 6.5 percent.

The data also gives us more insight into the size of the BitTorrent ‘network’. In December we reported that uTorrent had 28 million unique users a month, and based on this figure that might have grown even higher in the recent months. It is safe to say that there are roughly 50 million active BitTorrent users on the Internet.

It will be interesting to see how the market share of the clients changes over the coming months. Will uTorrent be able to keep its dominant lead? What will happen to Transmission’s market share when they release their Windows version? Will there be any new clients to compete with the top three? Lots of questions that we hope to answer in the future.

Stay tuned!

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

Maybe, just maybe, in future our answers will be different. Allow us to introduce BitBlinder, a new and free cross-platform (Mac support coming soon) open source project which not only claims to make anonymous BitTorrent transfers a reality but also hides your IP address while browsing the web. Its functionality also extends to the bypassing of some web filters and in the future will be compatible with more applications, such as email, IRC and instant messaging clients.

Although anonymity with the previously-mentioned TOR is good, using it for torrents is a big no – it’s too slow and the operators of the network do not appreciate it. BitBlinder was born to solve the problems that TOR couldn’t. TorrentFreak caught up with Josh Albrecht, one of the creators of BitBlinder, for the lowdown.

“BitBlinder is an attempt to address the aforementioned issues with Tor – we want to make online anonymity fast, usable, and ubiquitous to the point that organizations give up on spying and filtering us,” Josh told TorrentFreak. “BitBlinder is actually built on much of the same technology as Tor, though we have a completely separate network.”

The anonymity itself is provided by BitBlinder’s own P2P network, inside which everyone is required to contribute their own bandwidth to proxy other users’ data. The diagram below shows a standard user setup, without anonymity;

As seen in the diagram below, your request for data using BitBlinder is passed encrypted through multiple peers. Each peer in the chain only knows the IP address of the next person in the chain, not the original requester/sender.

Since decent BitTorrent-capable anonymity services cost money these days, how can BitBlinder offer the same for free? The key is to think of it as operating a little like a private BitTorrent tracker.

In order to maintain a good ratio on a private tracker, at a minimum you need to upload the same amount of data as you downloaded. With BitBlinder there is a similar system – in order to get the service for free you have to proxy X GB of data for other people inside the swarm if you want to share X GB of anonymized data. In common with some new accounts on private trackers, BitBlinder accounts come pre-loaded with some free credit to get the user going – 2GB to be precise. If anyone prefers not to be bound by ratio rules in the future, just like on many private trackers it will also be possible to buy ‘upload credit’ to use BitBlinder, but there is no reason why people can’t use it for free, as long as they share their bandwidth as detailed above.

At this point some readers will be asking how it’s possible for no-one to know what’s going on inside the BitBlinder swarm, yet somehow BitBlinder manages anonymity ratio tracking. It is possible though, and for those interested to learn about the micro-payment system BitBlinder’s is based on, further (highly technical) reading can be found here (pdf).

Of course, since traffic is sent from your PC to others in the BitBlinder swarm before reaching its destination in order to anonymize it, it won’t be as quick as regular non-anonymous BitTorrent use, but Josh told us speeds should be respectable and in any event, much faster than TOR. Indeed, within a few seconds of starting a ‘Steal This Film’ torrent from The Pirate Bay, we experienced speeds in excess of 2Mbit/s, which is massively faster than my previous experiences of BitTorrent over TOR.

For Windows users the BitBlinder package comes in a 17mb installer. The torrent client is a custom version of BitTornado and although it doesn’t have all the features of say uTorrent, more features will be added as time goes by. The bundled anonymous browser is naturally built on Firefox.

Josh told us that the BitBlinder network could be made to work with uTorrent or another browser such as Internet Explorer but unfortunately both applications are closed source, which means that it’s impossible to be certain that all data will be sent through other users (proxies) in the BitBlinder swarm and not directly to the Internet. For the same reasons, Flash is unavailable in the bundled version of Firefox.

Another trick up BitBlinder’s sleeve is the development of techniques to bypass web filters.

“BitTorrent encryption is pretty good at avoiding ISP level restrictions but it doesn’t do much for things like avoiding university or corporate firewalls. One of Tor’s goals is to circumvent the Great Firewall of China and we hope to make BitBlinder even better,” explained Josh. “Filters generally work by either blocking ports, a certain IP address, or by inspecting the traffic itself for specific protocols. We’re working hard to make BitBlinder effective against all three of these methods, but we still have some work to do on these features, so results may vary.”

Since BitBlinder has an anonymous browser, it should prove useful if you don’t want your employer knowing what you’re doing on Facebook or other social networks, for example. Indeed, if these sites are blocked it’s possible to use the BitBlinder network to access them. Of course, the anonymity would also be useful for signing up to and using the HTTP element of a torrent site.

Inevitably there are some issues with an anonymity system such as BitBlinder, and they parallel those experienced by users of TOR. Any traffic generated inside the BitBlinder network eventually needs to escape to the wider Internet. In order to facilitate this, some users need to act as an exit point. In basic terms, this means that an exit node operator’s IP address will be associated with the traffic leaving the network.

Before panic sets in, this is not necessarily bad news. Acting as an exit node provides the operator with plausible deniability, since they will have no idea what data is passing through. It would also be difficult to say if the data leaving that PC had originated from there or elsewhere, extending the deniability of their own traffic too. And it’s not as if that user’s IP address wasn’t perfectly visible already before BitBlinder came along.

For most users, however, opting to act as a beginning or middle proxy in the BitBlinder network means that no-one outside can see any traffic emanating from their PC and the good news is that this internal traffic still adds upload/download credit to the user’s account.

Time will tell if BitBlinder lives up to its dreams (and everyone else’s) but from what we’ve seen so far in the beta version, things are looking very promising indeed. That said, remember folks this is a beta and it is likely people will uncover bugs so please be patient and consider allowing the app to send crash reports, it will help the team a lot.

BitBlinder can be downloaded here – don’t forget to register and please read the instructions on how to forward ports etc, it will be good for your ratio.

New users should note that invite codes will be sent out at a controlled rate. Early adopters will be able to register fairly quickly but as more and more people apply, the longer the wait will become. This is merely to ensure a healthy network with an adequate number of quality proxies.

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

A video mixtape is a collection of bootleg clips from movies, tv shows, home grown videos or just about any other source. These tapes grew in popularity along with the advent of home VHS and Betamax videos – the masses now had the equipment to make their own shows and compilations. Of course, nowadays while they are still called ‘mixtapes’, they are more likely to exist in digital form on the Internet or on DVD.

Mixtapes are also known for the strange and unusual material they can contain. From weird B-movies to sporting accidents and dramatic news footage, through to unintelligible TV shows and rare pilots from countries far and wide, they contain all types of mind boggling clips that most people never knew existed. The heavy doses of porn and various stomach-churning activities and curiosities turn some of these tapes into controversial items, even on the underground.

Anyone Googling “Video mixtape” will be immediately exposed to links and references to the Retard-O-Tron (ROT (NSFW)) mixtapes – possibly the most controversial and popular mixtapes around. Already banned in the US, Canada and Ireland, we caught up with ZXQL3000, the creator of the ROT mixtapes, to find out why the hell he does it.

“Before the Internet was available in every household, many people around the world used to trade music with each other by taping stuff from their collections onto audio cassettes, and sending them to each other by snail mail,” ZXQL told TorrentFreak.

“These things were called mixtapes, and were a great source for discovering music. Getting new and unknown songs from all kinds of obscure sources was only part of the fun — MAKING your own mixtape was even better.”

Projects like ROT are the natural progression from purely audio based output to video, with the emphasis on fun. “They’re made for lazy Saturday nights after (or before!) going out, for having a drink and having a no-brainer laugh with your buddies,” says ZXQL.

As Internet availability became widespread, mixtapes traded by standard mail pretty much died out, taking the mixtape phenomenon with it. “And then P2P came along,” said ZXQL, “and like it did for commercial music and movies, it changed the rules — if you wanted it to or not.”

This new found ability for individuals to take control of their own distribution coupled with the availability of cheap and even free audio and video editing packages, gave mixtapes a new lease of life. But P2P wasn’t just used for the distribution of completed projects, it was to became a prime source of raw material.

“P2P offers you a nearly unlimited library of digital media: there’s no song obscure enough for you not to find it,” says ZXQL enthusiastically. “Even better: there is SO much stuff out there that still needs to be discovered, the chase is as much fun as the catch. Mixtapes help you show what’s out there.”

Finding the source material can be entertaining in itself, ZXQL explained. “There’s so much about today’s availability of media that makes this so much fun: hunting for that perfect clip to end your sequence, exploring new music by just typing in keywords and seeing what comes up.”

“Say you start your mixtape with one single video clip of Bill Gates getting a pie thrown in his face, but it needs some music in the background. So you start looking for a song that fits the clip. Maybe you just type in “pie” in Emule or Limewire, or Google for lyrics that contain the phrase “in your face”. Maybe that song makes for an excellent link to the next clip. You’ll be amazed with where your search can take you.”

Having laughed, cried, been bemused, shocked and sickened all within the space of a few minutes at Retard-O-Tron 2 – I can see what ZXQL meant by “be amazed” at the kind of footage available. While a lot of the footage is suitable for everyone (and some of the B-movies and obscure footage is amazing), overall it is definitely one for the over 18’s. Actually, better make that 25, with a very broad mind too.

To be honest I would have preferred fewer sex scenes, as I think I would’ve watched more of it. We understand ROT1 is more of an easy ride. “ROT3 is in the making, and it will feature less porn,” ZXQL reassured me. “Or at least easier to view with a group of people, so it won’t be as explicit. ROT2 kinda went overboard with the porn, I think so myself,” he added.

Of course, porn aside, many of these mixtapes can hardly be considered legal. Who knows how many instances of copyright infringement there are in each one – dozens would seem conservative – but since the mixtape scene is still fairly focused and most of the source material so obscure, the creators seem to be largely left alone.

For those wanting ROT1 or ROT2 on DVD, one is available from the site, but there are other ways to watch. ROT1 was already ripped and released by a group specializing in releasing cult and b-movies called PiMPRiPPaZ. ROT2 was ripped by a similar group called ViDEOCULT who ZXQL says did a much better job and delivered a high quality, scene-standard compliant rip. He’s happy for people to grab these rips of course, adding;

“In the end, I just want the ultimate thing I can create. Not held back by copyright, censorship, good taste, a commercial drive or other barriers. I wanted a DVD for when my buddies and I chill on the couch with a beer and a bong. I love making my mixtapes, and I love watching them. It’s a hobby, it’s underground and it might even be considered art – but it isn’t about money.”

Just in case you didn’t get the message – the ROT mixtapes are NOT for kids or anyone easily offended. Absolutely, categorically NSFW – you have been warned. And don’t forget, July is unofficial video mixtape month on The Pirate Bay – who knows what it will turn up.

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