Anti-Piracy Evidence Put in Doubt by Leecher
Written by enigmax on July 14, 2008The accuracy of evidence collected by anti-piracy tracking company Media Protector has been called into doubt. It is alleged that the recipient of a 700 Euros compensation demand for unauthorized uploading was actually operating a client which was modified never to upload, thus making infringement impossible.
There are many cases where data collected by anti-piracy companies has been called into doubt. Apparently even laser printers are pirating media these days, such is the flimsy nature of the data gathering. Now, according to an interesting Heise report, it seems that it’s possible for these companies to log pure downloaders and provide this information to lawyers to process compensation demands, even when no uploading has taken place.
Despite operating a version of eMule modified to never upload (via a so-called ‘leecher mod’), a user of the eD2K network has received a claim for compensation of 700 euros. Anti-piracy tracking company Media Protector allegedly gathered the data in October 2007 and stated that the user had been caught uploading a movie and some adult material.
The accused has claimed that, because of the zero-upload modded client, it was impossible that anything was uploaded. The client itself had never been reset and displayed a operating time of 924 days and it had never distributed a file.
Of course, tracking companies such as Media Protector and Logistep are always super-confident of the accuracy of their systems, even though they are never confident enough to open them up to scrutiny. Lawyers are always quick to point out that the evidence is good enough for the courts to grant orders for the disclosure of user’s personal information, but it’s a one sided process and the defendant never gets the opportunity to contest before their identity is revealed.
In the interests of fairness and transparency, the sooner these companies have their systems opened up for scrutiny, the better. If the systems are proved accurate, then this strengthens the position of anti-piracy tracking companies and enhances their credibility, so one has to question why they are so reluctant to reveal their techniques. Maybe it’s because they are afraid that Cory Doctorow is on the right track?
Perhaps of more concern is why courts are so willing to accept this data as foolproof when seemingly no-one knows how it is collected. And when defendants are denied this information too, fairness seems a distant concept.
Previously: Most Downloaded DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk28)
Next: EU to Extend Music Copyright to 95 Years
40 Responses
LEECHER!!! Lock him up lol
Seed your greed man.
So, what can people do about this unfairness?
Maybe the no upload mod isn’t as good as the loser thinks it is, just because the client says he hasn’t uploaded anything doesn’t mean it’s so. Corroboration from a 3rd part app like NetLimiter would help. Besides, I find it hard to sympathize with a leeching twat.
thank god they dont have a clue on how the shit actually works ahaha
“So, what can people do about this unfairness?”
Use bittorrent where pure leeching is more difficult. And use a bittorrent client like bittyrant that is harsh against leecher clients.
Or join a private group of people that all share and kick leecher. In that case you can use any type of p2p application just as long as all the people in the group use the same network.
Leechers will always exists, but by using good anti measures it is possible to reduce their transfer speeds so much that it becomes preferable to share.
Or was that quoted text directed towards the anti-piracy companies?
Hate leachers… but maybe this one can actually do some good in the big picture by shedding light onto the shady tactics of these scumbags
Bittyrant,(flagged Azureus(FAKE)) is a leechers client and is banned on many private trackers.
http://torrentfreak.com/bittyrant-the-selfish-bittorrent-client/
Perhaps the client was set up with the INTENTION of being caught, just to show the innacuracy of certain data gathering ‘methods’?
Hmmm…
As emule works on the basis that those who share get priority over those who purely leech, the client would still need to report that it uploaded data to the other clients in the swarm in order for them to send data. If that’s the case then even though the client reports no actual data as being sent, it may falsly report that it did indeed send data to others, hence the uploading data collection may not have failed due to what his client reported even though he sent no *real* data. Basicaly he tried to cheat the system and it came back and bit him in the ass.
Enought of this!
For the time number one gillion we know perfectly well, they know perfectly well, everybody know perfectly well that their data gathering method CAN NOT BE ACCURATE!
An IP adress does not equal a computer! enven on a wired network! Sorry!
For those who think I am wrong just give me your IP adress and I will hapilly share files pretending I am using your IP address.
This is a big lie another one from the major! Another case of perjury.
looks abit of a double edged sword to me… It’s shown that anti-piracy is as we pirates claim, totally inaccurate but at the same it shows the worse of us that they can leech and become as bad as the people they’re trying to avoid getting papers from.
I still say, avoid selling your soul if you can.
Read the appendixes of Cory Docotrow book little brother ( http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/ ). Here are some of the best bits from Bruce Schneier, a professional security technologist:
“Secrecy and security aren’t the same, even though it
may seem that way. Only bad security relies on secrecy; good
security works even if all the details of it are public.”
“Publishing vulnerabilities forces security designers to
design better security, and makes us all better consumers of
security.”
“Trading privacy for security is stupid enough; not getting any
actual security in the bargain is even stupider.”
Same old fecking story, because these companies give off the air of respectability, the courts trust them. The lawyers pay them for their services, so they must be right! (sarcasm on) A bunch to tin-pot academics testing the system can’t be right, surely! ( sarcasm off )
Same story with OSS, if it’s free it much be crap, if I pay thousands for software, well it simply has to be better doesn’t it!
> “Bittyrant,(flagged Azureus(FAKE)) is a leechers client and is banned on many private trackers.”
No, it is not a leechers client. The name is misleading. It uploads more to other people who upload more. This means people get rewarded for uploading.
No, it prefers high speed peers while uploading very little to everyone. That is THE only advantage of Bittyrant over Azureus and the only reason people use Bittyrent instead of Azureus. The Torrentfreak article has it spot on, even if its users and creaters try to paint a different picture of it. Its a leechers client configured to leech as much as possible from the swarm wile giving back as little as possible. That is EXACTLY what it is.
I for one am getting tired of all these 4 letter agencies! keep it FREE folks!
JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
This sh!t is getting out of control. They cant put the genie back in the bottle, so instead they try to cap it..
Makes me feel a little better about leaving this world in a few short months.. Soon be time for 70% of high-bandwidth connection customers to return to dial-up.. The isp’s Must know there is very little point of more than 128k connection when downloading goes the way of the dinosaur..
The reason the anti-piracy companies
won’t open their systems to outside
scrutiny is likely because they are
wrong in their findings of who or
what is infringing.
If proof of inaccurate infringement
claims is allowed in even one court
case, it will jeopardize all future
claims made by the **AA and software
industries.
Serves him right, leecher! He deserves to pay. Sharing is what makes it work. Leechers, I hate ‘em.
Ignorant judges too make a mockery of the injustice system.
“Secrecy and security aren’t the same, even though it
may seem that way. Only bad security relies on secrecy; good
security works even if all the details of it are public.”
No better example can be found than with the 911 “investigation”, which many clear thinking people saw as a coverup to an inside job.
@17 You are right of course. But if u have some form of cancer I recommend u eat plenty of fresh apricot kernels, as these contain laetrile, which is selectively poisonous only to cancer cells. You may not have to go at all. Doctors and drug mfrs don’t want this kind of thing known. If u don’t believe it, it can’t hurt to try, even if one mistakenly believed it to be poisonous to the body, since u would go anyway.
@20
Clear thinking people don’t see 911 as a coverup. Stop trying to wrap your hate and distrust of the government in some kind of ‘clear thinking’ wrapper.
@9: Sorry but that’s bullshit. Proof that you uploaded something should be PROOF THAT YOU ARE UPLOADING. Not a client sending your client a notice that you are uploading to someone else but a client actually sending your client pieces of the files that can pass the CRC check. I can go up to a cop and say “I’m a serial killer” and they still can’t lock me away without proving that I’ve killed someone.
@10: That’s straight up bullshit. You can not spoof anyone’s IP in a p2p environment. How the fuck do you expect any information to return to you? When you send a packet, your IP address acts as a return address. If you someone elses IP address in place of yours, you will not get a response from the other end…the spoofed IP will get the response. Do you think computers communicate magically?
@9: Sorry but that’s illogical. Proof that you uploaded something should be PROOF THAT YOU ARE UPLOADING. Not a client sending your client a notice that you are uploading to someone else but a client actually sending your client pieces of the files that can pass the CRC check. I can go up to a cop and say “I’m a serial killer” and they still can’t lock me away without proving that I’ve killed someone.
@10: That’s straight up BS. You can not spoof anyone’s IP in a p2p environment. How the hell do you expect any information to return to you? When you send a packet, your IP address acts as a return address. If you someone elses IP address in place of yours, you will not get a response from the other end…the spoofed IP will get the response. Do you think computers communicate magically?
@ everyone complainging about leechers: This article is not intended to host a venue over the ethics of leeching. Who cares? If you don’t want to deal with leechers, get on trackers with ratio enforcement. This article is intended to comment on the fact that people are getting hit with lawsuits backed by bad data gathering. That should raise everyone’s concerns, leecher aside.
Hell yeah! Leechers should be sued ;P
@24: You’re a moron. Anyone who says that bad data gathering should be acceptable in any scenario deserves to be on the receiving end. If you can’t get on a private tracker, you have no room to complain.
@23
if your intention is soley spoofing then you know as well as i that IP’s certainly can be spoofed.
@23
If you went to a cop with a blood soaked knife saying you were a serial killer they would most certaily go through the motions of charging you with a crime. You may not be convicted due to the lack of solid evidence, e.g. a body, but still.
If his client said to their client that he sent them piece # whatever, even though he didnt, and they actualy got the peice elsewhere, as far as they are concerned, he had the piece to send or his client would have said, ’sorry I dont have that piece, piss off’. Using the defence that he’s a self admited leecher isn’t really a defence when what his client reports to the client collecting evidence contradicts what he’s saying.
Everyone, just keep pirating and hope you don’t get caught!!!
@27: I was responding to someone who said they could share files using someone elses IP address. That is impossible. Sure, you can spoof a packet. There is no way you’re going to spoof a 2 way conversation, like a file transfer.
@28: That’s not how emule works. If their client receives ANY data belonging to the file from you it has to pass a CRC check to confirm that the data is legitimate. The fact that the data gathering just collected data saying he was part of the swarm and not an active uploader essentially proves that process used to mine that data is flawed. Futhermore, the same sort of logic used to support this argument could support a case against someone who hopped on a torrent and paused it before any data is transfered…because being part of the swarm must mean you’re uploading even though they can’t prove if any data has actually been sent from your client. Their are ways to prove that you are uploading to the swarm and saying “we think he’s uploading but he never actually uploaded anything to us to confirm that suspicion” is not one of them.
lulz, what a leech.
(@negatyve: Dont tell me what I can or can not do…um, does that statement kind of make me an hypocrite?)
@21
The Internet. Where random alt-med nuts recommend that the terminally ill eat produce containing low levels of *cyanide*, and are possible to overdose on, with no peer-reviewed research into use, dosage and the like supporting it.
holy wikipedia batman
@30 a “CRC check” is used to make sure all the data is tangent, and accounted for in the ‘file’ that was sent. There is no check for ‘legitimacy’.
also @30, settle down… I think you are missing the point.
The giant point of this article is that there is no inbound packets that need to be sent in-order to get a court case. This means literally I could set up a stream of packets from any IP I want to be on the header, and
1) request transfer of the file
[This will return packets to the fake IP's computer, which will in all likeliness not be set up to accept a torrent from that file, and will fail upon getting there]
2) spam fake upload chunks, or requested downloads
[again this will inturn sent the requested material to the spoofed IP's computer, which will not be accepted.]
This will be knocking at the door of the RIAA, upload them their own stolen music back, with a name tag of your IP address (ultimately resolved to your name, and address from ISP)
@33
A socket is a connection including a IP address, and a Port.
Knowing that most of Torrent clients fall between the TCP range of 6881-6999, and knowing that some one’s IP address is blah(192.168.1.1).
A simple computer program can spam torrent requests at such a high frequency that it would be impossible to ignore…
such program would take less then 10 minutes to make and turn on.
@7
ButTyrant does upload, but nly to certain peers. About the “client banned” thing, ever heard of shu mod?:)))
If you want a 0-upload bittorrent client, try BitThief. Hey, it even works on Linux, and with the correct options works great on most of the private trackers.
I’ve never really seen the point of leeching clients, usually you can get better speeds by uploading, and it’s not like anyone really needs that upload for anything else.
I wonder, is the lack of seeders on some torrents due to some kind of fear about getting caught uploading, or are people just too lazy/cheap to share?
if (your country is a copyright hell){
encrypt all uploading and downloading
}
else{
_if(your contry has laws against _uploading){
_leech
_}
__else{
__seed
__}
}
and what makes you think he wasted two years (semmigly the date hasnt been messed with… or was it) just to get caught?
You don't have to sympathise with this person, but the main point of the article is the incompetence of the companies. They accuse someone of sharing who *cannot* have shared.
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