‘Bad’ BitTorrent and Warez Sites Raided By Police
Written by enigmax on April 28, 2009Just recently the police in Hungary conducted raids on various torrent and warez sites, but few will have sympathy for those arrested. The site operators charged users for access via premium SMS, many of them unsuspecting kids. The police seized an impressive amount of equipment and also took some impressive photographs.
In 2007 the US planned to put a federal prosecutor in Budapest, Hungary, to “assist in the coordination of the enforcement of intellectual property laws”. Almost immediately action was taken against some BitTorrent and warez sites operating in the country.
In 2008 it was recommended in an International Intellectual Property Alliance report that Hungary should remain on a piracy ‘watch list’ for that year. The reasons were wide and varied, but included were problems related to widespread ‘pay to leech’ torrent sites, and pay for access warez sites. “It is difficult to energize police and customs officials to investigate Internet cases because Hungarian court decisions are not a deterrent,” said the report.
The authorities, undeterred by the lack of a court deterrent, have been involved in various raids and site closures ever since, and this year is no different. In mid April, Hungarian police carried out raids on four BitTorrent trackers including Bitlove, BitMusic and Indep – and shut them down. In the same operation they closed down warez sites and a significant source of spam. The police arrested up to ten individuals, eventually detaining six for further questioning.
The reason that police were able to move so forcefully against these sites is because they were operated on a purely commercial basis. Unlike most regular torrent sites or warez blogs, users paid for access via premium SMS. The operators were pretty unpopular in the ‘regular’ BitTorrent community too, having had conflict with other sites.
Over 40 servers were confiscated in the end, filled with 250TB of data. Here are the police photos from the raid, and remember folks; paying for warez is like paying for oxygen, it’s unnecessary and it gives decent pirates a bad name ;)
Busted Pirate Hardware
Hi-quality Pics here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Previously: Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows on BitTorrent
Next: Wyzo 3, The BitTorrent Web Browser
80 Responses
damn those police
That’s what happens when your a D-bag and try to make money of the scene.
yeah, I don’t care about these guys. You shouldn’t be making money from piracy.
Yes, I started this thread on FST. It has been quite frequented so far. Good riddance, I say.
http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-bittorrent-43/t-another-raid-hungary-346328
Also, wtf is with the reindeer in that first pic, do they celebrate christmas all year long in Hungary?
It got hijacked, I guess. Or payed for the warez – FTP.
I wouldn’t mind having them servers for other personal reasons…. But that is just stupid…
to note is the window to prevent them form outside looking in via special viewers
Those weren’t just torrent servers. They were used for FTP paysites, dedicated botnets for spambombing with millions of addresses in their database, a text message aggregator, and quite a lot of other serious stuff too. Hosting torrent sites wasn’t even what got them into trouble. It was the spambomb network, and the FTP paysites that worked via SMS message subscriptions (which consists something like 90% of warez in Hungary).
Supposedly, the people working for Coldfusion (the company who got raided) were even advertising their services freely to anyone on many forums. They were raided many times, but most of the servers weren’t found. From what I heard, they were hidden underneath an elaborate fake floor, which is why the police missed them all the time.
Rumor is that they said the wrong thing at the wrong place and made some enemies, a person who went to the police with exact details on where the servers can be found. Which explains why the servers were never found till now.
IMO, the dedicated email spambomb network is something that makes me glad they got caught. We aren’t talking about a bunch of movie fans who got together so they can share their favorite stuff, we are talking about a massive scale digital black market. I’m all pro for torrents, but these guys got *exactly* what they deserved.
The British Police famously claimed that OiNK charged users for access. We know that was just a lie planted by the RIAA, so why should we trust the Hungarian Police to tell the truth about this site?
Serves them right. Making money off others’ work is as wrong as it can be.
OT: how about rewarding each “1st lol” with a ban? Natural selection doesn’t seem to work in internets…
Rofl!! Thank you for taking those bastards down. No one should make money on filesharing.
asva.info rulez!
The convoluted reasoning of justification used by “good” Pirates (lol) is always entertaining. “Non commercial” filesharing, you say? Where is the noncommercial part?
How about the artist, the artistic production team, the graphics folks, the recording firm, ALL whom you deprive of the value of their commercial work, intended for sale for their livelihoods? It’s certainly commercial to THEM.
And what about the value of the works you take? Ever add up the money you have “saved” yourself by taking without paying? In every case of online piracy, there is money properly earned by the rightsholder but not paid, money expected but never collected, the money kept by the pirate instead of parting with it and rewarding the work. Filesharing has money value and valid commerce attached to it every step of the way and only Pirates pretend and deny this.
Pirates will warrant and eventually receive the ear of government when they stop kidding themselves and come straight about the commercial value of their illegal online activities.
I agree with the sentiment “that no one should profit from running p2p sites (leeching from the scene)”. But a lot of the medium/large BT sites, that most of use treasure, have gathered quite nice surpluses in donations. Sure it’s suppose to be a “rainy day fond”, but with 1000€+ each month who are we kidding?
they certainly could a used a decent technician ,, what a mess
@ 18
for the average joe ,, with basicly just enough to get by on weekly ,, file sharing brings a little excitment ,, it’s like a large library ,, here’s a very good article that probally explains it ,, for most of us ,, regardless if we are the techy type or the noobie
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-addiction-the-thrill-of-the-chase-071005/
@18:
money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money
That’s pretty much all you say. The commercial aspect. The money lost. That all there is to you. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re just some CGI bot that posts the same things over and over again.
DVD’s cost like 20 bucks. Theatres cost like 10. You seem to think that the prices set by the manufacturer aren’t viciously price-gouged so they can make a profit for all their side activities (like the mpaa) I’ll tell you what, if DVD’s cost like 3 bucks I wouldn’t bother downloading it, cause you get so much more for so much less and you don’t have to wait in walmart. I don’t get why I have to pay for the same groups that are trying to restict what I can do with my physical property.
@Reasoned Mind
I guess the god pirates (notice the lack of quotations marks/irony marks) fall in to one (or all) of four categories (in my opinion).
1. people have a finite spending budget. That money get spent each month, so p2p has no impact on the global economic market.
2. Try before you buy.
3. p2p is advertising. A profit can be made on physical products/services.
4. The old distribution systems have failed. Until they adapt to the new marked (distribution, pricing etc) fuck’em. New innovations will render old services useless and the ones that are unable to adapt or lost their functions will vanish.
In response to Reasoned Mind:
First of all, as a so-called “pirate”, I spend more money on entertainment now than I did before I discovered the world of filesharing. I have immense DVD & CD collections that I only started growing after I became exposed to many artists / movies I would not have been exposed to had it not been for piracy.
A recent study showed that “pirates” buy ten times (TEN TIMES) more music than an average person:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music
@14:
That info wasn’t released by the police but by third party reporters, plus there’s that tiny bit of info that Coldfusion shamelessly advertised themselves on many warez forums.
It was also reported by hungarian security firms that e-mail spam was dramatically reduced in the days after Coldfusion got busted.
F1RST !!!!!!!
WOW that would be a great render farm. :)
yea pretty nice raids
fuck these pay2leech retards…
but these wave of raids is a bit alarming tho..
I RENT FROM NETFLIX RIP THE MOVIE AND SELL THEM TO PEOPLE ON THE STREET FOR 5 BUCKS EACH….I AM PIRATE….DO YOU SUPPOSE THE GREAT SEA PIRATES DID IT FOR FREE OR MAYBE THEY MADE A LITTLE OFF SOMEONE ELSES STUFF…EVERYONE IS MAKING MONEY BECAUSE NO ONE DOES THIS FOR FREE..ISP COSTS MONEY, COMPUTERS COST MONEY, DISCS COST MONEY, BURNERS COST MONEY AND SO ON AND ON…EVERYBODY IS CASHING IN ON PIRACY…ARENT YOU??
LoL at Reasoned ‘like a stuck record’ Mind.
Same tired boring formula every single day. Yawn
whats the diffrence between a guy paying for a rapidshare account and getting warez or paying for a ftp? answer:
there isnt one………… so stop judgeing
“yeah, I don’t care about these guys. You shouldn’t be making money from piracy.”
Its only piracy if you make money off of it. It is not piracy in the case you are just sharing files.
@14 Reasoned Mind
Oh, just STFU asshat.
Never bought a dvd or vhs film in my life till I found p2p.In the last 2 years I have spent over £500 on dvd’s.Nuff said
So police think that because raiding some kid’s house is less illegal than hosting a torrent website (which is just as legal as Google), they go ahead and raid the house? Then I suggest police also confiscate everyone’s computer and iPod’s because those devices are the ones containing the “illegal” files. Get it straight people! Torrent site servers DO NOT contain illegal files! The illegal files are in the average Joe’s computer!
You are crazy, knotwurrid. That’s some big money.
reasoned mind i had faith in you i thought your mind had finally become reasoned but i guess not…
Thank god they took these guys down. I’m tired or being forwarded to a page that says, pay X amount to download at fast speeds. Screw all them!!! They do diserve to rot. They are parasites to the p2p community.
LOL no.22, FAIL!!!
@bläää
> The old distribution systems have failed.
> Until they adapt to the new marked (distribution, pricing etc) fuck’em.
> New innovations will render old services useless and the ones
> that are unable to adapt or lost their functions will vanish.
Damn straight.
I haven’t downloaded a single song since iTunes got mostly DRM free. (One song before that) And iTunes is not even that good a music store or player.
Still loading TV-Shows since I don’t want to pay like $2,49 for something I only watch once.
Also the quality of 720p/1080p rips is much better.
p2l-all-the-way… i am going to sell leech access for all the hottest scene releasez stolen by p2p then stolen by me… HAR HAR HAR!!!
Good riddance to trash. Scumbags like this actually hurt the scene since directly profiting from piracy actually does violate copyright laws versus giving it away for free. It also gives the copyright mafiosos the political capital needed to lobby for the draconian IP laws which hurt even legitimate users.
Seriously, somebody teach these guys some damn cable management :P
NOT FIRST!
@27:
The difference between Rapidshare and this raided torrent server is that Rapidshare doesn’t launch ddos attacks nor e-mail spambombs for a rent price.
@31:
It’s not so much the issue of torrenting, but the bulletproof hosting, ddos attacks, sms price cheating, and the e-mail spambombs that Coldfusion operated with. The torrents were just the tip of the iceberg, and if the sites that got shut down have a local backup of their database, they can resume operations easily on another server.
#25 – Use Netflix to “Rent, Rip and Return.” Then seed. I will if you will. ;)
Is torrentfreak not making money off of piracy?
Is ANY torrent site not making money off of piracy?
Most sites ask for donations or have some sort of ad generating system.
Is that not gaining money from piracy?
good look at those switches man nice tech shame the evil got hold of it.
I have discovered more new and obscure music from compilations available on the tpb.
I spend more money buying CD’s from amazon than ever before and usually unheard of bands who dont usually get the exposure like major label bands.
@38
+1
Why dont they go after the chinese who are at every street corner here in london and the rest of the world selling their cam movie dvd’s out of a bag. They are the real pirates.
No one buy anything from the entertainment industry and when they ask why, you tell them because Reasoned Mind is an arrogant F-wit who thinks he’s right all the time.
Well. I AM RIGHT all the time. :-)
respect=/=money
so make up your REASONED MIND about which you want as an artist.
and whichever it is; don’t do art anymore, not for a living: you live to make art, not vice versa.
Yes making art costs money and time, and it’s great if it turns out that people like your art enough that they want you to go on making art, as much as you can; in which case you might ‘earn’ enough money through that to pay all your living expenses. But even then, there should be no payment in place (no matter how great your art might be) that entitles you to stop working for the rest of your life.
You won’t even have inspiration for art anymore; would be a waste.
$.02
Take it.
“In 2007 the US planned to put a federal prosecutor in Budapest”
Budapest is a long way from the US, btw.
All I can say is damn, get some cable management in that place. Seriously. That’s disgusting.
Augh… ‘making money’ what’s with all the people saying that everybody is making whatever for money?
I tell you what: I do not work for money, I do get payed because it is reasonable and I need to live and that costs money. But I would be a very sad person if my life just a way of making money.
Money was invented to serve people, why would people make themselves slaves of money. Gee… can’t you people use your brain for a second?
Like… torrentfreak… do you guys think this site is up with the goal of making money? Sorry to tell you but then you are very wrong, even in the unlikely case of the owner of this site being a billionaire.
Also, if you think whatever people do whatever ONLY because of money, then I am sorry for you. You will NEVER be able to produce anything really necessary to society, except for maybe some money in your acount that you can use… to make more money I guess.
Now these guys at hungary were such people, they are not for filesharing or whatever, they saw a business oportunity, a moneky business and they went for it. They naturally got caught for fraud.
wow, 250TB, that’s just immoral and greedy!
Well deserved to those who request money from something that isnt theyrs, those are called Douche with capital Bag, hope the lesson got learned.
Servers them right!!
@Reasoned Mind:
“… ALL whom you deprive of the value of their commercial work…”
Incorrect. This is an assumption. You assume that every download has somehow deprived someone, somewhere, of some type of “mystery money”. What is the basis for this? How can you possibly be certain someone would have purchased something (IE: a DVD they’ve downloaded) in the future? Impossible.
“… And what about the value of the works you take?…”
Again, incorrect. This argument is tired. Get your facts straight. When users download, they are infringing copyright, not “taking” anything. An exact digital copy has been made. Nothing has been removed from anyone else. The uploader still has his copy. In fact, the artist still has his/her copy as well. It has NOT been “taken”.
Now that ain’t cool.
When will these stuffs get auctioned off?
Me likely sum cheap servers.
No tears for crooks.
@ Reasoned Mindless
People who think they’re right all the time are actually wankers. There’s scientific proof of this.
Is it just me or are there WAY too many cables/switches in that rack for what is in that pic?
Reasoned mind, as a supporter of the entertainment cartels, thinks the same way they do. As such, he is physically and mentally unable to quantify any other purpose or outcome of file-sharing other than “stealing”, as he has been brainwashed into believing.
He is blinkered and blinded by propaganda and rigged industry-sponsored studies that twist the information to fit their own beliefs. Despite the overwhelming indepedant EXPERT evidence suggesting piracy does not harm the industry anywhere near what they say it does, that extended copyright will damage society, that tightened IP regulations will damage both society and the industry itself, he has absolutely no problem casually dismissing this as irrelevant merely because it contradicts what he dearly, dearly wants to believe.
That he can call into question the morals of “pirates” is nothing but total hypocrisy. As the industry does, Reasoned Mind likes to have double standards and different rules for different “us” and “them”.
He has no problem at all with the CORRUPTION of laws and judges, the BULLYING and HARASSING of children or the aged and proven innocent people. He has no problem with the industries attempts to wholly control our internet connections and SPY on the public. He has no problem with the breaking laws when it comes industry collusion and price-fixing. Lastly, he has absolutely no problem with LYING. On the contrary, LYING is he baseline for him and his industry cronies.
These are the so-called morals of Reasoned Mind. That he should even attempt to call into question anyone else’s morals is nothing short of laughable. He is a deluded fool that should keep his mouth shut as he does not have the intelligence to embark on a civilised debate. Or rather, he has just enough intelligence to avoid a civilised debate since he knows full well that other people of reasonable intelligence have NO PROBLEM whatsoever in showing his tired, repetitive, industry-backed rants as pure and utter bollocks.
Stop fooling yourselves. You and the people who enable you to pirate other people’s stuff will go to jail.
LOL
@ Reasoned Mind
I’m sure at one time or another u copied a tv program or copied ur friends cd and i’m sure at least once u downloaded something u liked from a torrent site. Be honest now!
you’re a “pirate” too!!!!
@ ObligatoryNagger
stop fooling yourself
u can’t put the “pirates” in jail
and if u think u can ,, u better start building more jails ,, u ain’t got enough
LOL @22.
I don’t care about them, they are REAL pirates not ‘pirates’ like us.
Recently I found a hot club — SeekingTall.com — just for hot tall gals and guys to find their cupid. Come on, tall singles. Don’t miss your lover.
cops takin crops
It should be illegal to have cables arranged like that.
You muppets, don’t you realise the pirate bay made money too? It’s the same thing.
It’s too easy to find the free stuff online to pay for stuff. If I want warez, I’ll find them. Screw paying for stuff. If those people paid out money for crap they could find free then they deserve to get ripped off for their ignorance. Lesson learned, move on. Do the authorities not have anything important to go after?
Judging by those photos, I would NOT want to be the one paying the electricity bill =D
Or the one who has to replace a faulty cable.
To those in doubt whether these sites were actually making money from commercial piracy, as an actual Hungarian I can confirm this is not something the Police made up. I hate such “SMSweb” “paysites” too, despite being an avid kopimist!
“In 2007 the US planned to put a federal prosecutor in Budapest, Hungary”
When did Hungary become a US state?
Won’t anybody stand up for their sovereignty any more?
The RIAA & MPAA owners make alot of money selling other people’s work and keeping the money for themselves. It’s funny that they can have people arrested for doing what they do.
Holy Crap, thats utter sysadmin fail.
They could have sold all of there servers, and consolidated all of that power into a single rack.
WTFBBQ @ the switch setup too..
Damn n00bz
http://www.cracked.com/article_17267_truth-behind-obnoxious-assholes-4-pie-charts.html
Bout sums up everything here.
it pretty weird all these response
are made roughly about the same
time
it would not surprise me if it has been written by the same person
or a group of freinds or collegues
(maybe some p2p site team)trying to generate properganda and hatred towards these people.
jelous because the smart hungarian dudes are making money and taking clients and nobody aint donating to your site step your game and get real
like selling tap water in a shop
to some one who lives next door with a kitchen tap
make money die rich
Oh noes! They be taken mah servers!
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