BSA Monitoring BitTorrent Traffic
Written by Smaran on January 27, 2007The Business Software Alliance, an organisation similar to the RIAA, is reportedly monitoring BitTorrent traffic in the UK. The software trade group that represents major vendors like Adobe, Microsoft and Symantec has contacted UK ISP Pipex with harvested IP addresses of its customers.
Usually, it’s packet-shaping ISPs that users have to watch out for. But this time it’s an ‘anti-piracy gang’, as we like to call them. The BSA, like the RIAA and MPAA, is known for its aggressive tactics. Last year, the group targeted small businesses suspected of using pirated software with their “Bust Your Boss!” campaign. They offered rewards of up to $200,000 to anyone willing to turn in their employer.
Apparently, the BSA watches all traffic going in and out from a specific ISP, in this case Pipex, and logs all the IPs that are uploading and downloading files over BitTorrent. Then letters are sent, first to the ISP, and if it co-operates, to the customer. The ISP has a legal obligation to give the BSA or any other such organisation the e-mail address of the customer whose IP was provided. If the ISP decides not to give up its customer’s information, it is held liable for “contributory infringement”.
What’s really scary is that the e-mail sent to Pipex from the BSA contains extremely detailed information on users’ activity and includes not only IP addresses, but the protocol, the file that was downloaded, the exact file name and the DNS address of the connection with the date/time stamp.
Here’s an excerpt of the e-mail sent to Pipex.
The Business Software Alliance has determined that the connection listed below, which appears to be using an Internet account under your control, is using a P2P network seen below to offer unlicensed copies of copyrighted computer programs published by the BSA’s member companies.
And a quote from Pipex’s e-mail to its customer.
We have received a complaint regarding an allegation of Copyright Infringement.
We were supplied an IP address of the system that was sharing the alleged copyrighted material, which we traced to your PIPEX ADSL account.
As I am sure you are aware, this breaches our Acceptable Use Policy, (http://www.pipex.net/legal/aup/ ) and many copyright laws, namely the Berne Convention.
Is the BSA changing its tactics? Are we going to see yet another organisation packet sniff data and stalk people? Let’s hope not.
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22 Responses
In that case, I suspect that end to end encryption may come in increasingly useful.
How is this legal?!?!? i noe this sounds old but what happened to privacy?
So basically everything im doing on the itnernet is being wathced by the BSA? i do not understand how this can be legal….
Thank Goodness for Encryption.
:]
corey, not everything you do is watched by a private lobby organisation like the BSA, according to my grandchild.
They just watch you when you download something they are interested in Liek those perverts watching childporn.
Charly, my lovely grandson, explained to me that I can be sure that my online bingo play on weekends will not be watched by them. But he warned me not to share my stitching patterns (*) and crosscheck my christmas cookyrecipe before giving the cookies to the kids next door.
I guess it is no violation of “your” privacy if they just record the data of specific transactions.
The question is, if an IP address and some allegations is evidence enough that YOU as a specific person did something that makes it reasonable to hand over your private data to those private entities.
An IP address is NOT a specific person, if you are a grandchild, lets have your old granny sign the paperwork for the ISP account! My Charly asked me to do him this favour and now we are both happy.
Sicen an IP is not a person, he can continue to care for all the important things in the world and have fun with his modern computerstuff while I get some action in my old days by reading strange letters from strange companies like adosoft and microbe. (shit, my eys don’t get better, can’t they use a bigger font? It’s hard do see all that…)
Boy, I’m so old, I don’t understand most of the words in those strange letters.
* http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2006/9/11/82110/2869
That was one weird comment. Wow, just wow.
“not everything you do is watched by a private lobby organisation like the BSA, according to my grandchild. They just watch you when you download something they are interested in”
Have you thought that through properly? How do they know when you’re downloading the stuff they’re interested in unless they’re watching all the time?
It’s like saying a security guard only watches an office when he knows it’s being burgled. How does he know it’s being burgled unless it’s being watched for a burgalar to come along at any time? Just think it through for a moment.
Anyway, something about this story doesn’t quite ring true to me. Either this organisation has access to the black boxes at LINX (is that really likely?) or they’re getting access to some server logs through raids or some other method of acquiring them, and are trying to bluster that they have the all seeing eye hoping it will scare people.
As far as I know, the usual way the police find out about porn is through server logs found in raids or by working closely with an ISP so that they go through their own logs to see who has connected to specific sites or servers. Pipex don’t seem to have been involved with this, they’re just on the recieving end, so it’s either one of the first two methods or another ISP (possibly abroad) has given information from their logs that shows Pipex IP addresses exchanging data with their own customers.
ok ok but when was a law passed that allowed people to look at *my* internet logs?!?! there supposed to be private are they not???
$200.000 for a guilty conscience for the rest of the life? No thanks, life is not about money.
The BSA is not watching your line!
They just ask MediaSentry and Co. to hop on the same torrents you do. That way they get the information about your IP they need.
And no, using a bloglist does NOT protect you from being seen downloading anything “illegal”.
Thats scary cause I’m on Pipex in the UK :S
I don’t think this is limited to just Pipex.
Back in December I received an email with very similar wording to the one mentioned.
My ISP is BeThere…
As kdsde says they just begin downloading an illegal torrent and see which IPs they are downloading it from. They don’t connect to you unless you are sharing that item.
It’s not illegal for them to download it since they have the permission of the copyright holder.
Some people download a list of IPs they’d rather not connect to. If this included the companies doing the looking they would be safe. However the companies know about that snf they change their own IPs at intervals.
I’d like to know if a log they made showing an IP number counts as any kind of proof anyway. After all they could make them up if they wanted.
I also had a mail like that from BeThere…
Yep thank god for encryption. But is that all that is needed… will the IPs of the BSA need to be blocked by PG2 or Protowall or something?..
[quote comment="43692"]I don’t think this is limited to just Pipex.
Back in December I received an email with very similar wording to the one mentioned.
My ISP is BeThere…[/quote]
Ed, I’d be interested to know what action did BeThere take?
I got one from Freedom2Surf. I tried to reply to it, but it bounced back. How serious are these letters?
I just got an email from BeThere too. I was spooked by how they referred to an exact date, time and file. Sooo glad I’m not the only one…
I got one dated yesterday from Bethere.
How do we encrypt so they cannot trace us?
make that another one who got one from bethere broadband….im so glad im not the only one aswel….
Are they gonna take us to prison???
Encryption won’t help in the slightest.
All the traffic on the Internet is captured, stored, indexed and data-mined for finding global bad guys. And this is by the several governments worldwide, so the idea that there is some level of privacy on the net is non-existent. Play nice or BIG Brother / BIG Business will rain on your parade, BIG time!
Once upon a time the internet WAS more or less "private", or at least it was unregulated by anyone (supposedly). But that was several years ago, they started policing the net for perv's, then for pharmacia's selling scripts w/o a prescription, and they just couldn't stop there (power-hungry nazi's as usual) so before we even knew what was going on they're watching everything we do online! Thank you Mr. Bush- I'm sure this will stop the terrorists. Hey- but what about all the non-terrorists that want their privacy???
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." — Benjamin Franklin
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