Cashing In on Naive BitTorrent Users
Written by Ernesto on February 29, 2008BitTorrent sites are overloaded with ads for malware ridden BitTorrent clients and paid tutorials that promise to quadruple your download speed. They try to lure naive users into downloading their products with catchy phrases such as “Breakthrough Information Will Have You Downloading Torrents Up To 475% Faster”. It’s time to take them down.
Last year we reported several times on the family of malware supported BitTorrent clients such as Torrent101, BitRoll, TorrentQ and GetTorrent. These clients promised ‘high speed downloads’ but actually installed a payload of malware onto the victim’s PC. It seems that our articles resulted in the desired response, with most torrent sites effectively banned their ads.
Recently, however, we have noticed an increase in ads for paid tutorials. A couple of months ago we posted about highspeedtorrent.com, a site that promised to boost download speeds up to 500% faster. Unfortunately they are still around, the only thing they have changed since then is their initial claim, they now promise a 475% increase in download speed.
The only thing these people are after is money from naive BitTorrent users, and they do this by advertising their ‘revolutionary’ tutorials on BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, Mininova and Isohunt, making thousands of dollars a month. Technically there is nothing illegal about selling something like this, but the absurd claims they make will only disappoint people who get tricked into paying up.
Luckily, most BitTorrent admins agree with this. The administrator of BTjunkie is the most active opponent perhaps, as he told us: “I don’t allow it on our site because it’s a scam. It’s like a bad infomercial for torrents.” He even went as far as complaining to Paypal and Adbrite to stop these people, so far without result. “I’ve had lots of backs and forths about this with Adbrite,” he said “They just keep telling me it’s not possible to permanently ban them unless you want to approve every ad that goes on your site.”
TorrentFreak contacted a few other admins, and they assured us that they will do everything they can to stop these ads from appearing on their sites. Pirate Bay’s Brokep told us: “We’re making sure they never comes back now, or I’ll tell Adbrite we need to kick them out.” We honestly hope that the others will follow this example, for now, this seems to be the only way to get rid of them.
The funny thing is, scammers are not only ripping off innocent BitTorrent users, they also rip each other off. Here is an email that the owners of fastspeedtorrents sent to a torrent site admin, pouring his heart out he wrote:
I own the site fastspeedtorrents.com. I’ve been trying to buy a flat rate ad on your site but it would always get declined. What happened was I bought the site highspeedtorrent.com and the person that sold me the site said that you were a main advertiser and to purchase flat rate ads. Well, something changed and I haven’t been able to buy an ad since I purchased the site. Then this person went and started a site called rocketspeedtorrent.com which is basically just a copy of a site that he sold me which he legally shouldn’t have done and now I see his ads on your site somehow.”
Poor guy…
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Previously: RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue
Next: BitTorrent Rip Off Sites, and How to Avoid Them
133 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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Format your drive and install Linux, it’s free and you can choose from several bittorrent clients.
If you still use Windows you’re a fucking fool and deserve whatever rootkit you get. Windows is the biggest piece of shit ever.
[quote comment="300581"]bittorent users are already naive, they are too stupid to find movies and warez without the web. faggots. naive bit torrent user is an oxymoron.[/quote]
Wow! Two tards - no waiting!
N00by BT users may be “too stupid to find movies and warez without the web”, but I bet they understand terms like ‘oxymoron’ - unlike you.
Try not to use words you don’t understand, you utter dullard.
Here, this may help. I’m so sorry it’s “the web” & not your über-1337 PVT-FTP:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/oxymoron
HTH
HAND
kthxbai…
[quote comment="300839"]Format your drive and install Linux, it’s free and you can choose from several bittorrent clients.
If you still use Windows you’re a fucking fool and deserve whatever rootkit you get. Windows is the biggest piece of shit ever.[/quote]
hey! that was just mean…
I wasn’t aware that a significant amount of people actually fell for these scams. The ads so obviously reak of “scam”, making outrageous “too good to be true” claims, and using overly enthusiastic language.
I don’t think this is a “noob” problem, or a problem with stupid people in general. I think public education is to blame. Kids today aren’t taught how to evaluate sources of information, or use critical thinking. For proof of this, just take a look at all the college students who think wikipedia is a suitable resource for a research paper (I’m not saying wikipedia is terrible, but it doesn’t have as much credibility as a peer reviewed scholarly journal).
More people must be taught media literacy, so that they can approach advertising and web content with a reasonable amount of skepticism. Although I do get bored reading articles like these on torrent freak, I’m glad that they post these sorts of articles to raise awareness. Thank you.
[quote comment="300839"]Format your drive and install Linux, it’s free and you can choose from several bittorrent clients.
If you still use Windows you’re a fucking fool and deserve whatever rootkit you get. Windows is the biggest piece of shit ever.[/quote]
I would have to agree in every respect but gaming. I almost converted to fully to ubuntu, but until wine 1.0 (full xp support) comes out, i will keep my vista dualboot so i can actually play stuff without getting a wine BSOD. Otherwise there is no reason to give any money to M$ at all.
However, for a bittorrent client in linux i use uTorrent 1.8 Alpha + wine, as it is much faster than transmission and the linux clients, and doesn’t use up 700megs of ram like azureus.
yeah cus you were the ones who made them lulz
Adblock Plus
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the Torrent community that largely supports the illegal/immoral downloading activities are complaining about a different illegal/immoral usage of their software?
So illegal/immoral activities are fine with BitTorrent so long as they aren’t annoying to the users? That’s the line we don’t cross? Everything else is fair game?
Either way, if someone wants to go illegally download the latest Coldplay album and is too much of a moron to figure out that they downloaded a trojan instead, I do not have much sympathy. Learn to use a computer.
“…scammers are not only ripping off innocent BitTorrent users…”
Innocent BitTorrent users. yeah.
[quote comment="300790"]I can’t bear the hypocrisy!!! Ads for these very sites on TorrentFreak: http://img338.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tfhiponi7.png (First ad on the right of the page and others)
How can you let this happen?[/quote]
Dude, you opened abiut 4 tabs of TF just to “catch” some google ads and then bitch here? You sir needs to get a life.
Can;t believe that people are still using internet explorer:)) do a google search for “firefox”, your life will chage forever.
@8, Burrito.
Wow you’re so smart you don’t need to use Bit-Torrent to get your warez and movies. I wish I was as cool as you.
In actual fact there are people out there who have specialised interests, for example rare genre specific music or software.
These people will use multiple sources to find what they want. Some people need DC Hubs, Alt.Binaries, Filesharing Sites, P2P Networks ala Limewire, Bit-Torrent, Email/Messenger-Groups, Private Networks, Stealing or plain old hand-to-hand sharing. There’s probably more ways too and all have their advantages and disadvantages.
Open your mind little boy.
[quote comment="300925"]“…scammers are not only ripping off innocent BitTorrent users…”
Innocent BitTorrent users. yeah.[/quote]
Not everything you download using bittorrent protocol is copyrighted, idiot.
Where is the RIAA when you need them ?
http://www.jerkbossesihaveknown.com
People on public sites deserve to be scammed like this.
i have never seen one single ad on piratebay thanks to adblock plus..fuck those spammers!
[quote comment="300952"]People on public sites deserve to be scammed like this.[/quote]
Do people on the street also deserve to be scammed somehow? It’s also a public place. :P
This effects not just torrent sites but a good 80% of web sites on the internet.
There’s so much crap out there when it comes to advertising.
Why you would surf without some ad blocking is beyond me.
[quote comment="300912"]Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the Torrent community that largely supports the illegal/immoral downloading activities are complaining about a different illegal/immoral usage of their software?[quote]
Are you? That depends… Who else here is a blithering moron? Raise your hands.
It must take an I.Q. approaching negative to “find” a parallel between sharing copyritten material for free, and selling free material for a cost. Those two concepts are at the opposite ends of the spectrum.
Making you one heaping pile of FAIL.
Wow, the RIAA trolls are into everything these days spreading their BS propaganda and searching for our “secrets”. Someone said we should be actively fighting them in this “war”. What do you mean by that? It will all sort itself out, and there’s nothing we can do, except to help others by informing them of what’s going on, so they can make decisions about their music etc, and not be turned away or give up, which is what the thugs hope for.
You shouldn’t be attacking one another in this common cause, as why increase negative stress when it’s just about discussion. People can put across their views civilly, and should be able to without being flamed. If it does happen then why not just ignore it?
Another thing is that I’ve always just ignored the stupid ads, but they become quite a pain when they disturb normal surfing with slow speed Internet by slowing it even further, and increasing cost to those with data limits. Especially when they are configured to load up before anything else, to prevent the user from stopping them after the page has loaded. Also the aggressive malicious and sneaky kind. You just know that these are scams. If not, I wouldn’t patronize them anyway on principle. But obviously some do, otherwise they’d have to give up. People should stop clicking through them, and if they lock up your options, shut down the browser forcibly, and don’t use that site again.
Btw I am NOT the fictional character, but I won’t complain. Good manners are never a waste of time.
fuck n00bs
easy money to keep sites up for us elitist bastards = AWESOME>
ppl that fall for that shit are idiots.
i might’ve paid for 500% increase but 475% is just weak. i’ll pass on this one.
For the last time—”LOSE”, as in the opposite of “find”, is spelled L-O-S-E. Not loose, as in you have a screw loose.
L-O-S-E. Lose. L_O_S_E. Lose.
Learn it. Live it.
L-O-S-E! L-O-S-E! L-O-S-E!
God almighty, will you please learn how to spell. Nothing you say is given any weight when your post is full of spelling errors. People that refuse to learn how to spell properly are not “loosers” but L-O-S-E-R-S.
Class dismissed.
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