MPAA Caught Uploading Fake Torrents
It is no secret that the MPAA and other anti-piracy organizations track down alleged pirates by uploading fake torrents. Up until now it was always unclear where those files came from, and how to identify them.
The MPAA and other anti-piracy watchdogs try to trap people into downloading fake torrents, so they can collect IP addresses, and send copyright infringement letters to ISPs. They hire a company to put up fake copies of popular movies, music albums, and TV series. They even use pirate like filenames such as “Battlestar Galactica S03E07 REPACK DSR XviD-ORENJi” and “Miami Vice[2006]DvDrip[Eng]-aXXo“.
One of the btjunkie admins has found a unique way to identify trackers that host these fake files, which makes it easy to efficiently remove them.
Virtually all the servers that spread these fake files are located in Southern California and Las Vegas. The administrators of these servers follow patterns that make it easy to identify them. The content of the trackers and seed amounts make them stand out. There are more unique characteristics, but we wont reveal all the tricks because they could take counter measures. Here are some examples of servers that host and track fake torrents:
Tracker 1, Tracker 2, Tracker 3 & Tracker 4. (Screenshots: One & Two)
All the information was provided to me by one of the admins of btjunkie, who works together on this with other torrent site admins. He says that the MPAA and friends use a variety of tactics. The tracker will either stall everyone at around 90% or the content will just be a blank monochrome screen.
“I really think this is being done by professionals with a budget, that’s a lot of servers to setup and it takes some expertise to setup in the manner that they did it,” says the btjunkie admin. “I don’t think I really need to say who would spend money on something like this.”
Here are some good examples of how these fake torrents clutter up the search results. Virtually all of those X marked torrents are coming from the ip-ranges we mentioned, and are fake files. The good thing is that Torrentportal’s report system is well used by their users.
The server boxes that host these torrents fall in serveral ip-ranges. Here are a few of the ranges that were discovered recently. You can easily add these to the blocklist of your torrent client (if it supports one), filewall, or blocklist manager.
The anti-piracy servers use hostnames like 101tracker.dhcp.biz, aplustorrents.qhigh.com, bitnova.squirly.info, bittorment.ocry.com, and pirate-trakkrz.leet.la. All these hostnames can be traced back to the same IP Ranges, these ranges contain possibly hundreds of fake trackers, so feel free to block them:
A list of infohashes of fake torrents can be found over here.
Note that it’s not only MPAA material that is hosted on these fake trackers. It is more likely that the servers are owned and operated by an organization that logs IP addresses for several copyright owners and or anti-piracy organizations.
Update: according to one of out readers these ip-ranges belong to “Media Defender“, a company that is hired by copyright owners, to log IP-addresses. This reader, who worked for Media Defender until recently, confirmed that some of the torrents that were mentioned, are indeed on the MPAA’s list.
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201 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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copyright is a shame
share everything and when they come to your door, blow a hole in their head!
The cases all are handled on a intent basis. The real question the courts ask when seeing if a user is guilty or not, is are they TRYING to get the material described in the name, OR are they just downloading it to see if it’s junk or not?
A few things would alter the course of the trial.
-Date of accessing the site
-Dates of prior access
-Which OTHER files have they gotten?
However, a lot of you are assuming that they’re just putting fake files up. This is untrue. MPAA and RIAA put real files on the net, and then when users download them, they really do have a case, because copyright law has been violated.
If you live in the U.S.A, and the police take your storage devices and computers, it’s likely that you’ll be found guilty if you have any other files besides the “faked” files.
I strongly urge those of you who are taken in by the police about this to take a close look at their search warrant. It likely will read to look for the files that they faked - which of course, ANYTHING else they find while looking for that files MUST be thrown out of the lawsuit if it’s not explicitly written in the warrant.
The real kicker that they can still do to you is contact your ISP. Depending on the ISP, it is more than likely that they will side with MPAA and RIAA. So, you may have won ideologically, but you’re still out of an ISP.
So what can you do about it?
As previously mentioned, browse without traces.
-Download at TOR
-Set your tracker IP to be 255.255.255.0 or some NULL address
-Encrypt your contents that you upload, and switch IPs constantly.
-Get PeerGuardian, and get lots of lists daily.
-Download/upload in sprees, and then quit downloading.
-Wipe the HDD and rewrite random data onto it in at least 3 sweeps. You can transfer the data onto a webserver (ENCRYPT IT!!!!)
-Encrypt your entire HDD, AES preferably
One method that I’m still attempting to try is sending bad data back at the MPAA and RIAA, and seeing if I get blocked BY THEM! If their servers list my client as a bad client, they won’t ever connect to me, and thus, no data will ever be transacted on any of their servers. I’m still don’t know how their systems are setup so don’t go quote me on this.
Cheers
Well, I think that with the disappearance of demonoid and now this BS, it’s high time the file sharing community started fighting dirty too!
Like a virus/trojan/worm that get’s into people’s computers and then starts quietly DLing and and seeding torrent files!! Isn’t that exactly what they were talking about doing to us? making our computers seed fake files without us knowing it? We should just turn around and do the same thing to them but make their comps seed the real files for us!!
It could even be devised in such a manner that if your ratio in other bittorrent apps is high enough on real valid files then the trojan would cease activity.. That way for real file sharers this trojan would simply be inert and pose no problem.
Coders, hackers, sharers UNITE!! They can never stop us and by trying to they will only force us to take more drastic measures.
I would also encourage ALL file sharers to support the artists and developers who they deem worthy. It is virtually impossible to find authentic (non pirated) PC games in English here in China.. 90% of the seemingly authentic software in seemingly authentic shops here are really pirated.. also even real authentic english versions purchased here are fraught with problems.. because even if they are in english they are not the US/UK released versions and often are incompatable with official patches.. etc. etc.
If I go to Hong Kong and buy a game and the game has major problems/won’t install or won’t run/just plain sucks.. well, in hong kong I never saw a shop with a decent return policy and it would cost more to go back HK and return it than the game cost in the first place anyway.. Enter bittorrent.. The games I like I do buy the next time I’m in HK.. if it weren’t for the torrents I would hasve never bought those games because I wouldn’t have played them.
Beside the point.. Coders please get to work and make the trojan/worm please, thanks.
I agree with a lot fo the comments here. By posting a torrent that also happens to deliver junk instead of copyrighted material, no copyright infrigment has been committed. Furthermore, can they really prove intent if someone could potentially post this fake MPAA torrent under a different name that suggests it points to non-copyrighted material? Can they prove that the user intended to download the copyrighted material? I am no expert, but I think the file name is not included in the calculated hash? So, how can MPAA match the content to a file name without physically obtaining the torrent file on the computer or obtaining the IP of the computer that downloaded it from a tracker site?
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Hi guys …first of all I wanna confirm that here in my country none of that shit will even reach the court’s doors < that’s first .
second digitally signing the movies and music if much more important that anything nowadays … I mean if a man like aXXo signed his movies with a digital certificate no one will download any fake torrent that may refer directly of indirectly to use his name to catch IPs and since the IP that apears in any bittorrent client is your ISP’s not yours then it’s a whole shit people !!!!
Hers an idea for those people uploading. My Not just rename your files as -SWE2-
real name is “starwars episode 2″?
Then eveyoen knows that if a file is named correctly, it was an MPAA fake??
I think its time to move from naming files correctly and abbreivate them instead. Then what are the MPAA going to do?
rofl… i love my country :) they are the smartest geeks and play dumb =)) i don’t even got a cinema in my freakin’ town and those commercials from tv .. each 5 minutes they drive me crazy … this kind of social … money governed society sucks.. Europa RUles
I know how to end this. Someone with testicles of steal should take a camcorder and make a little documentary. Record yourself going to a torrent site and find an obvious fake. Tell the camera why you know it’s a fake, show them the evidence, and then download it. After it’s downloaded show the camera that it is in fact a fake and then when the infamous disconnect comes sue the MPAA for pain and suffering and liable, slander, and whatever else you can think of. Hell, sue your isp too.
When you go to court simply play them the vid which clearly shows that you had no intention of downloading the copyrighted film in question. Nothing else matters if there was no intent. It would seriously undermine any other attempts by the MPAA to show any intent in the future. Even if they did copyright the fake jibberish file they still uploaded it with the intent to share. Actually, torrent sites should take all the fake torrents and put them in a special section called “fake MPAA torrents, everyone download”
I just think we should stick up for each other.
Inform as many people as possible to be careful with what they download. Not giving too much detail about what we know obviously.
All the millions that these people make apparently isn’t enough. Fuck them, lets seed.
Im just wondering. does anybody know what the laws for downloading in Europe are. I know sweden is ok to download but dont know about the rest.
In response to bltz’s earlier post:
14 Jan 11, 2007 at 22:54 by bltzQuote bltz
Made PeerGuardian file with all these address ranges Ernesto posted. Save this text to a file, name it FakeTrackers.p2p or something similar (the .p2p extension is important) and then you can add it to PeerGuardian :
FakeTrackers:66.172.60.1-66.172.60.255
FakeTrackers:66.177.58.1-66.177.58.255
FakeTrackers:66.180.205.1-66.180.205.255
FakeTrackers:209.204.61.1-209.204.61.255
FakeTrackers:216.151.155.1-216.151.155.255
I’ve pasted those trackers into a text document, as suggested, but how exactly do I add those to PeerGuardian?
Sorry - but I’m a thickie!
Thanks in advance -
jay
Irish Guy >> I think the situation and laws are pretty much the same all over Europe. In Sweden it’s “okay” to download, but illegal to ‘make publicly available’ of copyrighted material. Still the lobbyists are doing what they can to take control of our judicial situation and a lot of what’s going on is really frightening… I would say the biggest threat now is that they (the “mafia”) continue to gain ground in the EU parliament which of course is the most effective way to gain control of the major part of the European countries and override any specific country’s own laws, such as Sweden…
As far as the “intent” argument goes (not applicable in Sweden) I would refuse to acknowledge that I was trying to download copyrighted material. If they can’t prove I knew it was “copyrighted” (I would claim I was looking for the “Sweded” version ;-)) and the file itself was a pile of legal junk, then there’s no case whatsoever…
Btw, everyone who thinks this equation returns a negative number say “AYE”…
X-(Y+Z)=
X: The amount of money supposedly lost in reduced sales because of internet piracy.
Y: Money invested in Anti-piracy and DRM.
Z: Money lost in reduced sales as a counter-action response to aggressive anti-piracy enforcement.
Police women arresting “Johns” is just another Anti-male bias in a highly feminazi “Cuntry”
Most of these women are nasty pieces of work who make they’re living preying on men just as much as men prey on them
Ahem… strippers, nuff said.
O but women are always the victim an need protection.
The worst was when topless police women were in a park asking men for sex (without money) an then having them arrested. Who would say no to a topless women in the park asking for sex (for free).
Now add the fact you live in a country that poisons you (Fluoride) so a corporation doesn’t have to pay the disposal fee for hence toxin. Going to war so corporate big wigs can make a killing (literally). Or just living in a nation where a women (stripper, pornstar, Tila Tequila) with no talent, an big tits can make more money in a week than your stupid ass can ever make in a lifetime, an still expects you to make more money an pay for everything.
An we live in a 1st world country, my ass!
All the evidence you need to pack your bags an leave for South America or Thailand
Just read the comments- on the files. that alone should help you all out. Think b4 you act is all..
I have relative of mine who works at Media Defender and he mentioned to me that Media Defender does indeed host blank files and also uses ip addresses to send over to the MPAA and other govt. organizations. I believe they also started a torrent site but were caught by some great Pirates. Be careful of those bastards.
Well, I live in Switzerland, and here we have something called a sane law. If an organisation like the MPAA were to pull of something like that, the courts would rule that they have “tempted you into committing a criminal act,” and if anyone would get punished, it would be them. Just the same, police are not allowed to put up “traps,” e.g. offering someone drugs and then arresting them if they accept.
Of course this only works because we also have a sane legal system, meaning you are innocent unless proven guilty, and that you cannot be extorted by big conglomerates, like the RIAA or MPAA. They have to PROOF the damage they suffered, or they will pay for all the trouble they caused.
No offense, my American friends, I’m just pointing out what I think the problem is :)
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