IsoHunt Takes Down BitTorrent Trackers in the US
Written by Ernesto on September 25, 2007Starting today, the Isohunt team will deny access to all US visitors on their TorrentBox and Podtropolis tracker. They are forced to take this action because of their involvement in a lawsuit initiated by the MPAA.
The IsoHunt crew released this statement today:
As of earlier today, we have disabled access from users in the US to our trackers. This goes for ALL trackers (torrentbox, podtropolis) we run. This is due to the US’s hostility towards P2P technologies, and we feel with our current lawsuit brought by the MPAA, we can no longer ensure your security and privacy in the US. So, if you’re outside the US, you may notice less peers. We encourage you to add other public, unhampered trackers to torrents you post, in addition to Torrentbox and Podtropolis’s trackers.
IsoHunt is not alone in their battle with the MPAA. Last month TorrentSpy, another site named in the MPAA lawsuit blocked access to US users on their site. However, the takedown of IsoHunt’s trackers will have an even bigger effect on the BitTorrent community worldwide, especially because TorrentBox runs one of the biggest public BitTorrent trackers. As mentioned by the Isohunt team, this means that users outside the US will see less peers connected to their torrents which may result in slower download speeds.
The MPAA announced the lawsuit (PDF) against Torrentspy, Torrentbox and Isohunt in February 2006. Isohunt owner Gary later told TorrentFreak that they will not bow down to the MPAA. Isohunt hired a top-notch lawyer, specialized in Internet copyrights. It now seems that this wasn’t enough to keep the trackers in the air. For now, the websites are still available to US visitors.
The MPAA argues that the sole purpose of these BitTorrent trackers and sites is to share copyrighted content. But they are wrong according to Gary, who said, “We process copyright takedown requests daily, and have done so for hundreds of requests in the past, if not thousands. We work with all copyright owners, and even the RIAA email us routinely. The MPAA is the only organization unwilling to cooperate with us.”
Luckily, quite a lot of torrents are tracked by more that one tracker these days. And if that doesn’t work there’s always DHT. You can read more about how to protect yourself from failing BitTorrent trackers in this article. Long live the hydra!
To be continued. (Thanks Tom)
Thanks to one of our American associates showing this block in action right now
Previously: The 5 Most Popular BitTorrent Trackers
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They do this to protect their users, this is very brave from them I think but unfortunately they will also loose a lot of traffic :(
For all users who are worried about not being able to download the contents tracked by TorrentBox or PodTropolis, download them on
http://www.sumotorrent.com
All public torrents are tracked by SUMOTracker and PirateBay on top of the original tracker, so you will still be able to download even if the original tracker is unreachable :)
Breeze, care to explain about the piece size? I use 256 mostly but for big files (like Linux ISOs ;) ) I go with 512-1024. Why 256?
Here’s some RIAA/MPAA court cases that are taking place in the US. Read the related articles also. I live in the US and have had 2 run ins with MD but nothing ever happened.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070924-victorious-riaa-defendant-gets-attorneys-fees-turns-to-class-action-plans.html
Has anyone noticed that eztv demonoid and mininova are all down today?
i hope this isn’t related
You might also add the denis.stalker.h3q.com announce url to your torrents. It’s an open tracker, meaning that just announcing a hash to them is enough to start tracking it over there (no need for uploading torrent files, heck, they don’t even run a indexing site for that purpose). Maybe if one uses the Bluetack filter list, he/she has to unblock their IP (thanks to Bluetack for that retarded banning on that IP).
All the arguments aside….when trackers start banning whole contries….the fight is almost over…the mafiaa’s are winning. And your going down without a fight. If your in another country running a tracker what do you have to worry about. Are you that scared of the US and its corporations.
i’m in brazil and i see no difference in my torrent speed with my 2mb connection, anyway its a badnews see great american torrent sites falling one after an other
And you Europeans say we’re the arrogant one? How about instead of turning this into a “we’re better than you” argument, we all get together and try to solve the underlying problem?
Naw I like this better. I’m Canadian. And yes. I AM better than you.
[quote comment="172842"][..] there’s always DHT [..]
As long as the private flag isn’t set by some morons for public torrents…
- Breeze[/quote]
I’ve often wanted a simple way to turn off that private flag. I realize that it wouldn’t do much good unless some other folks did likewise, so perhaps a few of the most popular apps should offer this feature. Unless someone knows of some good reason not to do so?
To block anyone you like, I have 2 words…..peer guardian.
Canada sucks.
Facts correction: The three sites that were sued in February 2006 did NOT include TorrentBox. They were Isohunt, TorrentSpy, and NiteShdw.com.
I have a program that makes my ip look like it’s coming from Japan, or I can choose it to be anywhere in the world I want to. These programs are SUPER EASY to use… would these work as a work around because it’s not showing you’re from the US? if so, than NOTHING is happening to Bittorrent traffic at all.
> the people in the USA lose out because
> they let the orgs like the MPAA flourish
“…they let…”?
What do you suggest *I* do about it? Vote uselessly?
They have democracy in Europe, too; and it’s just about the most decrepit thing ever.
ipfiltering a WHOLE country is a legal move, nothing to do with best practise for trackers that are not in a legal bind
tracker best practise is:
1. a public tracker must use blocklist ipfiltering to drop all the known anti-p2p ip’s to prevent them from joining the network
2. a public tracker must use tracker blocking to eliminate bad trackers propagating fake files
3. a public tracker must actively moderate uploads to eliminate fake files
conclusion:
open public unprotected trackers are rich bountiful source of infomation for the **AA who need do nothing more than add a tracking peer to a torrent to receive all the data they need. i am sorry to say this, examples of dangerous unprotected public trackers:
denis.stalker.h3q.com
demonoid
thepiratebay
sumo
http://www.h33t.com has an open public tracker that uses ipfiltering to block ALL known anti-p2p ip’s from joining a swarm. it is possible and more trackers must start using ipfiltering
(final note on the evil DHT, the tracker communities must be educated to DISABLE the evil DHT as it is an open door into the swarm when a protected tracker has blocked an evil peer)
Just wondering…
Is it possible to move seeds from a fixed location to a “floating” location? So, instead of putting a seed .torrent file on a server (always subject to takedown) I upload it directly into a global swarm?
What I envision is some sort of plugin for the bit torrent clients that slowly moves bits around all day. Most people would hardly notice a few K per hour.
I’m not a tech guy but it seems that bit torrent is most of the way there already.
Ah well, back to getting my shit from newsgroups…
is demonoid dead? seems to be offline…
is the party ending?
maybe some more people will start partying after bar…
as i said earlier eztv is out too, i think the massive amount of people downloading the fall premiers has done it.
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