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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125 Responses
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[quote comment="173124"]
1. a public tracker must use blocklist ipfiltering to drop all the known anti-p2p ip’s to prevent them from joining the network[/quote]
You’re a bit behind the times, and a little nieve too. Blocklists don’t work. BT-GM ran them on their trackers years ago, as did, I believe Youceff. They still got notices, and youceff got raided.
A blocklist is only effective when every potential IP that can be used by copyright enforcers, is blocked. Theonly way to do that is to block all IPs. Its a solution that has that fatal flaw in it’s conception, and hasn’t worked for at least 10 years. Promoting it as a good idea is one of the worst.
A false sense of security is worse than not having it to begin with.
MPAA needs to know who they are fucking with…I say kill all the people who tries to sensur the internet. Kill all the people involved in MPAA.
The paranoia here is breathtaking. There are MILLIONS of file-traders, so much so that you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than be one of the miniscule handful to ever confront an available court-docket spot.
Essentially, you have to be exceedingly stupid and reply to every single letter you ever get. And, never use IP-blocking software (e.g., PeerGuardian) and are therefore at the top of their list for attention.)
Why people don’t use PeerGuardian for its other utility (blocking fake servers, etc) is beyond me. Is it perfect? No. Is anything else? No.
@h33t:
Well, as Ben Jones pointed out, you are a little behind the times. The people at opentracker (denis.stalker.h3q.com) added a feature to their tracker named “Perfect Deniability”. They add random IPs to their announce. So media companys can’t rest on using the announce as proof of anything.
http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/?p=22
From isohunt:
As of earlier today, we have disabled access from users in the US to our trackers, until further notice. 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.
—–
Way to frame an issue wrong, your journalistic skills need help. Don’t help spread half-truths elsewhere please.
most trackers i know have u disable dht neway and as far as
[quote comment="172627"]I believe that this was isoHunts decision, not the MPAA’s., despite how you wish to word your headline. I’d gladly give up US peers if it means that I’m less likey to be sending or recieving shit from the likes of the late Media Defender or Media Sentry. There is more to this world the what America thinks, and we still have the rest of the world to seed to and leech from. Personaly I think good on them, screw the US and their world police mentality. Its about time more sites started doing the same. Perhaps then the lazy bastards in the US might decide enough is enough and stand up against the MAFIAA, rather than bitching because the rest of the world doesnt want anything to do with them. Boohoo for you.[/quote]
screw you fuckin wanker. not everyone in the US is a lazy fuckin bastard. Also, just in case you hadnt noticed, not everyone in the US believes in this “World Police” bullshit. In fact less than 30% of the US approves of the way the country is being run by the monkeys on the hill. So quit acting like every person from the US is an asshole and a lazy bastard whos only goal in life is to screw the rest of the world over. Honestly, i dont give a shit about the rest of the world, smuggle crack and blow each other up for all I care, not my problem. Just keep it out of my back yard. The only thing that we’ve done right was killing Sadam Hussein. He had it coming.
As for the fuck up of a war going on over there now, however many years later, I am not for it but I will support our troops because they didnt choose to be there they chose to defend our country not anyone else’s. If you wanna talk about saying enough is enough and standing up and doing something, we did the right thing and all you pussies over in Europe did shit. The US made sure there was one less psychotic mass-homicidal leader out there while France and the UK were too afraid to go.
France was selling weapons to Saddam.
/me stabs the MPAA
[quote]screw you fuckin wanker. not everyone in the US is a lazy fuckin bastard. Also, just in case you hadnt noticed, not everyone in the US believes in this “World Police” bullshit. In fact less than 30% of the US approves of the way the country is being run by the monkeys on the hill.[/quote]
Do something about it? :P
[quote]… but I will support our troops because they didnt choose to be there they chose to defend our country not anyone else’s.[/quote]
They didn’t choose to be there? Not refusing to go seems like choosing to me ;)
[quote]If you wanna talk about saying enough is enough and standing up and doing something, we did the right thing and all you pussies over in Europe did shit. The US made sure there was one less psychotic mass-homicidal leader out there while France and the UK were too afraid to go.[/quote]
Your idiot president ordered the invasion and occupation of their country to kill their idiot president, and started a civil war which caused the deaths of over a million people (1/3 killed directly by “coalition” troops).
Congratulations, sure wish MY country had the guts to do something that stupid! Then I could act all macho and blame the evil commie Europeans for everything!
It’s not a right to steal copyrighted material. We aren’t socialists, and we aren’t communists, and we’re proud of this fact.
ScrewBADNEWS, bin ladens proberly drinking coffee with bush right now as i type laughing at all you morons
[quote comment="173352"][quote]screw you fuckin wanker. not everyone in the US is a lazy fuckin bastard. Also, just in case you hadnt noticed, not everyone in the US believes in this “World Police” bullshit. In fact less than 30% of the US approves of the way the country is being run by the monkeys on the hill.[/quote]
Do something about it? :P
[quote]… but I will support our troops because they didnt choose to be there they chose to defend our country not anyone else’s.[/quote]
They didn’t choose to be there? Not refusing to go seems like choosing to me ;)
[quote]If you wanna talk about saying enough is enough and standing up and doing something, we did the right thing and all you pussies over in Europe did shit. The US made sure there was one less psychotic mass-homicidal leader out there while France and the UK were too afraid to go.[/quote]
Your idiot president ordered the invasion and occupation of their country to kill their idiot president, and started a civil war which caused the deaths of over a million people (1/3 killed directly by “coalition” troops).
Congratulations, sure wish MY country had the guts to do something that stupid! Then I could act all macho and blame the evil commie Europeans for everything![/quote]
It sure looks different from the other side of the ocean doesn’t it? Did you know that people can be shot for abandoning the military, committing treason? Yeah, its a high crime. How bout you go have a chat with your leader and tell them to change something you don’t like, and wait for it to happen, since that’s what you’re expecting us to do. Yeah, that will happen. You’re a snob, and an uneducated one at that.
Don’t see how blocking USA ip’s from torrentbox will stop people. I just connect to a proxy server with firefox and I can still get torrents from torrentspy.
[quote]It’s not a right to steal copyrighted material.[/quote]
When will you learn that copying is not stealing?
[quote]We aren’t socialists, and we aren’t communists, and we’re proud of this fact.[/quote]
I’m an anarchist; I’m not a capitalist, I’m not a statist, and I am proud of this fact :)
Hey badnews or should I say tard, your still going to download mad mediadefender shit from the web, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE, anyways this don’t mean shit for me as a USA ciizen.
As far as I know there’s not a single instance of piracy occurring through the use of bittorrent software. “Piracy” involves copying and distributing FOR PROFIT materials for which you have not secured the right to do so from the rightholder. I make no profit from any material I upload, nor do I pay anyone for anything I download.
The MPAA loses no money from me because I refuse to pay their excessive prices: I only buy movies from the bargain bin, ( and it’s been a long time since I’ve even done that, ) and the last movie I actually went to a theatre and paid to see was “Braveheart”.
The RIAA loses nothing from me because the entire industry puts out less than a dozen songs worth listening to in any calendar year and I absolutely REFUSE to pay $15-$20 for a CD with 1 decent song and 9 pieces of shit on it.
I download alot of TV - American, British, Canadian, and Australian. I have a strange sleep schedule ( many years of working nights combined with the pain meds for my multiple herniated discs, ) and downloading is easier than setting-up the VCR and ( usually ) delivers a higher quality video. So, I can legally tape or TiVo “Desperate Housewives” for my sister and she can invite a dozen of her friends over to watch it with her and send the tape home with the girl whose mother couldn’t come but it’s against the law for me to download tonight’s episode of “Bones” to watch when I’m awake??? Bullshit!!!
Every connection I make from my IP to another IP on the ‘net is the same thing as the connections I make when I place a telephone call and should be similiarly protected. The RIAA and MPAA engage in what is tantamount to illegal wiretapping activities each and every time they intercept or track a private citizen’s internet activity. It is a Federal felony to remove a supermarket circular from my mailbox but anyone who can gain access to my private email can do so with impunity. Hackers go to prison for breaking into others’ computers or for spreading malicious software ( viruses, rootkits, etc., ) yet these NON-GOVERNMENTAL organizations are allowed to actually keep people on their payrolls to do just those things and are not charged with conspiracy and racketeering?
Unfortunately, common sense seems to have no place in Law, anymore: it’s all about Politics and Lobbyists with large bank accounts. The only way we’ll ever get things straightened out is to take over a small country - Belize or Guyana have small populations and decent climates….. ;P - and make laws allowing for the setting up of a massive server farm with an “anything goes” policy towards materials and access and absolutely NO LOGGING so that even the Western governments’ hired hackers couldn’t get any data out of them to use against anyone. Too bad it’ll never happen……..
> and started a civil war which caused the deaths of over a million people
You’re a stupid lapper of propaganda. Nowhere near that many people have died in Iraq — not by orders of magnitude — and you make it sound like the Killing Fields of Cambodia.
.
Ladies and Gentlemen, an address from the (former) President of the United States of America:
September 24th, 2007 - a date which will live in infamy - the torrents of the United States of America were suddenly and deliberately attacked by legal and fiduciary forces of the MPAA and RIAA.
They have attacked Torrentspy.
They have attacked Isohunt.
They have attacked Demonoid.
The attack yesterday on the Trackers has caused severe damage to American completion. I regret to tell you that very many American downloads have been lost. In addition, American peers have been reported torpedoed on the backbones between San Francisco and New York.
But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous
might will win through to absolute victory.
I believe that I interpret the will of the Seeders and of the leechers when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never
again endanger us.
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our movies, our music, and our television shows are in grave danger.
With confidence in our modems - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God!
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