OiNK Investigation Seeks Identities and Activities of Users
Written by enigmax on October 23, 2007OiNK, one of the world’s most popular trackers has been shutdown. Now, in the hours immediately following the closure, the site is responding but displaying an ominous message indicating an investigation into the site’s users has begun.
The message currently on the OiNK page is as follows:
Many of OiNK’s users have been enquiring if their details are safe on the site. The message: “A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site’s users” will not exactly fill them with confidence.
However, everyone in the BitTorrent world will be familiar with the propaganda put out by anti-piracy organizations and many will be familiar with a similar situation a few years ago when the LokiTorrent tracker was closed and seemingly none of the users were tracked down. Fear, uncertainty and doubt - it’s all part of the anti-p2p strategy but it’s hugely doubtful that 180,000 users will be pursued, it’s just not cost effective and most are scattered around the globe.
According to whois.sc, the visitors to the site are split: United States 50.7%, United Kingdom 7%, Canada 6%, Sweden 3.2%, Germany 2.7% and Netherlands at just 1.9%. Although of questionable accuracy, these figures should give at least an idea of the trend on the site.
Clearly the statement on the homepage is designed to scare all the ex-OiNK members back into the record shops and not let them think it’s safe to join another tracker. That strategy has been tried before (You Can Click But You Can’t Hide) and it doesn’t work. Additionally, more and more people are choosing to protect their privacy with VPN services such as VPNTunnel and Relakks, finding that a small investment is worth the peace of mind in the long run.
So who are the players in this OiNK takedown?
Most people know about the IFPI - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. This organization says it represents the worldwide interests of the recording industry with the backing of nearly 1,500 record businesses in 75 countries. Its main aim is to fight piracy.
The BPI - British Phonographic Industry is similar to the RIAA in the US. It’s made up of hundreds of music businesses and fronted by the ‘big four’ - EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner. Created in 1973, its stated main aim is to combat piracy.
The FIOD-ECD - Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police is a worrying inclusion to the list of people involved in the closure of OiNK. FIOD-ECD is a Dutch government agency dedicated to chasing down people alleged to be involved in fiscal, financial and economic fraud - usually major criminals. With these people involved, getting access to records from hosts wouldn’t have proven too difficult - FIOD-ECD are not just another BREIN, they have some serious powers.
People familiar with the ShareConnector and Releases4u cases in the Netherlands will remember the involvement of FIOD-ECD. The case took over 2 years to come to court and the result was a complete failure for them. The admin of ShareConnector got off completely and a couple of small fines (around $350) were handed out to the admins of Releases4U for uploading copyright material. Additionally, FIOD-ECD failed to provide enough evidence to prove ShareConnector was involved in copyright infringement nor enough to prove that either organization was criminal in nature.
Many people will be keeping their fingers crossed that the progress against OiNK mirrors this.
Following a 2 year investigation (or 3 month investigation, depending on the source) which involved Interpol, Police are insisting that OiNK was a pay site. Members were given the option to donate but this insistence that OiNK was some sort of criminal network where people paid to be a member is clearly untrue but it’s likely that this is the reason the real police (as opposed to the ‘copyright police’) and FIOD-ECD are involved.
Jeremy Banks of the IFPI said: “This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure.”
Yes it was Jeremy.
Previously: OiNK.cd Servers Raided, Admin Arrested
Next: OiNK Admin Released From Custody
174 Responses
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Brian…
canceling your paypal account will only leave you without an account. not worth deleted. Just pucker up your ass cheeks and hope they don’t get anything off the servers to prosecute you.
Paco420
YOU CANT SPELL FOR SHIT! SHOULDN’T YOU BE IN SOCIAL STUDIES OR SOMETHING YOU 12 YEAR OLD FUCK
[quote comment="193475"]As a former OiNK member i can tell you that taking down this site will only hurt the recording industry. If everyone had to pay for every song they wanted to listen to no one could afford it, leaving people with far less interest in music in general, and a much narrower taste as well. Having access to a site like Oink on helped to expand the member’s musical horizons, and create a massive grass roots fanbase for music of all kinds in general.
Don’t worry people, there will be something coming back that is even better. They will never be able to stop this. The ONLY downside to this is the couple months of downtime and having to restart your ratio over….
Long live freedom on the net, anonymity, and power to the masses.[/quote]
I would say, OiNK actually opened me up to new music I have never even heard of…
Infected Mushrooms, Ween, heck even Modest Mouse…
If it wasn’t for OiNK I would probably never even got into the psy-trance genre.
Also made me realize how things like iTunes are forcing us to pay $0.99 for crap quality…128kbs MY ASS!!!
OiNK gave us FLAC, for free… Made me realize that music should be enjoyed for all it’s glory, not let it be shit-faced with crappy encodings by apple and what not…
[quote comment="193474"]@ “not good…”
I fall into that boat too. What will canceling my paypal account do?[/quote]
What would be the rational after going after people who donated money? Chances are, if you donated money to this site, you probably are someone who will also pay for music.
Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking on my part, but it really seems to me that if they’re going to really pursue any members here, it will be those who were uploading pre-release material, since this whole raid has been predicated upon stopping that.
Is a person who donated a few bucks to the site any more guilty than someone that didn’t? I don’t think so.
[quote comment="193479"]Paco420
YOU CANT SPELL FOR SHIT! SHOULDN’T YOU BE IN SOCIAL STUDIES OR SOMETHING YOU 12 YEAR OLD FUCK[/quote]
HA you fucking idiot… try posting something related to topic… I know my spelling isn’t the best but at least I know how to turn off the caps lock… Oh and being that English isn’t my first language, that may explain why my spelling at times may be shit… and I’m 25 jack ass.
[quote comment="193383"]www.stmusic.org for people needing scene stuff[/quote]
hosted@ leaseweb too….
comes next. do not advertise it… its not good :P
it is perfectly legal to donate to paypal
they cannot use paypal informatoin againts him what so ever all ur information reguardin that is fine
I wish someone could log in and remove that greyscreen, it annoys me.
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
25/tcp open smtp
37/tcp open time
80/tcp open http
113/tcp open auth
587/tcp open submission
3306/tcp open mysql
OiNK opened up a world of music and non-fictional audiobooks to me, but now it’s gone in a cloud of false accusations and general misinformation (paying to get access to oink?! bulls**t!). And these are the main reasons for involving even the Interpol. I’m sick of this.
Stop paying for any music that is being funded by these *IAA crooks, THE MARKET is the only thing these idiots can comprehend, they do not know the concept of “human nature”, or “etchics”.
I’m off to buy Radiohead, but aren’t they too in the hands of some major label? Are the mp3’s they “sell” online watermarked? [ http://www.inrainbows.com/ ]
[quote comment="193482"]Oh and being that English isn’t my first language, that may explain why my spelling at times may be shit… and I’m 25 jack ass.[/quote]
We know how old you are
http://searchirc.com/boards/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=22696
Why not send some flames to:
Internet Anti-Piracy Unit
Jeremy Banks- Vice-President, Internet Anti-Piracy
IFPI Secretariat
10 Piccadilly
London
W1J 0DD
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7878 7900
Fax: +44 (0)20 7878 7950
E-mail: info@ifpi.org
or to
BPI
Riverside Building
County Hall
Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 7JA
T: +44 (0)20 7803 1300
F: +44 (0)20 7803 1310
E: general@bpi.co.uk / antipiracy@bpi.co.uk
if the media industry rationale is correct then closing OiNK will result in a spike of CD/DVD sales as the 180,000 members flock back to the retail stores NOT!
as enigmax rightly says, more worrying for poor Alan and his pals is the involvement of FIOD-ECD because after having been burned in previous court cases they are gonna be a lot smarter. they must have some serious evidence against the operators of OiNK
i couple of hours ago i spoke with someone close to the host of OiNK and he stuttered when i put it to him that the servers (as reported by the BBC) were taken last week “i dont know anything about that” … that is something the big uploaders at OiNK wanna take care of
http://www.h33t.com
[quote comment="193507"][quote comment="193482"]Oh and being that English isn’t my first language, that may explain why my spelling at times may be shit… and I’m 25 jack ass.[/quote]
We know how old you are
http://searchirc.com/boards/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=22696/quote
Wow looks like someone has been doing their homework. Congratulation on finding basically nothing on me. As I openly tell people who I am. Hell if you want come talk to me on irc.p2p-network.net I hang out in # spikedtearadio #demonoid or find me in irc.steroidbot.com #lobby
Their is some more information so you know more of who I am. not much but… next? Can we get back to topic at hand now?
Start running tor nodes people. It’s not illegal to run one…
Only a matter of time before a tracker starts up as a .onion/tor site, but it will take a lot of running nodes to satisfy that bandwidth.
guess bitsoup is next in line..
if we follow the md mails
funny they don’t mention how much software changed hands on that site. oink was outta control. as much as I may miss it, i do think there needs to be a place for a “music” industry in the future. Oink was so damn good, there was no need for anything else. Ever. Bye bye piggy.
Lets face it, oink admins were really dumb, they have problems only becouse there were dumb and thats all!
I will wait how story will develop, was thinkin’ to open nice tracker too… I just need some confidence!
I think everyone is missing the most important point. I see no use of ajax on that page.
If this isn’t proof that there is a demand for all-you-can-download subscription services THAT WORK ON IPOD, I don’t know what is.
OINK was an evil pig that deserved to go to the slaughterhouse. They got fat off of donations and whatever else they could root out. OINK was not true P2P. TRue P2P is people sharing, saying what they want without fear, not worrying about BS ratios. There will always bee leechers. The Admins made life HELL. One could get banned for nothing. They had silly rules. For instance, unless you had an avatar of a cutsy utsy stuffed anilmal you were banned! I swear! I hope they ROT in jail and misery for making people live in fear on their site. Be carefull LEROY when you bend over to pickup that bar of soap….hahahah!
http://oinkmemorial.blogspot.com/
Dude most of these so called tracker ‘admins’ are idiots.
I mean come on what do you expect?
Its ppl hanging around in irc all day, most of them don’t have anything but the little power to ban someone from the site and kick’em off the chan.
In return they get hammered with mostly stupid questions all day. First off all you have to be pretty dumb to do something like that for free and secondly being that dumb doesn’t help with looking smart part (duh)… so you look like an asshole.
P2P sites are ALL about the community and the OiNK community was the shit! Fuck admins just ignore them and you’ll be fine. I’ve honestly got an irssi script that ignores anyone with @/% on some of these chans. Makes live fun again.
Seems like they have planned this for 2 years..
The weird thing is that the article below claims that the servers were seized last week..
Taken from bbc.co.uk:
“The site’s servers, based in Amsterdam, were seized in a series of raids last week.
It followed a two-year investigation by music industry bodies the IFPI and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). “
As someone who downloaded like 60gigs of music and donated money, and living in a very affluent part of the US (although not affluent themselves), what precautions should they take? What is the chance of them actually being investigated? Is TrueCrypt good enough?
You life in the states!
They’ll probably decalre you a terrorist and torture you until you decrypt the stuff yourself… other than that truecrypt is good :).
moo.me.uk - tribute to oink which DID sound right :D
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