Piracy Investigators Infiltrate Private Torrent Sites

Written by enigmax on April 12, 2007 

In March, TorrentFreak published an article which aimed to answer the question ‘Are Private BitTorrent Trackers Safe?’ Now, an internet piracy investigator has admitted that his organisation has successfully infiltrated private BitTorrent trackers and is actively collecting information.

PirateSpy

Speaking with Guardian Unlimited primarily regarding piracy counter-measures, Peter Anaman, a senior internet investigator for legal firm Covington and Burling has admitted that his organisation has infiltrated unnamed private BitTorrent tracker sites and shares their method of gaining access;

“Many groups didn’t start off as private. They became private because they felt threatened, so we were able to get in when they were open” he said.

Anaman indicated that his company maintains a network of contacts who help it gain access to additional private sites, although he isn’t forthcoming about what happens while they’re there, other than information gathering.

With a nod towards the increasing difficulty of getting a membership on certain private BitTorrent trackers Anaman added, “Once you’re in, you never take action. You just listen”

In 2005, a successful infiltration operation masterminded by the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) led to the shutdown of the EliteTorrents BitTorrent tracker after they breached the Family Entertainment Act with their involvement in the internet pre-release of Star Wars: Episode III.

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Previously: Rogers Fights BitTorrent by Throttling All Encrypted Transfers

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73 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)

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26 Apr 13, 2007 at 13:20 by GK

Arqentus,

How can those statements not carry any legal weight, but EULA on software do? They’re basically the same thing. You click through to agree to both.

27 Apr 13, 2007 at 14:58 by Jim V Murphy

The RIAA, FBI and MPAA all need to have a copy of Beeper Cranker Pro v7.0 unleased on those fuckers giving their entire phone system a “service denial attack” so that nobody can communicate.

Use Beeper Cranker Pro to page 100,000 beepers and text messages for people to call their main #’s as an emergency and it will jam their phones up. That’s what they get for bugging us. The reason we trade music is because WE ARE ALL BROKE and cannot afford to keep buying CD’s! The markup is too much on them. They pay $.50 cents for a CD and mark it up 40x. CMON!! KNOCK IT OFF!

BEEPER CRANK THESE FUCKS!

28 Apr 13, 2007 at 15:08 by abject_misery3

[quote comment="84621"][quote]I have worked for ICS for the last 2 years. Their are over 20 private torrent sites we are watching. As for the comment on accounts being purged. We actively upload working movies to the site that work but have hidden “Trojan’s” giving us access to people that have played the movie on their computer. This information will not be confirmed by anyone in the agency.
The current sites being targeted: Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, tus-kvcd-group, and many more that will not be mentioned due to security issues.[/quote]

…For starters you don’t know the difference between “their” and “there” so I’m guessing your about 12 years old. Also you listed 3 public sites, not private ones. Nice try.[/quote]

Well, you don’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re” so you’re obviously only thirteen, so how about you just shut the fuck up and do the world a favor. Come back and insult someone else’s English, when your’s is immaculate.

29 Apr 13, 2007 at 15:29 by SneakRep

I am a part of a watchdog group working for both the RIAA/MPAA. What we do is, when you sleeps, we break in your house and we steals your computer. Then we replace it with a trojan horse. So you never know when we strike.

Bewares.

30 Apr 13, 2007 at 15:35 by Holy Schmidt

What would Jesus pirate?

31 Apr 13, 2007 at 15:38 by Paco420

So when do we start the Beeper Cranker Pro attacks. I have my copy do you have yours?

32 Apr 13, 2007 at 15:58 by James

abject_misery3: Maybe if you actually took the time to learn how to read I corrected myself directly after that question, before anyone pointed it out so please shut the fuck up and die. I’m not the one claiming to work for the “ICS” so I don’t have to speak proper English (Swedish is my native tongue anyway).

33 Apr 13, 2007 at 16:05 by Gwendoline

[quote comment="84727"][quote comment="84621"][quote]I have worked for ICS for the last 2 years. Their are over 20 private torrent sites we are watching. As for the comment on accounts being purged. We actively upload working movies to the site that work but have hidden “Trojan’s” giving us access to people that have played the movie on their computer. This information will not be confirmed by anyone in the agency.
The current sites being targeted: Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, tus-kvcd-group, and many more that will not be mentioned due to security issues.[/quote]

…For starters you don’t know the difference between “their” and “there” so I’m guessing your about 12 years old. Also you listed 3 public sites, not private ones. Nice try.[/quote]

Well, you don’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re” so you’re obviously only thirteen, so how about you just shut the fuck up and do the world a favor. Come back and insult someone else’s English, when your’s is immaculate.[/quote]

abject_misery3, your sentence structure is REALLY GOOD!! You manage to pack so much in one sentence. Why dont you Come back and insult someone else’s English, when you know how to write a sentence properly.

34 Apr 13, 2007 at 16:46 by NoGodForMe

They’ll just move the servers to Iran like the credit card scammers from Africa are doing.
Those are the people the government really needs to go after. Go to MSNBC online and look up the show Dateline, then watch the videos. The identity crooks from Africa and around the world are more of a problem than people leeching movies and music.

The money lost numbers are so over inflated, it’s not even funny. Most people are broke, so if they can’t get it for free, that doesn’t mean they would have bought it.

But the credit card scammers are stealing real money from the accounts of Americans. That’s the problem the government needs to solve first.

35 Apr 13, 2007 at 17:33 by An0nym0us

wait a minute….
“NoGodForMe”
But the credit card scammers are stealing real money from the accounts of Americans. That’s the problem the government needs to solve first.

First off fuck the Americans If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t be having so many problems as is. Not to mention the Americans like to gloat so much about how much money they have and how they are the best and rule the world. If some black dudes from Africa steal some cash from them fuck it. The less money the Americans have the less they can go on gloating. I can say this as I have lived in the US for 22 years and now living in another country due to the stupidity of the US government. We the people that help keep the torrent community are not in this for money or for fame. We just want to help share entertainment to the people that can’t afford to buy plastic disks or pay 10euros just to see a movie. I would add more to this but honestly. I think what I’ve said will start the next big argument in attempts to steer away from bad grammar and idiots that have nothing better to do then insult others. Yes, I am insulting Americans but like it says at the beginning of my post, Americans are the problem. As for the ICS dude… Honestly now… why would you claim to be someone and give that kind of information? Its clear that its not the truth in so many levels. Ya your grammar might be bad but hell not everyone is calm when they write a response to something like this.

36 Apr 13, 2007 at 21:28 by teh FBI

Swarms on most TBSource based trackers are already 100% public - they just may not know it yet. Talk of infiltration is pointless. BT all by itself is insecure.

37 Apr 13, 2007 at 21:52 by Asswipe

If you can’t afford a CD, why does that make it ok to steal it? Does that mean if I can’t afford to pay your mom for a pony ride, I should just bend her over and take it for free?

38 Apr 13, 2007 at 22:37 by Spacecat

Never seen so much bollocks in my life, im just glad you will all be back at school next week.

39 Apr 13, 2007 at 23:18 by TBone

SilentServent was full of it. Adding trojans into files so they can spy on users. . . Hey, think SONY can give them some advice on how well that works!

SilentServent, go back to your pathetic little flamebaiting cave you friggin troll!

40 Apr 14, 2007 at 00:32 by paperslug

[quote comment="84756"]wait a minute….
“NoGodForMe”
But the credit card scammers are stealing real money from the accounts of Americans. That’s the problem the government needs to solve first.

First off fuck the Americans If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t be having so many problems as is.

Not to mention the Americans like to gloat so much about how much money they have and how they are the best and rule the world. If some black dudes from Africa steal some cash from them fuck it.

The less money the Americans have the less they can go on gloating.

I can say this as I have lived in the US for 22 years and now living in another country due to the stupidity of the US government. We the people that help keep the torrent community are not in this for money or for fame.

We just want to help share entertainment to the people that can’t afford to buy plastic disks or pay 10euros just to see a movie. I would add more to this but honestly. I think what I’ve said will start the next big argument in attempts to steer away from bad grammar and idiots that have nothing better to do then insult others.

Yes, I am insulting Americans but like it says at the beginning of my post, Americans are the problem. As for the ICS dude…

Honestly now… why would you claim to be someone and give that kind of information? Its clear that its not the truth in so many levels. Ya your grammar might be bad but hell not everyone is calm when they write a response to something like this.[/quote]

Yeah being a bigot solves everything

41 Apr 14, 2007 at 08:27 by ACiD

LMFAO!!!

OMG, I love it!

SilentServent,

I am a sysop of a popular private torrent site, you are truly a joke. We don’t let anyone just upload, your account would be auto pruned in 30 days not just from our site but from majority of private sites. The files attached to the .torrents are published in the torrent details page of EVERY torrent, you don’t think we would notice? We release files from the scene, we WILL notice if the file size is incorrect as people who download from other sites still help seed to our site. If you had a “trojan” in files we would know. As someone said earlier, you listed off public sites not private sites you fuhking n00b.

I really do hope you work for the MPAA or RIAA, it would be a great thing for us pirates to know that people who do work there are that stupid.

42 Apr 14, 2007 at 08:50 by Midnight

[quote comment="84301"]On almost every private tracker you see something like this:

For controversial reasons, if you are affiliated with any government, ANTI-Piracy group or any other related group, or were formally a worker of one you CANNOT download any of these BitTorrent files. If you download these files you are not agreeing to these terms and you are violating code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1995 and that means that you CANNOT threaten our ISP(s) or any person(s) or company storing these files, and cannot prosecute any person(s) affiliated with this page which includes family, friends or individuals who run or enter this web site. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use this service or you will face consequences.

I was always wondering if this means anything legally? Can you actually argue in court that they didn’t have the right to download the torrent files?[/quote]

To be honest, it means absolutely nothing. Why? Because no such act exist. That thing has been copied and pasted so many times that people think it is true, but it realistically does not exist. Look it up. I think torrentfreak already did a report on this but if not, I encourage them to do so.

43 Apr 14, 2007 at 10:39 by Nardz

[quote comment="84756"]wait a minute….
“NoGodForMe”
But the credit card scammers are stealing real money from the ght…. all amaericans are soooo rich. We have so much money we don’t know what accounts of Americans. That’s the problem the government needs to solve first.

First off fuck the Americans If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t be having so many problems as is.

Not to mention the Americans like to gloat so much about how much money they have and how they are the best and rule the world. If some black dudes from Africa steal some cash from them fuck it.

The less money the Americans have the less they can go on gloating.

I can say this as I have lived in the US for 22 years and now living in another country due to the stupidity of the US government. We the people that help keep the torrent community are not in this for money or for fame.

We just want to help share entertainment to the people that can’t afford to buy plastic disks or pay 10euros just to see a movie. I would add more to this but honestly. I think what I’ve said will start the next big argument in attempts to steer away from bad grammar and idiots that have nothing better to do then insult others.

Yes, I am insulting Americans but like it says at the beginning of my post, Americans are the problem. As for the ICS dude…

Honestly now… why would you claim to be someone and give that kind of information? Its clear that its not the truth in so many levels. Ya your grammar might be bad but hell not everyone is calm when they write a response to something like this.[/quote]

OH BROTHER!!! BAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRFFF Dude you’re totally right we have so much money we don’t know what to do with it. Life is great!!!!
That’s the funniest shit I’ve ever heard! I have 10 bucks in my bank account and might not make rent this month… so, eat a dick you arrogant elitist cocksucker. You can bitch about our government and that fine but, to say all Americans are all wealthy, have perfect lives and think they rule world “shit” is simply not true.

Oh and P.S. I don’t believe for one second you live in the U.S. let alone for 22 years.

44 Apr 14, 2007 at 18:51 by AlliXSenoS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Privacy_Act

45 Apr 15, 2007 at 17:05 by Aphex242

[quote comment="84756"]wait a minute….
“NoGodForMe”
But the credit card scammers are stealing real money from the accounts of Americans. That’s the problem the government needs to solve first.

First off fuck the Americans If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t be having so many problems as is.

Not to mention the Americans like to gloat so much about how much money they have and how they are the best and rule the world. If some black dudes from Africa steal some cash from them fuck it.

The less money the Americans have the less they can go on gloating.

I can say this as I have lived in the US for 22 years and now living in another country due to the stupidity of the US government. We the people that help keep the torrent community are not in this for money or for fame.

We just want to help share entertainment to the people that can’t afford to buy plastic disks or pay 10euros just to see a movie. I would add more to this but honestly. I think what I’ve said will start the next big argument in attempts to steer away from bad grammar and idiots that have nothing better to do then insult others.

Yes, I am insulting Americans but like it says at the beginning of my post, Americans are the problem. As for the ICS dude…

Honestly now… why would you claim to be someone and give that kind of information? Its clear that its not the truth in so many levels. Ya your grammar might be bad but hell not everyone is calm when they write a response to something like this.[/quote]

Up your ritalin dosage, mouth-breather. You’re all over the place. Worse, your ideas are so abjectly stupid I can’t even begin to address them in a logical fashion.

I’ll leave you with simply this:

You judge the entire American populace based on your perceived notion of American foreign policy. That’s a fallacy, but you’re certainly entitled to it.

Clearly from your comments you’re European. So now would it be wrong for me to think that all Europeans are whiney, chromosomally-challenged ingrates who have no money and cry about how they’re entitled to everything anyone else has?

Go smoke some weed or something. Leave the conversations to the adults.

Back on topic: It’s not surprising at all they’re doing this… basically anything you do illegal online is at risk. You’re ultimately never safe, you just hope you’re never a big enough fish to get caught.

46 Apr 15, 2007 at 23:33 by Average American

Wow. I hope the comments about Americans posted here are represented by a small amount of confused people. The majority of Americans are not rich. I read a few articles about how Americans tend to over-work to afford the amount of crap that we buy and that Europeans tend to not work as much so they can enjoy more time with friends and family. There is a lot of pressure for Americans to buy unnecessary stuff being presented by advertising giants from lots of different countries. We spend a lot of money that is hard to earn which is sent to other other countries. This is represented by our massive and growing trade deficit. To non-Americans: I think you should be thankful that Americans buy so much stuff from your companies which keeps your unemployment rate down. Why treat your meal ticket badly?

47 Apr 16, 2007 at 12:35 by NotLikeItsThatHard

[quote comment="84992"]
I am a sysop of a popular private torrent site, you are truly a joke. The files attached to the .torrents are published in the torrent details page of EVERY torrent, you don’t think we would notice? [/quote]

Well as long as we’re talking about properly packed .rar along with supplied, unaltered, cross-checked SFV, fine. Although even then you could tamper with files and pretend them to be genuine - as long as some doesn’t take the time to make sure the checksums from the torrent and listed files from it match the “real” “original” releases from you know where before allowing a torrent to go live anyone could do anything, especially with games and apps.
Also you could simply build rep first, then slide in the odd manipulated file in a bigger, popular item at a random point in time after you’re “in”.

Also: If you take any random mixed site that also has porn, placing manipulated ASF and WMV files will allow weaknesses and deep access controls inherent in these formats to gain control over a PC potentially, too. Since there was laughing at the “haha trojin inside video”.
Microsoft with their ActiveX (read: let anyone gain full control over my via any MS interface structured webpage/media ) strategy has simply introduced a gigantic gateway into anyones PC. Embedded controls, scripting, etc are officially already supported, let alone the buffer overflow madness that is MS “security”.
So yea, simply playing a video file can mean you’ve just allowed someone a chance at gaining control over your PC. Just takes the right combination of who is playing back what with what. (google for the exploits before shouting denials…)

Not very funny.
I’d say stick to the ancient AVI or MPG instead and don’t ever use IE or WMPs. Disable any and all scripting and ActiveX, get 80% broken functionality but a semi-safe PC…something like that.

Also I find it highly ironic that sites give out invites and new registrations like free candy and then go “private” again. Where exactly does the “private” part come in?
Fact is - it doesn’t take a genius to register or get invited, download any torrent and tadah, IP addresses, piece information etc pp of peers galore.
It just takes a few minutes more of waiting perhaps(compared to click and see froma public tracker), or minimal effort of “someone who knows someone who knows someone”.
That’s about it.

The only safe peers are those you know in person and the only net that is trustworthy is a direct cable between two laptops…

I think we should all invest more energy in changing this super silly legislation, criminalizing children and teens, instead of trying to find ways how to kneel more comfortably and delay the inevitable before the **AA lawyer comes for your behind with a hardon.

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