“They must capture important evidence on a computer at the scene of an investigation before it is powered down and removed for later analysis. ‘Live’ evidence, such as active system processes and network data, is volatile and may be lost in the process of turning off a computer. How does an officer on the scene effectively do this if he or she is not a trained computer forensics expert?”

Using COFEE, of course.

The Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE) is a piece of software designed for the use of law enforcement agencies, and provided to the same free of charge by Microsoft. And, largely because of its mystique, has been a much sought-after piece of code.

Indeed, on the private tracker What.cd, users had offered a huge bounty (a reward for finding and sharing something) of 1.6 terabytes.

During the last day or so, a user – who had only been a member for a matter of weeks – uploaded COFEE.

However, What.cd then took the unusual step of removing the torrent. Not just an unusual step but, in my opinion, a very sensible step indeed.

“Suddenly, we were forced to take a real look at the program, its source, and the potential impact on the site and security of our users and staff,” said What.cd management in a statement.

“And when we did, we didn’t like what came of it. So, a decision was made. The torrent was removed (and it is not to be uploaded here again),” they added.

According to the site’s staff, neither them or their host was threatened by Microsoft or law enforcement. The decision was taken purely on the issue of site and member security.

Of course, the tool is now widely available from other sources and while some are saying that the tool is useless to regular Internet users, there are others who disagree. It certainly won’t take long for a detailed analysis to appear.

There will doubtless be lots of finger-wagging and complaints that this tool has become available in this way, but as with unexpected leaks of anything from software, to movies, to music, rarely is the finger pointed at the initial supplier of the material. That is usually way too embarrassing to reveal.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

By sheer volume the number of downloads these lesser known bands accumulate might only be a fraction of those generated by the Britney Spears and Duffys of this world, but 10,000 downloads is pretty significant for developing artists. Artists need to be heard in order to build a steady fanbase.

Revenue wise, most artists trying to earn a living making music only have a moderate income, and every fan counts. Generally, they don’t make much from album sales – contracts where the band/artist gets less than 10% of the revenue are quite common. Merchandising and playing gigs are the largest source of income, income that is generated by fans.

If the average artist can pick up a few hundred extra fans by giving away his music for free, this can make a huge difference. This group might not be that interesting for the record labels and the royalty collectors, who tend to feed off the top 1% of artists who are generally well marketed by million dollar budgets from the music industry.

Contrary to the conclusions of the PRS study, a special brand of ‘pirates’ are particularly interested in new and unsigned bands. On the music tracker What.cd, which hosts almost 100,000 users, the most downloaded album ever is a compilation of unsigned artists. Second is an album from The Flashbulb, with 10 times as many downloads as Britney Spears’ Greatest Hits collection.

Similarly, on the music sharing website Jamendo thousands of artists are giving away their music for free. Rob Costlow, one of the early adopters of the site told TorrentFreak that thanks to this free music model, he is able to make a living off his passion. His most popular album on Jamendo was downloaded over 80,000 times while nearly half a million listened to it on the website.

So, even though the vast majority of the the users of file-sharing services download music from the top of the charts, there is undoubtedly a huge potential for new artists to market themselves through file-sharing. Perhaps less interesting for the major labels who make most money off cleverly marketed top acts, but extremely valuable for the average artist trying to make a living off music.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

“Open Your Eyes Records and What.cd are collaborating to revolutionize the industry landscape by making it clear that P2P technology and record labels can work hand-in-hand to accomplish their ultimate goals: getting artists heard and growing their fan bases,” reads the announcement at the BitTorrent tracker.

Open Your Eyes Records will exclusively distribute new releases on the BitTorrent tracker, and it will keep the filesharing community up to date on the latest news. With only one signed artist at the label, the collaboration wont add much to the existing library of nearly 100,000 artists available via the What.cd tracker. However, it sends out a strong message that confirms the current trend that BitTorrent is much more than just a tool for pirates.

There is a whole new generation of music enthusiasts that have grown up with file-sharing. It is part of the music industry now, and it exposes people to more music than they would ever hear on mainstream radio. This is probably not what the RIAA wants to hear, or will ever admit, but music is more popular than ever, with notable thanks to file-sharing. BitTorrent has the power to promote artists based on their music, not on the strength and scope of their advertising budget.

This year, thousands of artists have realized that giving away their music for free can actually help them to create a larger fanbase, but it is difficult to deny that filesharing makes it harder for record labels to hype mediocre content. However, music itself is more alive than ever before.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

A whole new generation of artists, most of who grew up with Napster, Limewire and BitTorrent, are starting to utilize the power of filesharing networks. This year alone, thousands of albums were released online for free, and this number is growing at an increasing rate. The possibilities are endless. Some artists use sites like Jamendo, others go for mainstream BitTorrent sites like The Pirate Bay and Mininova, and yet another group prefers niche BitTorrent communities such as What.cd.

On What.cd, one of the larger music communities with over 60,000 members, artists have found a particularly successful outlet. In fact, the free albums are particularly popular, and often among the most downloaded. The music minded members, of which quite a few are artists themselves, are very appreciative of every new album. This August a compilation CD was released with tracks from 19 artists who uploaded their music to the site. This CD, titled “The What CD” is the most active torrent of all time on the tracker.

At TorrentFreak we have now reached a point where we can no longer mention all the artists that give away their music for free. While it was a rather exceptional thing to do three years ago, it has become mainstream today. It is, however, worth talking to one of these new generation of bands and artists who decide to share their music at no cost.

The Pragmatic is such a band. Today, the 5 member band, which was founded in 2006, has released the album ‘Circles’ on BitTorrent and Rapidshare. André, one of the band members, who plays an analog synthesizer from the early 80s, explained to us why they chose to give away their music for free.

“With this first release we really wanted to try out giving it out for free and just see what happens,” he said. “Bands like Radiohead and NIN come out and release stuff for free and have success, but that’s largely because of their already established careers. They’ve built that up the traditional way and they’ve reaped the rewards of that, but their success in file-sharing is more of a perk of that status.”

“Growing up, every musician dreamed of that big shiny record deal, but I don’t think it’s relevant anymore. Labels have had to sober up and re-think what their roles are. It used to be about music, and I think file-sharing has brought that to their attention. By releasing it for free, I guess we could be losing money, but in the long run I think we’re (hopefully) making fans.”

Similar to most other people, André is part of a generation that grew up with file-sharing. It is part of the music industry now, and it exposes people to more music than they would ever hear on mainstream radio. It is probably not what the RIAA wants to hear, or will ever admit, but music is more popular than ever thanks to file-sharing. André agrees, and told TorrentFreak:

“Fans go to shows, buy merch and support bands for all the right reasons. I think that our generation grew up with an almost insatiable need for more and more music. I know I did. I’ve downloaded lots of albums I loved and bought physical versions. I’ve downloaded plenty of albums I hated and deleted. I can’t begin to count how many bands I know and love because of Napster/Soulseek/Bittorrent. File-sharing was never really about stealing music, it was about finding music you loved.”

“Labels will complain and sue their very core audience just to make a dollar. I can’t blame them, it’s the way they’ve built their company. Change scares them, especially when they don’t control it. I honestly believe that I wouldn’t be a musician today if Napster hadn’t appeared. I think Napster fostered the incredible current musical culture and nobody gives them credit for it. I find it very hard for an upcoming artist to get any exposure without being willing to promote their music on p2p networks.”

The clash between artist and labels, and the ever increasing piracy statistics are forcing the big labels to rethink their business models. Nowadays, BitTorrent has the power to promote artists based on their music, not on the advertising budget. It is hard to deny that the music labels are in a crisis, however, music itself is more alive than ever before.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Yes, all those nay-sayers and early fans that have populated the comment sections of our previous stories on Gazelle can finally prove the exploits and bad coding that they’ve been claiming, as the first public release candidate of the script is now available for download.

Reactions from those that have given the site a try, have been mostly positive. The main negative comments stem from the fact it’s not an intuitive install. Part of that comes from the memory caching software , memcached , which gives the project its ‘blazing speed’. Also, right now the system uses XBTT as a tracker, but we’re told that it will have its own (multithreaded) tracker ready for later versions, codenamed ‘Ocelot’.

Also, as things stand, while they hoped for around a doubling of capacity over the older TBsource script, in practice it’s become more like double that, meaning a 10,000 user site under TBSource can probably handle 40,000 without any major difference in site response or system load. Project head WhatMan told TorrentFreak: “We out-shot our initial projections by a very wide margin.”

Interest in Project Gazelle has been fairly strong, and at least half a dozen sites are now running the new script. Perhaps more interestingly, though, is that Gazelle isn’t JUST a torrent site. Due to its modular nature, it can be used for regular sites as well. It’s a bit like a content management system in that respect, and perhaps our earlier comparison to Diferior wasn’t all that far from the mark.

If you’re interested in getting your hands on the Gazelle code, then just head over to the project site and follow the instructions. The whole kit-and-caboodle is released under a modified version of the GPL, so have fun.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

They specifically demand that the Moxie Colo stops hosting top ranked torrent sites What.cd, SumoTorrent, BTMon and FullDls. Generally, the CRIA is demanding that Moxie stop hosting all torrent sites.

TorrentFreak has been reporting recently on the plight of QuebecTorrent which is currently tied up in a legal battle against the music industry in Canada. Clearly that – and the running out of town of Demonoid – was just a run up to further action by an emboldened CRIA.

In files served on Moxie Communications Inc (the parent company of Moxie Colo), the CRIA is demanding that Moxie turn over the personal details of the torrent site administrators, presumably so they can go after them. The CRIA also want Moxie to turn over all relevant site logs, but it is at least unlikely that the Canadian police will be interested in most of the users.

Of course, just because the CRIA demands something, doesn’t mean they will get it. For now, Moxie Colo said it won’t be giving in to the CRIA’s demands.

Sean Corbin, CEO of Moxie Communications told TorrentFreak: “We will not be following the request and will be fighting for the rights of our clients as to date laws in Canada protect them. We have looked into the matter and from what we understand these sites are not breaking any laws in Canada. If we do not comply they might bring legal action against Moxie Communications, as they believe without us these sites could not do what they do so therefore we are as bad as they are.”

More on this breaking story as we get it.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Over the weekend, what.cd was upgraded, so that all of its roughly 43,000 members could try it. Whilst there were initial bugs, including a problem with IRC channel password keys, everything seems to be running smoothly now.

More of a problem was a DDOS the site experienced when it had just gone live to its members. The attack which lasted over 4 hours and pulled 100Mb/sec, frustrated a number of the site’s users.

Also a source of frustration for many was a misunderstanding over a ‘freeleech’ offer. Done as a stress test, it was canceled after 6 hours , the announcement about it said it could last 24.

Many users who grabbed stuff they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise in an attempt to increase their ratio, started downloads and still had them going when it was stopped, which lead to some friction between staff and users. As always, the golden rule is to never download something you don’t want in an attempt to boost ratio.

However, Gazelle is not just for music trackers. Another site, Ntorrents, will be changing over to it shortly, according to an administrator there. This will be as much of a test in many ways for Gazelle as this weekend’s launch on what.cd was. This time though, it will be testing its viability beyond music trackers.

The developers have not yet announced a release date beyond ‘when all the major bugs are fixed’. Stay tuned for more.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Uploads to torrent sites, claiming to be from the owners of the material are not unheard of, but are also not common. When it has happened, it’s been to public sites, and generally a hoax, which makes people all the more wary when accounts appear, claiming to be ‘official’ or from the people behind it.

However, TorrentFreak has verified that the accounts in question, ‘NIN’ on both waffles and what, and ‘NINOfficial’ on The Pirate Bay, are indeed accounts belonging to the band’s representatives.

“last night our website had to go down for maintenance for a little while due to the incredible amount of traffic and downloads, and we linked directly to our Pirate Bay torrent as a way for people to get the music while we were offline.” Rob Sheridan, Art Director for NIN told TorrentFreak, adding “I noticed our official torrent of Ghosts I was in the top 10 of all torrents on The Pirate Bay last night.”

“We use torrents ourselves, and we know that most NIN fans are tech-savvy and familiar with file-sharing, so we want to experiment with ways to use that to our advantage, instead of making the mistake of trying to fight or ignore it, as so many artists and labels do.” NIN’s Rob Sheridan added. Many sites, too are willing to work with artists with programs such as Mininova’s content distribution platform and What.cd’s ‘Vanity House’.

It is not sure how NIN got invited to both OiNK replacements what.cd and waffles.fm, however, since Trent Reznor himself admitted to be a frequent user of OiNK, he probably signed up at the trackers from the start, and invited the official NIN user.

Of course, not everyone gets this, some news sites have been reporting that the accounts are bogus, or that the torrents, including the official ones, are stealing. An admin of one of the private tracker did have a sobering comment though “It doesn’t help that the full version is available as well on music torrent sites in general.”

screenshot of the official NIN profile at what.cd

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Users of What.cd were in for more than a little shock today. Members of one of the OiNK replacement sites started receiving worrying emails from the music file-sharers arch nemesis – the mighty RIAA.

The email reads:

Date: 12 Nov 2007 11:35:46 +0100
Message-ID: <2007111XXXXXXX.XXXXX.qmail@bitient.org>
To: XXXXXXX
Subject: Music Piracy
From: piracy@riaa.org
Reply-To: piracy@riaa.org
X-Originating-IP: [76.74.24.143]
X-Originating-Email: [piracy@riaa.org]
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service

Dear registered user of the site What.cd,

We have recently been investigating the activities of the users of the site http://www.what.cd/ and we have found that this site exists for the sole purpose of music piracy.

Pirating music is a criminal offence and we believe it should be obvious to you that the results outweigh the benefits – hard working artists won’t be rewarded for their work and will stop producing music, ultimately leading to a severely reduced selection of music both in the shops and for download.

The RIAA had hoped that the disabling by the police of the large illegal music site, Oink.cd, would stop a lot of people from engaging in piracy, as they don’t want to be seen as criminals. However, this appears to not be the case, as two large new sites have sprung up in its place.

This email is the final warning to all of you who were members of Oink.cd and are current members of What.cd. If we find you to be committing any more criminal acts of piracy then we will have to press charges against you, as representatives of the major record companies of
America.

Yours Faithfully,

The RIAA

Worrying, especially as the IP address in the email seems to indicate it really is from the RIAA. Visitors to the What.cd site were then greeted with this message:

This week has been terrible. After we did two code audits and fixed our security issues, our wonderful attackers couldn’t get in (yay!), so they turned to brute force. After having been hit by several port scans and a rather fearsome DDoS attack (traffic reaching almost 80 megabits per second (note: that’s 10 megabytes per second)) our server pretty much went to hell. After an extended downtime (ending a couple hours ago) during which we tweaked firewall settings, etc., we decided that it was safe enough to bring the site back up.

Pretty much immediately after the site came back up we had someone trying to brute force our (well passworded) ssh accounts (they’ve now met the hot burny side of the firewall).

What have we learned from all this? That there is a person or a group of people somewhere that wants us to disappear. We originally thought that the attacks were by bored kids, but whoever was behind the DDoS appears to be much more serious than that. We aren’t going to publicly speculate on who is behind the attacks – we’ll leave that to you guys.

Despite these attacks, we are still up and running, and we hope to stay this way for a very long time. We have plans for this site, and we aren’t going to flush them down the drain just because some people don’t like what we’re doing. The first of our plans involves a very cool freeleech plan, but we’re going to wait until we’re sure the tracker’s relatively stable for
that. For the time being, we’re keeping freeleech on until further notice.

But what about the emails? Is the RIAA really sending them out? If not, then who is and how did they get the What.cd user database? What.cd think they have the answer in a post on their site, replicated on this Pastebin page.

Other sites are already publishing the information above and a quick Google search does indeed reveal some interesting details. Apparently, the person held responsible for the hacking and the RIAA email is only 14 year old and not as much as a threat some believed him to be. The alleged hacker’s date of birth, his hometown, hobbies and much more are detailed on Google.

Before today, he probably enjoyed telling the world about himself on social networking sites too.

He’s also mentioned on this Pastebin page full of haxor code – along with what.cd.

The youth of today….what’s the world coming to?

Update: It appears someone claiming to be ‘biscuit’ offered the database for sale and even threatened to send it to the RIAA. After deciding that he should keep it – for later ‘blackmail’ purposes he hopefully considered this link and realized it’s not worth it, deleted the database and forgot all about it.

Update: biscuit wrote that he’s not responsible for the hacking and claims that the bash log is doctored.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

What.cd (currently offline at time of publication) was founded the day of the OiNK takedown. “I felt sick to my stomach all morning” was how ‘What’, co-founder of what.cd described the day OiNK got raided. “We plan to grow into a large tracker – probably not as large as oink, and not as open, but eventually, I would like to support at least a hundred thousand users,” he adds

Waffles.fm on the other hand, doesn’t open for another few hours (12:01AM PST on October 31st). “In principle we’re filling a gap in the market – a lot of people just don’t get on with open / lenient trackers. In restoring that we’re also bringing back the community OiNK had, which is a big part of it,” is how waffles co-founder ‘Barney’ put his site to TorrentFreak. He is also not being as openly ambitious at first as “What” either “We’re looking at inviting perhaps 200 or less people on the opening day. We’ll gradually invite more people as things progress.”

Neither of the admins showed much enthusiasm for BOiNK, the project that is in development by the guys behind The Pirate Bay. Their main concerns were in the overall quality, and longevity of torrents on a public tracker. Somewhat ironically, however, both sites are aiming on moving to take up permanent hosting at the PRQ datacenter, as soon as upgrades there are complete. “The electricians started their work of installing another 3×200A feed yesterday” a PRQ source told TorrentFreak today.

And the reaction of the old OiNK staffers? Paine, currently the public voice of the old OiNK team, had no real comment on them, beyond hoping they both do well, and reiterating that neither is an ‘official’ replacement for OiNK.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.