The site indexes millions of torrents, some of which are then shared through Facebook, Twitter and other social media. For example, author Alex Sayf Cummings posted a link to a torrent of his book Music Piracy And The Remaking Of American Copyright in a tweet recently.

Cummings was obviously inviting people to grab a free copy from the site, but Twitter is not making that easy. Those who click on the link in question are presented with an ominous warning.

“The site you were trying to visit may be unsafe! This link has been flagged as potentially harmful.”

In the grey-on-black fine print in the bottom right corner, Twitter points out that people can proceed to the site at their own risk, but not everybody may be that gutsy.

The big question of course is why Twitter classified KickassTorrents as an unsafe website. TF contacted the company for an explanation, but 24 hours later we have yet to hear back.

On its website Twitter claims to use Google’s safe browsing diagnostic tool, but the Kickass.to domain is not blocked here. Perhaps even stranger, KickassTorrent’s old domain Kat.ph gets the same blocking treatment.

It appears that Twitter has decided on its own that the torrent site is a no-go zone for users. This is an option, as the site explains in one of its help sections.

“Even if Google’s diagnostic report of the URL is clean, we may decide to continue blocking the URL on Twitter as potentially harmful,” Twitter notes.

Whether the fact that KickassTorrent’s links to a lot of copyright infringing content has anything to do with the blockade is unknown. Previously Facebook restricted access to The Pirate Bay for the same reason, but this decision was reversed after a few months.

Thus far, Kickass.to appears to be the only large torrent site that’s blocked by Twitter, but perhaps it’s just the start?

Update 26 February: Twitter has unblocked Kickass.to links

^{Photo: Michael Theis}

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The protocol makes the headlines every week but some of its other skills go much more underreported.

In addition to its public file-sharing abilities, BitTorrent is a particularly useful tool for companies that need to shift large amounts of data around their networks. In 2010 it was revealed that Twitter had begun using the technology to deploy files across its many thousands of servers.

Codenamed ‘Murder’, the technology does not use the bandwidth of Twitter users but instead arranges the company’s servers into a BitTorrent swarm to efficiently distribute updates. But while this is a fantastic use of BitTorrent for Twitter, yesterday the company was associated with torrents in a way which had web users scratching their heads.

When visiting many webpages small widgets also load from external sites, things like buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn and Google+1 for example. These normally load transparently and without issue but for some reason on many sites Twitter’s button began acting strangely yesterday.

Instead of loading the iframed HTML for the familiar blue ‘Tweet’ button, website visitors were offered a .torrent file, variously titled ‘widgets_tweet_button.html.torrent’ or ‘widgets-tweet_button.html.torrent’.

Of course, this strange behavior led many users to speculate that Twitter had been compromised. However, on closer inspection it became clear that the problem was almost certainly of Twitter’s making.

So what was the payload inside the mysterious torrent file? The HTML for Twitter’s button distributed using BitTorrent trackers hosted by Amazon, no less.

While few can doubt that BitTorrent is one of the most effect file-sharing methods on the Internet, this implementation must be the most inefficient yet.

It’s likely that this is just a simple error but when so many sites are affected and users left concerned, clarification is useful. TorrentFreak approached Twitter for a comment and we’ll update this article when we receive a response.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

On receipt of a complaint from a copyright holder, in the past Twitter has simply deleted Tweets leaving the site’s users completely in the dark as to what had happened. But now a change in policy will see Twitter increase transparency by providing more information about disappeared Tweets.

The way it will work in future is outlined as follows. Copyright holders will submit a ticket to Twitter containing a DMCA complaint. After an initial inspection Twitter will notify the author of the Tweet in question that their post has been removed. They will also send along a copy of the original complaint and give the user an opportunity to file a counter-notice. The big change comes with how the offending Tweet is displayed while that process is underway.

“In an effort to be as transparent as possible regarding the removal or restriction of access to user-posted content, we clearly mark withheld Tweets and media to indicate to viewers when content has been withheld,” the Twitter team explains.

“We also send a copy of each DMCA notification and counter-notice that we process to Chilling Effects, where they are posted to a public-facing website (with your personal information removed).”

Twitter then give an example of how a removed Tweet will appear, containing the following text.

“This Tweet from @Username has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder. Learn more”

So how quick were Twitter to take down a Tweet and replace it with this notice for the very first time? Well, at least on the surface, very quick indeed.

The Tweet shown above comes from Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure.

However, while it might appear to be a world first, we sensed that something didn’t look quite right. And, after all, it’s quite easy to post a similar Tweet and provoke a reaction on Twitter.

TorrentFreak contacted Mikko and he’s yet to respond but in any event we’re pretty sure that Mikko isn’t likely to be posting infringing content on Twitter any more than we are.

Also, his Tweet was “withheld” just a few hours after Twitter made the announcement, far too quickly for a complaint to be made and Twitter to respond – especially at midnight on a Friday evening.

But as this article is being written, Mikko has posted a new Tweet in response to people doubting whether the takedown was genuine or not.

Well Mikko, we can tell. It’s quite subtle but let’s just say that the real Twitter “withheld” version contains a feature that normal users simply cannot pull off.

Have you spotted it yet? Have a guess in the comments section below.

Update: We just received a comment from Mikko

“I read the Twitter support article about their new DMCA policy over the weekend and immediately tried finding an example of such a censored tweet. Since I couldn’t find any, I decided to create one,” Mikko explained.

“So yes, it was a joke.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Let’s take a look at two of these stories that surfaced recently, starting with the BBC.

When the BBC reported on the riots in London, it frequently used pictures that were shared by Twitter users witnessing the events. This wouldn’t be that bad as the BBC would at least credit the people who took the pictures. Yet, in its reporting, the BBC completely failed to attribute any of the images it used, instead attributing them to Twitter.

When a complaint was made, the first response back included the following outrageous statement:

I understand you were unhappy that pictures from Twitter are used on BBC programmes as you feel it may be a breach of copyright. Twitter is a social network platform which is available to most people who have a computer and therefore any content on it is not subject to the same copyright laws as it is already in the public domain.  The BBC is aware of copyright issues and is careful to abide by these laws. (emphasis added)

Everyone reading this knows that to be untrue and the BBC did too, as Chris Hamilton (BBC News Social Media Editor) later admitted.

It’s not the position of BBC News, he said, adding that that the BBC tries to clear photos before using them but if there are time constraints that may not be possible. Unfortunately, UK law doesn’t allow fair dealing exceptions for this at present. So time constraints or not, it’s still a copyright violation.

And the BBC is not the only major news outfit to bend the copyright rules this month, the Daily Mail has been at it as well. This time, though, they probably picked the worst target possible, the wife of OpenRightsGroup founder and noted blogger Cory Doctorow.

In reporting on a story about Gap and their anorexic lines of jeans, the Daily Mail contacted Doctorow’s wife, Alice Taylor, asking for permission to use her work. She then offered the photos in exchange for £250 to a charity of her choice but the Mail declined this offer as ‘too expensive’.

Instead of buying it The Mail simply lifted the picture from the Washington Post, to whom Taylor had licensed it for use on their own site.

Only after numerous emails and an outraged crowd of commenters the newspaper promised to send a £1000 donation to the OpenRightsGroup and another £1000 to a charity dealing with eating disorders. We’ll wait to see if that happens.

This isn’t an isolated incident though. The net is awash with cases of the Daily Mail infringing copyright, and one photo agency is even suing them for more than £1M in damages.

The Digital Economy Act could have made a big difference here. Under the Act, after a certain number of accusations a website could have been taken offline. Thankfully, that’s now been taken out of consideration, but how much of that was down to judicial proportionality and feasibility, and how much was down to pressure from groups like the BBC and the Daily Mail (who belatedly realised that a major aspect of their business could be quite easily curtailed by the legislation) remains unclear.

The BBC is certainly no innocent in this, as it repeatedly pushed for strong punishments for copyright violators, even noting in some consultations that even more needs to be done than is being proposed. And who can forget the piece on a prime time BBC show, where they ‘reported‘ on a study, that we had poked major holes in weeks earlier, and yet had only ‘Industry’ participants. A complaint to the BBC had the response that it was “balanced”.

The issue is that few individuals can afford to pay for lawyers to file a copyright lawsuit, especially against large media companies such as the BBC. In effect, current copyright law is a tool for the rich allowing major companies to infringe frequently for commercial gain, yet face little sanction.

It would seem that in the end, we’re left with one question. Is copyright just for the Big Guys?

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The legislation was brought up again quite unexpectedly this week, despite massive opposition and public outrage that delayed it last year. But this time around there was little room for protest, as it was just a matter of hours before the Bill passed.

As is often the case when politicians decide on copyright-related matters, their very own actions with regard to copyright are being carefully scrutinized. This can lead to awkward situations, something Member of Parliament Melissa Lee found out herself this week.

Just hours before giving a speech in support of the three-strikes law which is supposed to protect the copyright holders, she sent out the following tweet:

So, while Lee was condemning today’s youth and their lack of respect for copyright, she more than likely infringed on the rights of several K-Pop musicians. After all, making a music compilation and handing it over to a friend is not allowed under New Zealand’s copyright law.

Surprised by the call-out, Lee defended herself by saying that the songs were downloaded legally and paid for. But unfortunately for her that doesn’t mean much. As the National Business Review points out, when a friend makes a copy of songs that were legally bought, the recipient of the ‘gift’ is still guilty of copyright infringement.

So it appears that Lee got her first strike already, and since the burden of proof is on the alleged infringer under the new legislation, it’s up to her to prove that she’s innocent. That’s only fair, right?

Although it’s easy to call Lee’s mistake out as hypocrisy, it might be even worse than that. What if she truly believes that copying a legally bought song for a friend is okay? That would mean that even legislators who vote on copyright legislation don’t fully grasp what they’re doing.

In her speech Lee said that it’s perfectly legal to share a DVD or music album with a friend. But does she know that it’s not that straightforward? The laws she helped to pass state that people can’t share a legally bought MP3 with someone, unless they share the entire device it is bought on.

Back to copyright school we say!

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management Simon Morris announced the App earlier today and hopes that it will centralize discussions about torrents that are currently scattered across hundreds of torrent sites.

“In this case we are relying on the fact that torrents are indexed not by file name but by infohash, a digital fingerprint of a file. While you might find the same torrent on dozens of different torrent sites, and get pieces of the associated file from thousands of different peers, ultimately, you can be sure that you’re going to get the torrent you want, not something that shares the same file name,” he says.

“The infohash is a key foundation of BitTorrent – referring to content by digital fingerprint rather than just a file name is a powerful way of referring to something,” says Morris. “Its like referring to a person by referencing their fingerprints rather than just their name. There are many people in the world called ‘Simon Morris’, but my fingerprints are unique.”

“We hope that torrent sites will adopt our convention of referring to torrents using a shortened hashtag prefixed with “#bt” and enhance comments systems that already exist on torrent sites so that discussions can be accessed and propagated there and everywhere that Twitter is available,” Morris adds.

TorrentFreak spoke to the owner of KickassTorrents, who told us that he will shortly implement the torrent referral system as proposed by BitTorrent Inc. If the idea catches on, it’s only a matter of time before other torrent sites will follow.

Although it’s certainly a good idea to have a central place where people can read what other people are saying about specific torrents, we’re not sure that Twitter is the ideal form of communication. In most cases, BitTorrent users would prefer a more anonymous platform. That aside, not every BitTorrent user has or wants a Twitter account.

Although Torrent Tweet is an interesting addition to uTorrent’s App directory, a central place where all comments from hundreds of torrent sites are aggregated might be an even better idea. Perhaps that’s something for BitTorrent Inc. to think about?

For those who want to give Torrent Tweet a spin, it is available in the App directory and can be installed in the latest Griffin release of uTorrent.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

After having considered several scalable deployment options, BitTorrent turned out to be the only candidate that met their standards. “It was time for something completely different, something decentralized, something more like.. BitTorrent.. running inside of our datacenter to quickly copy files around,” Twitter engineer Larry Gadea explains.

With BitTorrent, Twitter hoped to distribute files faster and more efficiently, saving time and precious resources while improving the scalability of Twitter’s operation. Earlier this year the new BitTorrent-powered system was rolled out and didn’t fail to impress.

“Using the file-sharing protocol, we launched a side-project called Murder and after a few days (and especially nights) of nervous full-site tinkering, it turned a 40 minute deploy process into one that lasted just 12 seconds,” Gadea commented.

BitTorrent is 75 times faster when compared to the old server deployment system, reducing deployments across thousands of servers to just a few seconds. With BitTorrent, every server not only downloads the new files, but also becomes a distribution point that helps to spread it to others.

Larry Gadea, who says he’s an avid BitTorrent user himself with experience of downloading tons of Linux ISOs, named Twitter’s new deployment system ‘Murder’ after a flock of crows. The code is based on the BitTornado BitTorrent client and available to the public and licensed under the free software Apache License.

The BitTornado client was chosen as the base code for its openness, Gadea explained, so Twitter can redistribute their code to other developers without running into licensing issues.

It’s beginning to look like BitTorrent may become the standard for large-scale networks wanting to update their machines quickly and efficiently. With huge brands such as Facebook and Twitter adopting it, we can only expect that others will follow their lead.

Twitter’s Larry Gadea explains a bit more about the Murder setup in the presentation he gave at the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference earlier this year.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Early February Twitter attributed a phishing attack to an unnamed torrent site script, blaming a torrent site developer for intentionally installing backdoors into his code. The backdoor was then allegedly used to steal passwords and hijack Twitter accounts.

A few weeks later Twitter itself called in the help of BitTorrent to optimize the site’s backend. With BitTorrent, Twitter is planning to distribute files faster and more efficiently, saving time and precious resources and improving the scalability of its operation.

It is great to see that Twitter recognizes the value of BitTorrent since many BitTorrent sites also appreciate and use Twitter’s service to communicate with followers. Last week, however, two torrent sites were suspended by Twitter without prior notice.

YourBitTorrent and TorrentSurf both ‘lost’ their accounts and followers. The reason cited by Twitter was ‘abuse’ but no further details were given. The owner of yourBitTorrent told TorrentFreak that he contacted Twitter over a week ago to find out more, but he hasn’t heard back from them yet.

Although it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that the sites have been suspended for copyright related issues, another plausible explanation is that the mass tweets of links to torrent files were seen as a violation of Twitter’s terms of service.

“If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates,” say Twitter, your account could be suspended for spamming. Since both sites were doing just this, this mass posting might have triggered the suspension. If this is indeed the case, other accounts including nearly all popular news feeds are at risk as well.

It seems unlikely that simply being torrent-related makes an account a target for suspension. The account of @EZTV which also lists thousands of torrents, and the highly resourceful @isoHunt and @TorrentFreak are still up and running.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

To improve the deployment of files across their servers, Twitter is calling in the help of BitTorrent. With BitTorrent, Twitter is planning to distribute files faster and more efficiently, saving time and precious resources and improving the scalability of Twitter’s operation.

Twitter’s new project, codenamed ‘Murder’, will not use the bandwidth of Twitter users. Instead, it will transform the site’s servers into a large BitTorrent swarm that will distribute file updates using BitTorrent technology.

The setup is pretty straightforward. Murder uses a ‘seeder’ server where the new files will be distributed to thousands of ‘peer’ servers.

Because all servers assist in the deployment of the files, it will only take a fraction of the time it would otherwise take when files are distributed from a central server. This server-to-server BitTorrent technology also explains the name ‘Murder’ which is used to describe a flock of crows.

The Murder project is developed by Twitter’s Larry Gadea and built based on the BitTornado BitTorrent client, which was the first client to implement web-seeding. The code is open to the public and licensed under the free software Apache License.

Eric Klinker, CEO of BitTorrent Inc. is excited about Twitter’s adoption of BitTorrent. “We are thrilled to collaborate with them on this and hope that more Web Monsters out there look to this and other applications of BitTorrent in solving some of the hard problems of the Internet,” he said.

“The distributed nature of BitTorrent means an operation that once took many dozens of minutes, now happens in less than a dozen seconds. These efficiencies will reduce maintenance windows, site downtime and exposure to security vulnerabilities,” Klinker added. Although Klinker speaks about “collaboration” with Twitter it is not clear what role BitTorrent Inc. will play in the Murder project.

At this point it is still unclear when Murder will be implemented or released to the public but Twitter is expected to release more details on the upcoming project in the weeks to come.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Below is an excerpt of Twitters blog post revealing the threat.

It appears that for a number of years, a person has been creating torrent sites that require a login and password as well as creating forums set up for torrent site usage and then selling these purportedly well-crafted sites and forums to other people innocently looking to start a download site of their very own. However, these sites came with a little extra — security exploits and backdoors throughout the system. This person then waited for the forums and sites to get popular and then used those exploits to get access to the username, email address, and password of every person who had signed up. Additional exploits to gain admin root on forums that weren’t created by this person also appear to have been utilized; in some instances, the exploit involved redirecting attempts to access the forums to another site that would request log-in information. This information was then used to attempt to gain access to third party sites like Twitter.

So, the company blames ‘someone’ of installing backdoors in a torrent site script that was sold to prospective torrent sites operators, something that has apparently gone unnoticed for years. The question that comes to mind immediately is, if this is such a serious and widespread threat, why doesn’t Twitter name the source or at least give some examples of affected sites?

All of the popular public torrent sites are custom built and cannot be the source of the exploit. From the information Twitter has made available it seems they could be blaming a private tracker script for the attack – most private trackers also operate forums which matches Twitter’s description of the sites involved.

There are quite a few private tracker scripts out there and the most established ones, such as TBDev and Gazelle for example, have been examined by untold numbers of experts and come free of charge – any suggestion that they could be involved in underhand activity is unthinkable. But there are also a few scripts that are created by middle-men whose reputations are less-easily tested.

Accusations of including back doors and exploits in tracker code are not new. The owner of Template Shares, a site that sells a heavily modified version of the TBDev BitTorrent tracker script, has been accused by several people of installing backdoors which provide access to the user databases of customers’ sites.

Template Shares is used by hundreds of smaller private BitTorrent trackers.

To warn the public, other online services and the operators of the affected torrent sites, it would be appropriate if Twitter gave out some more information. TorrentFreak will continue to look into this case and will post an update if we find out more.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.