Warning about downloading movies from torrents

[blog]

Don't download the movie "Kill the Irishman" nor should you download any small independent low budget movie from a torrent. 9000 Australians are about to get a letter of demand in the mail for thousands of dollars. It's a payup or we sue deal.

Luckily most of you would not have even heard of this movie, but it's getting some local media reviews now due to it's recent release on dvd, positive reviews at that. Don't let that tempt you into downloading it.

https://torrentfreak.com/mass-bittorrent-lawsuits-set-to-plague-australia-111001/

[qualia]

thanks. a bit of a problem for public trackers for all copyrighted files i'm afraid. best you can do is get an IP filter or something, it's not fool proof, but it may move the focus away from you to people who don't use one, the "easy targets" as it were.

[Seldom]

[ballzac]

More importantly, don't pay for it. Any company that uses standover tactics should be boycotted imo.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a publicity stunt. Unknown, indie film suddenly gets talked about, and as a bonus, people are too afraid to download it and will pay for it if they are interested.

[Jonstn]

I was turned off torrents a while back got 2 emails in a month about copywrite infringement.

So now I just use jdownloader and file hosting sites havnt had any problems since

[ErraneousHerbalist]

Definite no to torrents. I don't like how your IP is displayed to the world when you're downloading a file. Makes a corp's life a lot easier. If you do use torrents use a vpn or at least sandboxie. I recommend Hide my ass or TOR. Just my 2 cents.

[sapito]

Like the article says its most likely a cash grab. Profit off the people scared by threats and put the rest who dont pay back into the too hard basket.

There are a shit tonne of problems with how they 'detect' users. There are reports of the IP address of printers being in lists of IP's that were in some of the USA lawsuits. Cool technology they must have

They can suck some farts

[Foo]

and of course, if your ISP is not iinet, NEVER use torrents for movies ;)

[toby]

Warez-bb is a good way to avoid torrents and keep on downloading

[Jonstn]

Warez-bb is a good way to avoid torrents and keep on downloading

 

For sure it's the first place I look for anything Apart from tv shows, I use tvscenerelease.blogspot it's good shit!

[qualia]

i thought using torrents over TOR was bad....clog the system.

 

not only that, it's as insecure as the rest of the tor network and your ip can still be tracked

Think that anonymizing BitTorrent tracker connections through Tor makes you harder to track? Think again. A vulnerability was used to identify over 10,000 users' IP addresses via their BitTorrent tracker connections. But it's not just your BitTorrent downloads that are at risk: an attacker can use your BitTorrent connections to de-anonymize other, more secure applications run over Tor.

In a paper released a few weeks ago at the USENIX conference's workshop on Large-scale Exploits and Emergent Threats (LEET), researchers from INRIA France revealed a class of vulnerabilities in the Tor system which threatens the anonymity of many BitTorrent users. The research team, led by Stevens Le Blond, explained an attack methodology which it developed and deployed. The attack exploits a feature of Tor originally introduced to improve anonymity and efficiency, but it also relies on certain aspects of the BitTorrent protocol.

Tor is a system for protecting online anonymity that works by forwarding TCP traffic over a low-latency "onion-routing" network of nodes maintained by volunteers. Tor establishes circuits of three nodes to pass traffic across; the actual operation is quite complex, but it's explained lucidly on the Tor Project website. The end result is that connections are slower but more secure than they would otherwise be, and a user's original IP address is obscured.

One Tor efficiency and anonymity feature involves multiplexing many different TCP streams over the same circuit. This improves efficiency, because it takes a lot of computationally intensive public-key encryption work to set up a circuit, but established circuits are not computationally taxing to use. In addition, there's a privacy benefit, because reusing circuits reduces the total number of nodes used, and therefore reduces the risk of coming into contact with a "hostile" node (one set up, for instance, by a government trying to peek at the Tor traffic of dissidents or mobsters).

Most modern BitTorrent clients allow users to specify a detailed selection of proxy settings. Many BitTorrent users crave anonymity, but the BitTorrent data transfer protocol does not perform well over Tor, making downloads prohibitively slow. However, a common compromise finds users sending the low-bandwidth initial connections to BitTorrent trackers over Tor, while leaving the bulk data traffic to the actual peers unprotected. This prevents the tracker from recording the true IP address of the user, which is a valuable first step against unwanted observation.

Malicious nodes and honeypots

To execute an attack on this system, the French researchers set up a number of malicious Tor exit nodes and some honeypot BitTorrent clients running on researcher machines. When one of the malicious exit nodes sees an attempted connection to a BitTorrent tracker, it intercepts the response and adds the IP address of one of the honeypot clients under researcher control. The user's BitTorrent client then attempts to make a data connection directly to the honeypot without using Tor, thus revealing the user's IP address to the honeypot.

A similar attack is used to identify users connecting via DHT, so even users who try to forward all of their BitTorrent traffic over Tor are not safe. The DHT version of the attack relies on the fact that Tor is only compatible with TCP, while BitTorrent's DHT uses the less-common UDP protocol, forcing some of the traffic to be sent in the clear. Information such as client ID and listening port help the honeypot to determine which incoming connections come from which users.

At this point in the attack, the researchers have identified a particular Tor circuit on one of their exit nodes, and they've associated it with a particular IP address. They can now be sure that any other traffic sent over that circuit comes from the same user. But the attack doesn't stop at this exit node; because the user can now be reliably identified based on the information transmitted to the tracker, the attacker can identify the user's connections made on other circuits, through other malicious exit nodes, if those circuits also carry identifiable BitTorrent requests.

Because Tor multiplexes many different TCP streams over the same circuit, streams from a variety of applications may be bundled together. This could include traffic from applications where anonymity is more crucial, like a user's Web browser or IM client. The fact that the user is running a BitTorrent client partially or fully over Tor means that his otherwise-anonymous communications can now be reliably identified across all the attacker's malicious nodes.

Commenting on the attack, Roger Dingledine, leader of the Tor Project, praised the INRIA researchers for identifying this vulnerability, but criticized them for actually executing the attack on 10,000 users. Dingledine suggested that the researchers crossed an ethical line by placing the anonymity of these users in jeopardy, and that this step was unnecessary, done for the purpose of publicity.

Protection

This vulnerability may be nerve-wracking for some users who rely upon Tor to protect themselves when using a variety of applications. In a blog post responding to a prior version of this research, Dingledine advised that users can protect themselves right now if they stop using BitTorrent over Tor. This is a step that the Tor Project generally recommends, since BitTorrent traffic is antisocial on the Tor network, subjecting the entire network to significant load (and it's quite slow for the user).

Running one instance of Tor for BitTorrent, and a separate instance for all other applications, will provide an effective defense for non-BitTorrent traffic, but it still leaves your BitTorrent traffic vulnerable to deanonymization. The Tor project has a design proposal to more effectively fix this class of attacks by using various methods to separate TCP streams. However, the best way to separate and bundle different traffic over anonymity networks remains an open research question.

Users interested in anonymous download solutions should consider OneSwarm, a University of Washington project to design a BitTorrent client with anonymity and privacy built in. More advanced users may wish to investigate I2P, an onion-routing network which was designed to handle BitTorrent traffic from the start. In addition, uTorrent features an advanced array of proxy settings, some of which may mitigate parts of this attack, although their effectiveness has not been independently verified.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/not-anonymous-attack-reveals-bittorrent-users-on-tor-network.ars

[qualia]

For sure it's the first place I look for anything Apart from tv shows, I use tvscenerelease.blogspot it's good shit!

 

cheers. now i can watch season finail breaking bad and not have to wait 3 days for torrent @3k/s

[atomar]

Usenet may be an alternative to BitTorrent for some. Many usenet servers allow for SSL encryption. Access to those servers may not be free but the download speeds I get over torrents with the added security make it worth it. Indexing sites like newzbin.com make the whole thing very easy.

[qualia]

i thought many isp's don't offer usenet? at least, i thought there were isp level restrictions on usenet in oz?

[Jonstn]

cheers. now i can watch season finail breaking bad and not have to wait 3 days for torrent @3k/s

 

No worries mate, im hooked on that site shows are usually up within a hour of it airing, plus the megaupload links usually give me avg 1.5 Meg a second 2min most shows take to download it's the bomb!

[atomar]

i thought many isp's don't offer usenet?

 

Unfortunately that's true. ISPs here at least exclude binary newsgroups. That's why I said it's not completely free. astraweb.com gives full access to all newgroups.

Programs like sabnzbd+, once setup, make it extremely easy when used in conjunction with newzbin.com

On newzbin you can setup a watchdog that emails you when a new match for your filter is found, like a tv show. Clicking on the link in the email lets you bookmark the new show on newzbin. sabnzb+ runs as windows service in the background on a PC at home. It can check for boomarked items automatically and download them. When you get home from work they're finished.

Sorry for going a bit off-topic.

[Justler]

I'm a Usenet / Astraweb user. Have been for a year or so, and it certainly beats getting those "emails" about being a bad boy and downloading torrents. With Astraweb there is SSL encryption, and they don't keep track of what you're downloading, so essentially you can't be held 'accountable' for anything besides the amount of data you've downloaded. I read an article recently though about a company trying to sue a usenet service provider; though from what I understand, if they are successful, the end-user won't suffer in any way, with the exception of the provider closing down.

[chnt]

cheers. now i can watch season finail breaking bad and not have to wait 3 days for torrent @3k/s

 

that ep was so intense, such a good show, such good acting and everything.

[ErraneousHerbalist]

i thought using torrents over TOR was bad....clog the system. Better to pay a small fee and use a VPN.

 

My bad, yeah. Don't use TOR. Clogs their systems etc. In relevance to being tracked through TOR, I read somewhere you can follow the TCP stream?

Edit: Didn't finish reading your post. Maybe it's best if we forget that I recommended Tor?

P.s. Warez-bb ftw. Been on there since 09'

Edited October 13, 2011 by ErraneousHerbalist

[Jonstn]

Warez-bb for sure it's got so much on there, I was on tehparadox.com for years but the site's been dead for about 2 years now

[ballzac]

anyone remember whiskycontequila?

[blog]

Just an updated story about this. This company may also be targeting porn movie downloaders.

So no independent art house/Indie movies, and no porn from torrents.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/porn-link-tipped-in-net-piracy-case-20111017-1ltex.html

and much the same but with extra info about how rich they've got from porn

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/playing-dirty-20111017-1ltam.html

Edited October 18, 2011 by blog

[qualia]

^^

haha, i just seen that. wonder what movies they're targeting?

trying to find out mrg's links pressently. either way they can get fucked. they can sue for 150,000, and have it payed back at $10 a week, cunts.

[mud]

9000?

fark, id have to end em a letter back telling em to wait the fuck in line,

and something about blood from a stone too :S

[Francois le Danque]

With this $25 million the film makers would have collected more money from BitTorrent users than they did from U.S. movie theater visitors. Despite the recognition from Academy members and the huge success among downloaders, the U.S box office revenue has been relatively low at $16.4 million.

LOL thats because its a fucking crap movie. i know people who torrented it deliberately because they hated it so much and wanted the producers to lose money...