BitTorrent Dude Sentenced to Prison

Bantam · 11-01-2006, 08:49 PM

http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-a...ent-to-prison/

Freaking scary man.

tomdkat · 11-01-2006, 08:53 PM

Wow, guess he shouldn't have been actively working on illegal content sharing.

5 months isn't that bad, though. He could have gotten a year or more.

Peace...

Astrakan · 11-02-2006, 01:39 AM

Scary? Not at all, sounds to me like he got a pretty decent deal.

KM

Bantam · 11-02-2006, 07:01 PM

by scary i meant that people need to understand that the legal consequences of piracy are real.

My perspective is that people don't believe they will actually be caught, or actually be sent to jail. I also think people are too busy politicizing this fight -- making it the people versus the government/big corporations. The fact is that piracy is illegal and you're gonna go to jail for it.

umainebearman · 11-03-2006, 05:36 PM

5 months of home detention.

Where he can sit in front of his computer and come up with better ways to download stuff.

And Bantam he was arrested for piracy he was arrested for being involved with the creation of a Bittorrent tracker. Bittorrent is probably the easiest form of p2p file sharing for the government to track you. Of course its harder for them to convict the downloader and easier to nab the people that created the means.

furthest1 · 11-06-2006, 05:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by umainebearman

5 months of home detention.

5 months is still a long time of wearing a monitor on your leg.

Bantam · 11-06-2006, 05:30 PM

Technically, sure he was arrested for participating in creating the BT. but essentially he was arrested for his role piracy is what i was saying. And I thought private BTs were safer than public ones, though it appears the feds are watching private ones just as heavily as public BTs.

umainebearman · 11-07-2006, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by furthest1

5 months is still a long time of wearing a monitor on your leg.

Yeah it is but a 23 year old that sits in front of his computer all day to think his way around paying for movies and music probably lives at home with mommy and daddy and doesn't go any where any way.

And Bantam when it comes to the federal government theres no such thing as private. It's all 1s and 0s.

Bantam · 11-08-2006, 01:33 PM

so you think they can get through proxies like protowall and peerguardian and stuff? i thought that private torrents were safer to use for individuals/harder for the government to crack down on, is that assumption incorrect?

tomdkat · 11-08-2006, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bantam

so you think they can get through proxies like protowall and peerguardian and stuff? i thought that private torrents were safer to use for individuals/harder for the government to crack down on, is that assumption incorrect?

I would think ANY assumption made about anonymity on the Internet is incorrect. Obviously, they have ways of tracking private torrents otherwise this thread wouldn't exist. The gub-ment probably can't track as effectively as we might speculate but I'm sure they can get more info then anyone would imagine.

Peace...

Bantam · 11-08-2006, 03:39 PM

I hear you and that was one of the reasons I posted this article about it (and have posted others). I, for one, find the government's fight against piracy interesting on a lot of levels. Interesting and scary, especially when people are beginning to be sentenced to jail time/restrictions of freedom and travel and being sent cease & desist letters for downloading.

I am 100% against bootlegging and against piracy, for the record, but continued to be amazed (and scared) by the breadth of the efforts of the feds. I guess i figured that some areas of the web (private torrents, newsgroups) might be safer than others, but yall are prolly right -- no safe harbors for pirates.

tomdkat · 11-08-2006, 04:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bantam

no safe harbors for pirates.

Not many "safe harbors" for anyone online.

Peace...

Bantam · 11-08-2006, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomdkat

Not many "safe harbors" for anyone online.

No not really. People need to be educated about protecting themselves (identity and security-wise). But the government should also be able to track down people doing illegal things.

tomdkat · 11-08-2006, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bantam

No not really. People need to be educated about protecting themselves (identity and security-wise). But the government should also be able to track down people doing illegal things.

What I want to know is if the gub-ment cn track/monitor network activity flowing over a VPN connection.

Peace...

Bantam · 11-09-2006, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomdkat

What I want to know is if the gub-ment cn track/monitor network activity flowing over a VPN connection.

Peace...

"If" like physically able to or if like legally able. I'm sure they are physically capable of tracking network activity anywhere they want. Where their interests lie is the thing....Obviously, ISPs, the MPAA, and the feds are interested in tracking down network activity related to piracy. To the extent this type of network activity takes place (or starts to take place) on VPNs, I would assume that the government would apply their focus there as well.

tomdkat · 11-09-2006, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bantam

"If" like physically able to or if like legally able. I'm sure they are physically capable of tracking network activity anywhere they want. Where their interests lie is the thing....Obviously, ISPs, the MPAA, and the feds are interested in tracking down network activity related to piracy. To the extent this type of network activity takes place (or starts to take place) on VPNs, I would assume that the government would apply their focus there as well.

I was referring to having the technical ability to sniff out data flowing over a VPN connection. I frankly don't know if the gub-ment can actually, technically do it or not. If it can, there are many large corporations out there passing confidential information over VPN that might not be as confidential as they might think. The whole point of a VPN is to establish a secure connection over the Internet, different from establishing a secure connection to a website or something.

I've never heard of a VPN connection being infiltrated but it would be interesting to know just how secure it actually is. Of course, using VPN to exchange files isn't as "flexible" as using P2P or BitTorrent since the connections tend to be one-to-one (a VPN client to a VPN server even though a server could serve multiple VPN clients) but it might be secure enough to effectively "hide" this kind of activity (the activity being discussed in this thread).

Peace...

Bantam · 11-13-2006, 05:12 PM

i would hope that our government is technically able to do so. I would think they are technically able to do so (how, im not technically-savvy enough to know), but i dont know for sure. im guessing it's something they would want to keep under wraps though.

whether they actually do so (or would admit to doing so) is a different debate altogether though. I guess i just assume that over government has the smartest hackers in the world working for them at certain places in the govt....

my estimation is that the govt will go wherever it needs to go in order to prevent crime/illegal activity. as it is more common that illegal activity takes place on the net, i think it's safe to assume the feds will be there watching. which gets back to this guy getting sentenced. clearly, they're watching torrents and tracking dudes if they see illegal activity occuring.

11-01-2006, 08:49 PM	#1 (permalink)
Bantam Actor Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Chocolate City	BitTorrent Dude Sentenced to Prison http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-a...ent-to-prison/ Freaking scary man.

11-01-2006, 08:53 PM	#2 (permalink)
tomdkat Official Forum Warmonger "Dial Tone" Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Hayward, CA, USA	Wow, guess he shouldn't have been actively working on illegal content sharing. 5 months isn't that bad, though. He could have gotten a year or more. Peace... __________________ My DVD Aficionado List "At last we shall reveal ourselves to the Jedi, at last we shall have revenge!"

11-02-2006, 01:39 AM	#3 (permalink)
Astrakan Actor Join Date: May 2001 Location: Toronto, ON Canada	Scary? Not at all, sounds to me like he got a pretty decent deal. KM __________________ Blog, blog, bo blog. Banana, fana, fo flog. Me, my, mo mlog. Blog! DVD Profiler - The most features. The largest database. User-created plugins. Simply the best. Last edited by Astrakan : 11-02-2006 at 01:51 AM.

11-03-2006, 05:36 PM	#5 (permalink)
umainebearman Nuked for Morbid Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Savannah,GA	5 months of home detention. Where he can sit in front of his computer and come up with better ways to download stuff. And Bantam he was arrested for piracy he was arrested for being involved with the creation of a Bittorrent tracker. Bittorrent is probably the easiest form of p2p file sharing for the government to track you. Of course its harder for them to convict the downloader and easier to nab the people that created the means. __________________ "We better win the F**king emmy for this this year or I swear to god..." Ronald D. Moore My DVD Collection

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11-02-2006, 07:01 PM	#4 (permalink)
Bantam Actor Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Chocolate City	by scary i meant that people need to understand that the legal consequences of piracy are real. My perspective is that people don't believe they will actually be caught, or actually be sent to jail. I also think people are too busy politicizing this fight -- making it the people versus the government/big corporations. The fact is that piracy is illegal and you're gonna go to jail for it.

11-06-2006, 05:30 PM	#7 (permalink)
Bantam Actor Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Chocolate City	Technically, sure he was arrested for participating in creating the BT. but essentially he was arrested for his role piracy is what i was saying. And I thought private BTs were safer than public ones, though it appears the feds are watching private ones just as heavily as public BTs.

11-08-2006, 01:33 PM	#9 (permalink)
Bantam Actor Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Chocolate City	so you think they can get through proxies like protowall and peerguardian and stuff? i thought that private torrents were safer to use for individuals/harder for the government to crack down on, is that assumption incorrect?

11-08-2006, 03:39 PM	#11 (permalink)
Bantam Actor Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Chocolate City	I hear you and that was one of the reasons I posted this article about it (and have posted others). I, for one, find the government's fight against piracy interesting on a lot of levels. Interesting and scary, especially when people are beginning to be sentenced to jail time/restrictions of freedom and travel and being sent cease & desist letters for downloading. I am 100% against bootlegging and against piracy, for the record, but continued to be amazed (and scared) by the breadth of the efforts of the feds. I guess i figured that some areas of the web (private torrents, newsgroups) might be safer than others, but yall are prolly right -- no safe harbors for pirates.

11-13-2006, 05:12 PM	#17 (permalink)
Bantam Actor Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Chocolate City	i would hope that our government is technically able to do so. I would think they are technically able to do so (how, im not technically-savvy enough to know), but i dont know for sure. im guessing it's something they would want to keep under wraps though. whether they actually do so (or would admit to doing so) is a different debate altogether though. I guess i just assume that over government has the smartest hackers in the world working for them at certain places in the govt.... my estimation is that the govt will go wherever it needs to go in order to prevent crime/illegal activity. as it is more common that illegal activity takes place on the net, i think it's safe to assume the feds will be there watching. which gets back to this guy getting sentenced. clearly, they're watching torrents and tracking dudes if they see illegal activity occuring.