Homeland Sec., RIAA Torrent lists published

When the online tool YouHaveDownloaded.com jumped onto the hit parade last week, most people reacted with a kind of cautious paranoia, wondering how much of their BitTorrent use was easily discoverable. That is, after all, what the site is ostensibly about: using the IP addresses published by BitTorrent users (and the files …

[Steven Roper]

Site's full of it

Went to that site myself, and it listed my IP address, called me a pirate - and then presented me with a list of movies and ebooks I'd never even heard of, let alone downloaded. It didn't get even ONE thing right (that is, it didn't name one thing I *had* actually downloaded.) Not only that, but it got my physical location wrong on the order of about a thousand kilometres, and in a different state.

So I'd question the veracity of their statements about the RIAA and Universal et al downloading stuff illegally, too.

[Gil]

Erm that's the whole point of it.

It demonstrates just how flawed the current system of linking piracy to an IP address is.....

[Richard 12]

Likely you have a dynamic IP

Like most domestic internet connections.

You're seeing the history of that IP, not yourself - shows how unreliable using IP to claim an individual did something really is.

Corporate IPs tend to be static though,especially if they self-host anything like VPN, webmail etc.

So I'd say that it's a pretty good bet that the corporate results are accurate. Linking to a specific individual is much more difficult, and I would not rely on any IP to individual mapping at all.

[Tom 35]

So...

You are on a dynamic IP address that others have been using...

or

The site uses the same methods as the RIAA... that is pulls stuff out of it's butt.

Don't think the RIAA and the rest would be on dynamic address.

[Chris 244]

Dynamic v static

Large organizations like RIAA et al. are typically assigned large blocks of address all within a particular range. Individual users are more likely to have dynamic addresses.

Info may be wrong for any one individual, but still strongly points to some misdoings within the RIAA.

[Anonymous Coward]

Irony

I have several dozen torrents running, and the site doesn't see any of them.

Looking around the site and at the Facebook comments, the creators come across as attention-seeking jerks who don't care much about accuracy or what consequences the site has. They didn't build it to bring attention to privacy and tracking issues; they did it to have a laugh at others' expense.

[frank ly]

But in my case.....

....with my cable IP address which has been the same for over two years, it got my geographic location correct but said that I had never downloaded anything. I have in fact been busy using BitTorrent to download movies, TV series and music for a long time. Could this be because I use Peer Block and a firewall and only open up the BT transfer port for the duration of the download session?

[Voland's right hand]

Dynamic IP by any chance?

1. Are you on a dynamic IP?

2. Does your ISP do transparent proxying?

[BristolBachelor]

Perhaps that is the idea?

If the RIAA say that the data is wrong, what does that say about using torrent sourced IP addresses for any action (fines, disconnections, etc.)?

[No, I will not fix your computer]

Maybe, maybe not

Depends on your client, some download things within a torrent that you've explicity told it not to (even transmission does this), also some clients request local peers to download parts of torrents they are interest in (on your behalf) and you cache it for them.

Also your location might be wrong depending on any transparent proxies that the ISP uses (again depending on your torrent client, which may or may not use proxies), it might be that (if your IP is not fixed, or has changed recently) that their data is out of date.

>>So I'd question the veracity of their statements about the RIAA and Universal et al downloading stuff illegally, too.

Yea, maybe - but if they are it could be valid, if it's part of an investigation or if it's their material and they are assessing the spread of pirate copies (which can affect the timescales of going to DVD etc.), having written some apps myself I've been waiting for my code to appear on a torrent with a crack, nothing so far - I just aint that popular :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point.

All of the excuses you just mentioned are just as valid for individuals. When the RIAA or any entity goes after you, it's best not to answer any questions, but to simply remain silent, and once discussed with your lawyer, then deny everything, especially the knowledge of the events. The accusers have the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt.

[Richard 81]

Not that the site authors care about this. If anyone mentions it, they say its just for fun, or just to show that torrents aren't secure.

I'd be a little more worried about false positives.

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy, rent!

Rent a seedbox and let someone else worry! Alright they can still trace you but at least they have to go through another country's legal system to obtain the required data before they catch up with you!

[h4rm0ny]

Re: rent a seedbox

Rent? As in pay money for? Do people do this? I though the point of piracy was living off other people's willingness to pay for things, not paying hosting rent yourself?

[Anonymous Coward]

Torrent addict

The site doesnt show anything for me; so the GFWoC DOES have its uses!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great find! This is one of the reason I come here!

[Stephen 2]

Dynamic IP

The website doesn't seem to take into account that many people are stil on dynamic IPs.

I can see what other people have downloaded on this IP but the garbage text waffles on about it being *me*.

[Shakje]

Presumably

that's because if anyone decides to sue you for stealing films, they won't have a clue about dynamic IPs either.

[Steve Evans]

Indeed...

Dynamic IPs would explain some of the odd reports for home users, but the RIAA and Homeland Sec will have fixed.

Mine came up completely clean, which is pretty good. Even more so as I have a dynamic, which means nobody else who was leased the IP from the pool has been a naughty boy either.

Yeah, I know, the site must be broken!

[Anonymous Coward]

roflmfao

talk about one law for us etc etc etc

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all good

As long as they keep shipping pirates off to prison, it's all good.

[Loyal Commenter]

you forgot your icon

Here you go

[The BigYin]

I agree

Prison is the bet place for pirates. The actions of pirates can never be condoned. Ever.

As for alleged copyright infringers, that should be a civil matter and once costs/losses have been paid that should be the end of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

@BigYin

I couldn't agree more, however I sincerely hope the RIAA and the local plod's methods for verifying the correct identity of copyright infringers simply from their IP addresses, is now 100% fool proof! If not you'll could well find yourself being woken early one morning by the local constabulary kicking in your door on the premise that they think you ripped off a handful of MP3s!

I make the assumption you have a PC at home and an internet connection? What am I saying, the RIAA and plod don't care about such technical trivialities, they still hauled in all those naughty non-computer owning grannies some time back didn't they!

With absolute shit websites like the one on discussion here, where the owners are simply interested in stirring up crap and making a name for themselves, no one is safe from some complete twat in the RIAA and ACS:Law type companies, who think they now have an easy way to catch anyone they damn well please in order to make another PR coup!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please open your home to the hypocrite police, they will be round shortly.

The troll police are already checking under your bridge.

[My Alter Ego]

@AC

You're right, you've been trolled*

He's differentiated between the "Be prepared to be boarded" pirates, and copyright "pirates".

* Or maybe I have too.

[Destroy All Monsters]

What the hell do you have against Somali gentlemen of fortune?

[Elmer Phud]

Misssed the point?

It would appear that the HS staff also fly the skull and crossbones.

Now, be off with you and go and pester the Homeland Security instead for being two-faced.

[Paul RND*1000]

It's not going to help with shipping pirates anywhere since it fails to list the location of any dinghies full of armed Somalians.

[skeptical i]

Uhm, TESTING, that's it, we were testing the system, ayup ...

... gotta think like a crim to catch crims, and so on. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

[Ru]

"It Wasn't Me!" etc

Remember that they could also store timestamps and DHT machine fingerprints in their database; the sorts of things that are much better at working out who is who even behind DHCP/PAT whatever.

They might, not of course. Nothing like a little paranoia though, is there?

[Craig 12]

I thought the consensus was this site was mostly a hoax?

Browsing the slashdot comments last week, much was made of the indicators that the site was a joke.

Furthermore, it seems to have misreported pretty much everyone that comments on it, including my static IP at home and work.

[Anonymous Coward]

I missed an episode of a popular program a couple of weeks ago, so I torrented it (I tried to watch it on Hulu first, but it was acting up that night). When I checked my home IP address, that Torrent showed up. So they're getting some records right.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't download music or videos and the records on the site reflect this. But the message:

"Wow!!

Are you sure you and your friends don’t work for the RIAA? Maybe Sony or Universal? Maybe you’re both just really good at covering your tracks."

is offensive.

It is basically saying "We have no evidence against you which means you either work for us or are good at hiding it.". There is nothing in the message to say they believe me innocent because of the lack of evidence, just that they haven't found it yet.

[Annihilator]

Offensive?

Get over yourself. To use your technique of "basically saying", your post is along the lines of "I'm a pious person who doesn't torrent so went to that site to feel smug about it and missed a joke and decided to get all upset"

Although it also strikes me that you've completely missed the point of what the site is trying to achieve, and also that it's not owned by the RIAA or any similar company - it's an enterprising tech demonstrating that torrents are a country mile away from being anonymous.

[b0llchit]

New goldmine

Maybe someone should send a "settlement"-letter to them? What is good for the goose....

[Anonymous Coward 15]

Yes, they are going to find other anti-piracy organisations on torrents

because that's how they get a list of peers.

[Anonymous Coward]

If your IP address is on that site then you deserve to be caught for being stupid enough to use Torrents in the first place

[Richard 81]

Plonker

It seems to be pretty clear that your IP being listed proves absolutely nothing about whether you actually illegally download stuff. At most it shows where you live, but that doesn't mean torrents were ever downloaded from the location the IP is currently tied to.

[Anonymous Coward]

Much Laughter!

Well, I'm a pirate. It's true, I admit it, I steal from the corporations who steal from us. I don't resell, I consume for my own use and then discard. If I want toi use something more than once or twice, or I like the music, or I enjoy the game or movie enough to get more than 20 minutes of amusement from it, I'll go and buy it. I pirate as a "preview" service, if you will, to prevent me spending money on crap.

Anyway, enough justification for my crimes, here's my comment on YouHaveDownloaded.com...

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH! FAIL!

According to the site, I am so clean I might even work for Sony or the RIAA, although I note the site goes on to intimate that I might just be very, very good at covering my tracks. Y'know, if I was a legitimate user I'd be a bit annoyed at being accused of possibly being a pirate even when their "investigation" shows clearly that I am not.

Isn't that called libel?

I also can't help but wonder if the site is in any way genuine as it is remarkably similar to those "joke" sites where you can put a Car License Plate in and see what tickets it has accrued to play a prank on your friends.

Anyway, only a matter of time before Anonymous catches up with them.

[Danny 14]

wow

people still use torrents? how quaint.

[Intractable Potsherd]

@Danny 14 ...

... what wonderful alternative do you have? Enquiring minds etc ...

[Lance 3]

Looks like the RIAA needs to get the lawsuit against themselves submitted to the courts and their ISP needs to send them a letter informing them that if they continue, their service will be disconnected. The RIAA should not treat themselves any different than they do anyone else. Surely the RIAA has firewall records to track down the internal IP of the machine(s) with the content. Clearly the RIAA cannot say they are not responsible for what their employees do on the RIAA network, they didn't let the ISP's use that defense.

Have at it RIAA, get your lawyers vicious circle and hopefully it will spell the end of the RIAA.

[BloodyL]

Silly site.

It treats any and all torrents as dodgy material, for me it lists a couple of 70's radio shows I've downloaded and calls me all the stinking pirates going...

Pirate radio never seemed more appropriate.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

@Site's full of it

Are you by any chance connected to the internet by an ISP rather than your own personal backbone link? in that case all the users in your town/area/cave have the same IP, otherwise the world would have run out of IP addresses by now.

If however you are a giant organisation of pure evil, or Sony, or the DHS you have your own private connection and your own static IP address.

[Jan Hargreaves]

How are they supposed to find torrents and test the validity of them to track them down without actually accessing the torrent itself? Almost as soon as you are downloading you are uploading as well.

I don't see where the scandal is?

Plus are their IPs fixed or dynamic?

No I do not work for the RIAA and their past actions have been neanderthal, however I am at a bit of a loss here....

[damingo]

The book that is face

So, they use facebook all over the site, you comment and they see an IP address. Mehaps they are linking names with IP's in their database?

Oh and the "removal" section requires you to log in with your FB account to be removed:

"Please remove the evidence of my piracy, my IP is 192.168.1.1 and my name is Fred, and I live at 1 White House Drive and you can send my summons to that address. Thanks FB User 123".

[GitMeMyShootinIrons]

Well,

Maybe the downloads at RIAA etc were for *testing and investigation*.... (stifles laughter)...

[atomic jam]

And I'm in the ...

... clear.

[Steve Evans]

LMAO!

What kind of dozy muppet runs a torrent client at work?

Then again, what kind of dozy company/corporation/bloated govt dept manages their network so badly that employees *can* run a torrent client inside the network.

I'm sure the RIAA will be covering their arses (or asses as they are American) any time soon with stories of "We have to join torrent streams to check the authenticity of the content before legal action can proceed"... or "It is for statistical analysis of how effective our anti piracy policy is..."

BTW, both those explanations are copyright.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What kind of dozy muppet runs a torrent client at work?"

Worked with one.

He kicked off the Pink Panther DVD box set one Friday afternoon on his way out. The connection was crawling when I had to work the weekend. Killed his PC and the connection sprang back to life.

He did have a few torrent links to "busty babes" and the likes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Likewise

Unfortunately the one we had was even stupid enough to run them during office hours, and killed our SAP link to headquarters. (SAP does seem very sensistive to network problems)

You may be surprised to learn that the person no longer works for the company.

[Winkypop]

"Hi. We have no records on you."

I never make these lists!

Maybe I should...not sayin'

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought

that the site was a joke???

It pretty much says that at the bottom of the page and if you click any links.

[foxyshadis]

Awesome

It'd be even more hilarious if it was discovered that DHS was running numerous open proxies or caching dumps of illegal files (for ratio purposes). Most likely it would be covered up, with no audit trail of who had broken in. DHS is an oxymoron if there ever was one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fancy

Checked my home IP says it is somewhere else but that I downloaded a program this month. Nevr did but the joke is it is a program I own on disk, someones just havin a laugh.

Not one I would buy again or even download, it is crap.

[Shades]

I call...

...hoax.

For the people who stopped reading after "You could just be very good at covering your tracks...for now"

...

"However, it looks like we’ve picked up some activity from your friends or family. Maybe it’s time to give them a stern talking to about the importance of legally downloading their music and movies and how Lady Gaga is starving and how George Clooney won’t get proper royalties because of pirates like them!!! Oh, the HORROR!!!"

[redxine]

Skype

it does a good job of associating a name with an IP address. Did anyone think to mention it also uses peer to peer technology?

Sure there's ways around it, but the people the RIAA, et. al are interested don't think twice when putting their name in a form. I still think there could be a way to exploit this, even given it's inherent instability. Given the number of torrent peers in the world, etc..... it seems that they're deriving their database directly from a tracker under their control. For example, I was unable to find any legitimate torrents along the lines of oovoo (of which I've downloaded from in the past few days) or Linux torrents, all of which use their own tracker.

[Simon Crowe]

Stuxnet II - Dexter - DHS ??????

Wasn't there something in the Stuxnet II virus about Dexter too ???

Coincidence ....

[The Fuzzy Wotnot]

With every visit they log another IP address!!!

FFS! How fucking stupid are you people? They have a database that claims to collect IPs of people up to no good, the site says "Oh we don't have you on record, you're clean!".

THEY'VE JUST GOT YOUR BLOODY IP BECAUSE YOU WERE STUPID ENOUGH TO GO TO THEIR BLEEDIN' WEBSITE!!!

Do yourselves a favour, don't encourage these complete twats by stroking their egos, let it die!

I suggest you all go and get the Simpsons episode where everyone in Springfield is promised a boat!!!

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Best torrent search engine ever.

Oh Look! the work laser printer is on the list.....

What a fantastic site, I was able to search for some items and see what sites they were available on, It would seem the thing to do is to put the name of the torrent site in the file name.

What a great rescource for downloaders.

Picked this up from the site as well, I love the presumtion of guilty until proved innocent

"Well, you may have narrowly escaped our crawlers this time but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve been so innocent. You could just be very good at covering your tracks...for now. However, it looks like we’ve picked up some activity from your friends or family. Maybe it’s time to give them a stern talking to about the importance of legally downloading their music and movies and how Lady Gaga is starving and how George Clooney won’t get proper royalties because of pirates like them!!! Oh, the HORROR!!!"

I wouldn't shoot a policeman and then shit in his helmet either.

If I could have used multiple icon I would have used, WTF, FAIL, Joke Alert, Troll, Jolly roger and No shit Sherlock.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh Look! the work laser printer is on the list....."

Its got an external IP address? What is it? I feel like killing a few trees by sending your office my pron collection in printed format.

[Fuzz]

me too

I have a lot of pictures of the night sky that need printing out.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Yawn, nothing worse than watching ignorance in action....

http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/index.html

I assume you'll be able to find someone to read it to you.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

You made a reference to a page on a foreign university's website that not everyone has read.

Then you throw a strop that no one got your obscure reference among people who have seen printers with external IP addresses.

Twat.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

“a foreign university's website”, have you got your head stuck so far up your own arse that you will not read a “foreign” article. Ha! And I thought it was only merkins that suffered form NIH (not invented Here) syndrome.

The 2007 study from the University of Washington was (at the time) a well known academic study of how the copyright mafiaa were detecting so called copyright infringement.

But then why let facts get in the way of your opinion, I usually don’t bother explaining stuff to fucking idiots too lazy to do a bit research or read the article (http://dmca.cs.washington.edu/uwcse_dmca_tr.pdf), but here’s a brief summary just for you.

The researchers at University of Washington monitored the file sharing networks, and even though they were not downloading anything, the copyright mafiaa detected their IP addresses and issued them with over 400 DMCA takedown notices. The researchers concluded that the copyright mafiaa were not actually monitoring what was happening on the networks but merely what IP addresses were visible on the networks.

The report also *DETAILS* how the researchers manipulated I.P. addresses so that three laserjet printers were accused in takedown letters by the M.P.A.A. of downloading copies of “Iron Man” and an Indiana Jones film.

You wart on a twat

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me pick those toys up and put them back in your pram

If I wanted to read the article, I would have followed your link the first time.

Again I point out that it is from a place of academic research, where *most* of us here are professionals. Also that its not likely to be a place of study for your average UK based employee.

Your reaction is like someone not recognising a flower because it does not grow in their part of the country and throwing a strop at them because they didn't get your joke based on its Latin name.

Are you claiming that everyone here has to be an expert on every fine detail of every subject covered on this site?

Go stick your head in a pig.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

“If I wanted to read the article, I would have followed your link the first time.”

Wow!!! I’ve met many people who were ignorant by accident, but I’ve never met anyone that was ignorant by design.

“Again I point out that it is from a place of academic research, where *most* of us here are professionals. Also that its not likely to be a place of study for your average UK based employee.”

What? You think reading 6½ pages is beyond the ability of the average UK based employee. You seem to have a very low opinion of the average UK employee, are you a (un)civil servant?

“Your reaction is like someone not recognising a flower because it does not grow in their part of the country and throwing a strop at them because they didn't get your joke based on its Latin name.”

Sorry, haven’t a fucking clue what you are on about.

“Are you claiming that everyone here has to be an expert on every fine detail of every subject covered on this site?”

No, but I do expect that commenttards do know a little bit about the broader issues or are willing to find out about them.

“Go stick your head in a pig.”

I was going to, but it looks like you beat me to it, and it looks like you have been there for some considerable time.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What? You think reading 6½ pages is beyond the ability of the average UK based employee. You seem to have a very low opinion of the average UK employee, are you a (un)civil servant?"

No. No I am talking about you expecting everyone to know, from one sentence that you are referring to 6.5 pages on a place not generally traversed by this demographic. Then you throw a strop about it in your second post when no one knows you are making a joke.

And you failed to understand my D. A. reference. Should I do what you have done above and spit the dummy, or shall I do what every else does and get on with my life.

[Anonymous Coward]

watching the detectives

I guess one reason for including RIAA addresses might be the extent to which the RIAA are pushing corrupted torrents themselves, or spying on useful torrents by joining them.

[ph0b0s]

Yeah, people seem to have missed that at least the RIAA take part in torrents. Where do you think they get peoples IP's from? The only question is do they do this with their own IP's or use 3rd party company's like 'media sentry' to do this torrent joining / spying.

I assume that the IP for YouHaveDownloaded.com will also turn up as they have to be part of a torrent, to see who else is.

[Anonymous Coward]

They got me

Well, at least on my part the info was correct. I have indeed downloaded those three torrents they listed for me. Good job, I guess.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wanted to update ya all, I pulled all my websites and no longer am going to have any online presence until the motherfucking US Constitution is restored.

This will effect many people. ;o(

[wheany]

"You might also like"

It's a great match making site.

Search for something you'd like, then click on an IP address and the site lists other files that IP has downloaded.

So in essence "People who have downloaded <foo> have also downloaded <bar> <baz> and <quux>"

[MonkeyBot]

I went to the site when I was on the train on the way home and it says that I'm in Sweden and listed a load of things I haven't downloaded (Snow Patrol? get fucked). I then plugged my phone in to the laptop and used that to go to the site. It said I was in the City of London and listed more things that I hadn't downloaded, but at least it got the right country. When I got home I went to the site using a computer that has definitely been used to download torrents and it came back with nothing

[DragonKin37]

The harvest from Homeland Security was even more bountiful

Not surprising since those TSA agents need to do something to get their minds off those pat-downs

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of these people will already be paying handsomely for their torrents...

I'm on Vodafone mobile broadband (they have about 100 internet-facing IPs, many on 212.183.128.xyz, and NAT-route all their customers through those). Needless to say, my current IP shows "pirate"activity.

Not that many; 6 files for December, 20-odd for November.

Interestingly some of these files are of GB proportions:

[ UsaBit.com ] - Immortal ... DScr.XVID.AC3.HQ.Hive-CM8 (1.36 GB)

VA - 400 Rock-Pop-Disco Hits All CDRips [Bubanee] (3.16 GB)

Wall Street Money Never S ... s (2010) R5 XviD-MAXSPEED (1.20 GB)

Cheljusti.2011.D.DVDRip.RelizLab.avi (1.37 GB)

(Picking the biggest out of the first 10 results)

Now, mobile broadband typically has a 3GB/month download limit (less for new customers). Vodafone typically slaps on a £15 surcharge for each GB broken into (just a few bytes will do it) over and above the limit.

I bet most people were not knowingly/deliberately using their 3G dongle for their torrenting... and they'll pay the price in a big end-of-the-month bill.

[b]Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon or see what they're typiing.[/b]

[Vladimir Plouzhnikov]

The schmucks!

They say I DLed loads of things, like "piss party 19", "teensexmovs pussika" and, just think of it, "Microsoft office 2007"! All from a 3G eyeBad...

And MS Office 2007! Now I am really offended!

[jestersbro]

Total Fake!

I had a look yesterday from the home wifi connected mac and I was clean. Yeah! But today, from my mobile I was dirty. Boo! Dirty to the grand sum of around 20GB.

Apparently in the last month I've downoaded a load of MS software, music from bands that don't even appear on LastFM, movies that I haven't even heard of and lots of pron. That's why I have RSI! Oh, and I'm in Manchester. No.

I also rebouted my phone to find out what it would do and in the 30 secinds it takes to reboot I downloaded another 4GB. Going back one month!

I love this site. I'm sending it to people I know really are torrent users as a chrissy pressy :-)