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Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3M peers

kianbradley.com

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Re: Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3M peers

#31

Post by nneonneo »

Now I'm wondering: with the wide range of bittorrent clients out there, and the fact that many are written in unsafe languages, could it be possible for some of them to be exploited through a malicious tracker? It would not surprise me if some of these clients misbehave if fed malformed data from a tracker.

Re: Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3M peers

#32

Post by gpm »

rockskon wrote: post #21
gpm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because knowingly helping people commit crimes generally counts the same as committing the crime yourself. I.e. federally in the U.S. under 18 USC 2a https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2 The software you're running being "simple" isn't a defence for doing illegal things with it - like aiding others commit crimes. There are a few internet/copyright safe harbor provisions (in the US) that might maybe (probably…

Wouldn't particular knowledge be required? I'm sure Google devs know in the abstract that Google search is used by criminals to help them in committing crimes, but that clearly is not illegal in and of itself.

There's definitely a mens rea requirement here, that you know that a crime is being committed and that you intend to facilitate it. I doubt it requires particularized knowledge that "this specific request" is for a crime... I'm still not a lawyer.

Running a service primarily for legal purposes that some criminals can take advantage of is pretty different with regards to intent than reviving an old domain name that you know is primarily used by old illegal torrents as a tracker.

I spent a few minutes googling, and it seems like that at least as of a decade ago the exact bounds here weren't well defined: https://www.scotusblog.com/2014/03/opinion-analysis-justice-...

> Finally, the possible liability for an “incidental facilitator” – such as a firearms dealer who knows that some customers will use their purchases for crime – is noted but not resolved. Thus, thankfully, there is still some fertile ground for hypotheticals with which we practicing law professors can bedevil our students.

Re: Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3M peers

#33

Post by sweeter »

WithinReason wrote: post #16

Can you do this to create a database of torrents for a torrent search engine?

You don't even have to go that far, you can just use torsniff. But be aware there is a lot of nsfw material and potentially illegal material for all I know.

Re: Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3M peers

#36

Post by diggan »

gpm wrote: post #14
diggan wrote: post #2

> Is this legal? Why wouldn't it be? You're not actually hosting a tracker in this case, only looking at incoming connections. And even if you do run a tracker, hard to make the case that the tracker itself is illega. Hosting something like opentrackr is like hosting a search engine, how they respond to legal takedown requests is where the crux is at, and whatever infra sits around the tracker, so police and courts c…

Because knowingly helping people commit crimes generally counts the same as committing the crime yourself. I.e. federally in the U.S. under 18 USC 2a https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2 The software you're running being "simple" isn't a defence for doing illegal things with it - like aiding others commit crimes. There are a few internet/copyright safe harbor provisions (in the US) that might maybe (probably…

> knowingly helping people commit crimes generally

Right, that makes sense. Is running a tracker "knowingly helping people commit crimes"? I feel like that's a huge jump, there is a wide range of content coordinated by trackers and the DHT.

Re: Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3M peers

#37

Post by ascendantlogic »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #18

I think some commenters here missed the point. Of course hosting a tracker is legal, but what about "hijacking" inactive resource?

The word "hijacking" in this scenario would only be applicable if the domain was still registered and active and he forcefully took the domain away. That is not the case. The fact OP was able to register it quickly and easily indicates it was unused and to call this "hijhacking" would imply permanent ownership of domains even after previous owners knowingly let the registration lapse.

The legality of hosting a tracker isn't obvious, and as pointed out elsewhere the nuance is less about concrete legality and more about having the resources to deal with lawyers harassing you with lawsuits.

Re: Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3M peers

#39

Post by gpm »

diggan wrote: post #36
gpm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because knowingly helping people commit crimes generally counts the same as committing the crime yourself. I.e. federally in the U.S. under 18 USC 2a https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2 The software you're running being "simple" isn't a defence for doing illegal things with it - like aiding others commit crimes. There are a few internet/copyright safe harbor provisions (in the US) that might maybe (probably…

> knowingly helping people commit crimes generally Right, that makes sense. Is running a tracker "knowingly helping people commit crimes"? I feel like that's a huge jump, there is a wide range of content coordinated by trackers and the DHT.

It's not like he just started a random new torrent tracker... he took over an old domain that was previously in use by people pirating stuff after observing that torrents were still pointing to the tracker and ran a tracker on that domain. That's a pretty direct line to "he knew this would be used for copyright infringement".
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