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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

#41

Post by mdaniel »

sweeter wrote: post #30
zaik wrote: post #17

I wonder how many anti-torrent groups are doing this covertly.

Definitely a few. Media companies often send out infringement notices to ISPs to be forwarded to the user and I would guess this is how they get those IPs

My understanding is that mere swarm membership is sufficient, no need to host anything

That's my understanding of why private trackers ban folks who upload private .torrent files to public trackers because the infohash is a rendezvous point of private and public consumers via DHT

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

#42

Post by senko »

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…

But the OP states he was using the tracker for lawful purposes:

> So I was, uh, downloading some linux isos, like usual.

Nothing to see here, move along.

Seriously though, the OP makes the same argument and concludes that:

> I was spooked. [...] I shut down the VPS and deleted the domain quickly after confirming it works.

IANAL but this clearly shows the OP didn't intend to facilitate crime and shut it down after seeing that was what may have been happening.

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

#43

Post by KomoD »

fine_tune wrote: post #7

You bought a house that had a murder X years ago and are wondering if your guilty for the murder, probably not - aslong as you don't do more murder in it. I suppose real life is more interesting though, the guy who picked up the domain to stop the global ransomware crisis was picked up after Defcon if memory serves. Ironically your probably at more risk from the GDPR for leaking those IP addresses that connected to t…

> I suppose real life is more interesting though, the guy who picked up the domain to stop the global ransomware crisis was picked up after Defcon if memory serves

That dude developed and sold banking malware, that's why he got arrested.

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

#44

Post by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 »

aidenn0 wrote: post #13

IANAL, but my understanding is that running a content-neutral tracker is legal in the US. In other jurisdictions it most certainly is not, and the VPS maybe in a different jurisdiction and the .si TLD definitely is.

VPS is from https://cockbox.org/ (as referenced in the article), which says it is based in Moldova?

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by gpm »

senko wrote: post #42
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…

But the OP states he was using the tracker for lawful purposes: > So I was, uh, downloading some linux isos, like usual. Nothing to see here, move along. Seriously though, the OP makes the same argument and concludes that: > I was spooked. [...] I shut down the VPS and deleted the domain quickly after confirming it works. IANAL but this clearly shows the OP didn't intend to facilitate crime and shut it down after see…

I, and I think OP, were both addressing the hypothetical in which he continued to run the service, not the reality where he quickly shut it down.

> But the OP states he was using the tracker for lawful purposes:

That quote is a confession that he was committing copyright infringement. Courts and juries and not obliged to ignore the ", uh," part.

Probably (in the very unlikely event where he is charged) the best defence would be "this was a joke" not "I didn't literally confess to committing copyright infringement". Even then I'm pretty sure this quote would weigh against him substantially in just about any jury's mind.

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

#47

Post by neckro23 »

sweeter wrote: post #30
zaik wrote: post #17

I wonder how many anti-torrent groups are doing this covertly.

Definitely a few. Media companies often send out infringement notices to ISPs to be forwarded to the user and I would guess this is how they get those IPs

No tracker necessary, you can just use DHT: https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/

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

#48

Post by os2warpman »

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.

[flagged]

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

#49

Post by bilekas »

jekwoooooe wrote: post #3
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…

Is this legal isn’t a useful question. The better question is how likely are you to get sued? With civil lawsuits it doesn’t matter if it’s legal you can be sued and harassed by lawyers if you get on their radar.

I’m not sure if that’s true actually, you might get a takedown notice, but to sue, and maybe I’m wrong but you have to claim damages, all op has to do is not announce out?

IE he can see the peer pool but they don’t announce the peer list.

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

#50

Post by numpad0 »

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 music & movie industries hate P2P in general? That basically killed P2P dead in 2000s as it was becoming the next generation of decentralized Web.

Maybe it's about time to revisit it? It's just the matter of how to enforce DRM. They shouldn't care in this day and age with plenty ways to get licensing sorted out.

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