I Know What You Download on BitTorrent • Hacker News Board

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#501

Post by na85 » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:26 PM UTC

sixothree wrote: post #324

debacle wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side: When I was an intern I once had four people arrive at my desk (including an HR lawyer) for torrenting ubuntu server. Thankfully I shared a cube wall with someone smart enough to realize the confusion, and explain me out of being walked out. They were monitoring for torrent traffic, but weren't paying attention to what was being torrented. Apparently a company-wide warning had gone out the week before I…

Not long after we started WFH I needed to share a pre-configured VM with a coworker. We tried all sorts of stuff and finally just decided to torrent it. Zipped it up tight with a password and private torrented it overnight. Next morning we were up and running.

Next time try Magic Wormhole.

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#502

Post by StavrosK » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:27 PM UTC

Arnavion wrote: post #436

aaronchall wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do that?

Use your client to create a .torrent. Send the .torrent over. Other party adds your IP as a seed. No trackers or DHT required.

Unfortunately, I've never managed to get this to work, even though the two computers have open ports and can connect to each other via nc/telnet. The other peer m just never starts downloading when I seed the file.

BitTorrent is a fantastic way to transfer files, except for this one hitch I keep hitting.

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#503

Post by jliptzin » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

parsimo2010 wrote: post #488

Pxtl wrote: post #55

This kind of thing is already done heavily by content rights-holders. If you torrent movies or games in Canada without a VPN, you will get nastygrams in your email from the rights-holders via your ISP. They're legally required to do so AFAIK, because even consumer-oriented ISPs that are very privacy driven also forward on those letters. Apparently if you don't reply to those emails you're fine, because they can't esc…

I "had a friend" with a Comcast (or maybe Cox) email address that was given to them when they started with their internet service, but didn't know about. They didn't use a VPN and downloaded thousands of movies and TV shows. Several years after signing up they logged into their account to update their auto-billing info, and it notified them that they had new emails at the email address they had no idea existed. They…

That means the notices aren't even worth the amount it would cost to snail mail.

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#504

Post by na85 » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #396

SkyBelow wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point I find it hard to draw a distinction between a library and a torrent. Gotta to avoid legal trouble, but from a moral standpoint outlawing torrents is like outlawing the library.

>At some point I find it hard to draw a distinction between a library and a torrent. So why use torrents instead of the library? You know full well the difference.

The library uses a shitty app and DRM.

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#505

Post by userbinator » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

RyJones wrote: post #227

flak48 wrote: post #89

An intern once thought it was a good idea to torrent a couple of Game of Thrones episodes using my startup's Digital Ocean box. We found out after Digital Ocean forwarded us an email from HBO (who presumably tracked Digital Ocean down via the IP) that we were engaging in piracy. We sent an email to everyone with access, saying whoever was doing it to stop. Then we got a second email (a final warning). Everyone denied…

I worked for a place where our internet was bad, but not that bad. We were coming up to a release and things were fubar. I asked the network guy to find what was up - a guy that reported to me was torrenting child porn.

Reading stories like this makes people think that all pedophiles are stupid, but then again, as with any other crime, it's only the stupid ones who get caught...

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#506

Post by deadbunny » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

411111111111111 wrote: post #371

sn_master wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I haven't heard about it before this comment? I am taking a look now, it looks interesting. I usually like to download the whole files anyway and keep them on my external big drive to make sure I have them when a movie stops being popular and becomes harder to find on torrents. Also, I have an external projector that can play movies from a USB and having the full file available for me to copy onto the USB in…

Check out emby instead. It's open source and you won't get locked out of your own media if your internet connection is down

Emby is no longer open source. Checkout the (much improved fork) jellyfin.

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#507

Post by boomboomsubban » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

air7 wrote: post #382

deadalus wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seedr.cc, bitport.io or zbigz.com exist to solve this problem and would have saved him his job.

how do such services escape the clutches of DMCA? I assume they're used for pirating content.

They usally aren't in the US, and making an international issue out of them just provides free advertising and sympathy for similar services.

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#508

Post by sukilot » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #459

Wistar wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew him well and he was well-liked and professionally well-regarded throughout at least my division of the company. He was a high-energy, tireless guy with great ideas and worked nearly daily with senior-level management, often traveling with them all over the world. I, along with a whole lot of others, were absolutely dumbstruck by his profound fall from grace.

Ye I guess seeming like a nice person doesn't prove or disprove anything, but lets not dive to far into your colocated worker's case, but generally. I had a malware once that distributed (legal) porn. Since then I have had that in the back of my head when reading about child porn. I mean, what more effective way to ruin someones life by framing without having to involve yourself physically by planting drugs etc. It d…

They don't have the technical knowledge, and they don't want it unless it gives them access to a bigger bust of the framer.

But there's usually a lot more evidence then one hacked machine, if someone is mentally ill enough to think downloading child porn is a good idea.

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#509

Post by errantspark » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:37 PM UTC

sn_master wrote: post #214

AnonC wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only problem I have with torrents are unpopular movies/series usually have no seeds, but there is nothing that can be done about that. > Pro-tip: Do not download the actual .torrent file. Many websites are setup to redirect you into an endless loop of shady .exe downloads. Always, always just copy the magnet link to your clipboard. A better pro-tip for these issues: if you're anyway using a seed box, figure out and…

I used to do that (Demonoid...) but gotten lazy over the years. If something is rare and I really want it, I don't mind paying 15-20$ for it on Amazon Video/iTunes. Only thing I don't like is they don't let me download it, and I haven't found ways to download them otherwise.

The baseline I can get for $10-30 worth of my time as effort put into piracy is a reasonably encoded `*.mkv` with subs, chapters, multiple audio streams.

It's just a far far better experience from a user perspective than anything that's commercially available these days.

Re: I Know What You Download on BitTorrent

#510

Post by aussieguy1234 » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

jimmydorry wrote: post #475

TallGuyShort wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's potentially less anonymous to the people who might prosecute you. Probably didn't realize how anonymous it wasn't to the employer and didn't factor that cost in to the decision. But if you're willing to $5 to get a show, you're probably less likely to pirate it anyway (or at least be the seed).

As far as I recall, $20 wouldn't even get you a single GoT episode in Australia. As a consequence, Australia had one of the highest piracy rates on GoT / HBO shows.

The Foxtel monopoly has got to go, one way or another. They pay for the rights to all of the best shows, then charge huge sums for subscriptions. I'd pay for Netflix, HBO online etc if only it were possible here for a reasonable, non inflated price without content restrictions.