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[Sou Da]

I'm ok with this. Torrent sites like this one are rife with child porn. I see it all the time in my investigations.

You sure that isn't a private tracker thing?

 

[sans_pants]

To slow piracy you have to create a system that is more convenient to use than what the pirates use. See steam for pc. PC piracy still obviously exists but I would guess it's nowhere near as high as it would be if Steam wasn't created.

Just give us places to stream stuff without bullshit

Netflix and its ilk have kept a lot of the mainstream out of the piracy game. Spotify makes most music piracy unnecessary

 

[Madchad]

Torrents are still a thing ?

 

[Kickz]

Need a steam version for movies, that would further take piracy down

 

[RealityCheque]

yes because if you know even a basic thing about how computers work you understand that providing the first and last names of someone in compliance of a court order is totally different than specifically designing a version of your operating system to remove the encryption that you use to protect hundreds of millions of innocent people.

but sure, all bad people are the same and any kind of cooperating with authorities is the same.

do you think if the feds did not know the name of the san bernadino shooter, but had his ip address, apple wouldn't have provided the name of the shooter? that's basically the case you need to make to sustain that there's a hypocrisy or disconnect here.

No I do understand the difference. It's more that Apple made a very big song and dance around the iPhone unlock issue and really leaned on the "we're all about privacy" arguement, at the time. They probably made a few new customers on that basis. Then they kind of go right against that stance with the Kickass bloke.

Obviously the court order compelled them to, but it's their wafer thin privacy PR that gets me. They have just the same interest in user data as google but they get a pass for practically no reason at all.

 

[bobbyrawlins]

Torrents are still a thing ?

Saying "X is still a thing?" is still a thing?

 

[xxracerxx]

I'm ok with this. Torrent sites like this one are rife with child porn. I see it all the time in my investigations.

Investigations?

 

[Future]

Torrents are still a thing ?

Was actually gonna ask this. At least for movies and shit, hasn't streaming been all the rage? Part of the reason kodi was so popular

 

[Snkfanatic]

I'm ok with this. Torrent sites like this one are rife with child porn. I see it all the time in my investigations.

What the....your investigations?

 

[enzo_gt]

Honestly, if they can keep KAT and TPB offline and/or on the run, then law enforcement has pretty much won.

No other torrent sites come close to the sheer traffic, size and catalogue of torrents that those two websites have.

The age of piracy will finally be coming to an end (mostly) and good riddance, to be honest.

There has never been a more appropriate time for

 

[inky]

Extradiction? Jesus christ US, you really take piracy way too seriously.

They must be getting paid a ton by the entertainment industries.

 

[Chorazin]

I'm ok with this. Torrent sites like this one are rife with child porn. I see it all the time in my investigations.

Ummmm....what?

 

[RealityCheque]

I'm ok with this. Torrent sites like this one are rife with child porn. I see it all the time in my investigations.

 

[Sulik2]

Wow he got ratted out by apple.

Yeah this is huge. Apple apparently doesn't care about privacy if it involves piracy. Anyone see any articles that specify what exactly Apple was compelled to release?

 

[Burai]

No I do understand the difference. It's more that Apple made a very big song and dance around the iPhone unlock issue and really leaned on the "we're all about privacy" arguement, at the time. They probably made a few new customers on that basis. Then they kind of go right against that stance with the Kickass bloke.

Obviously the court order compelled them to, but it's their wafer thin privacy PR that gets me. They have just the same interest in user data as google but they get a pass for practically no reason at all.

Apple's angle is that they don't sell their users' data to advertisers as Google and Microsoft do. They never claimed that they wouldn't release users' data to law enforcement.

It's a very fundamental difference.

 

[Huge Succeeded]

When will they learn that piracy is a non issue. The vast majority of it is done by people who either can not or will not ever pay for any of the content they pirate. There is basically nothing to gain from all this effort.

That's horseshit.
It's kinda like the 'war on drugs' in the US far as I can tell
Some drugs are problematic.
The problem is that proposed and enacted 'solutions' are just as problematic if not moreso

I don't understand how people can so willingly and readily abandon common sense (and that's really all it is) in order to convince themselves that piracy has no impact on anything though. It's an asinine belief.

Piracy happens for a lot of reasons, but seriously stop pretending like it's a non-issue, or that nobody who otherwise desires or can afford a digital product would ever pirate. There's such a thing as cheap people, yet it seems like piracy apologists are incapable of recognizing that.

Ummmm....what?

Those are some pretty nasty implications, you guys. Consider that the word 'investigation' has meaning beyond being internet shorthand for searching for something out of personal interest.

 

[phaonaut]

Extradition seems like a bit much, what type of time would someone get for this?

 

[RealityCheque]

Apple's angle is that they don't sell their users' data to advertisers as Google and Microsoft do. They never claimed that they wouldn't release users' data to law enforcement.

It's a very fundamental difference.

Except their angle around the FBI/terrorist case was to make a very public show about privacy etc. It just seems a little "off" to me.

Extradition seems like a bit much, what type of time would someone get for this?

Judging by their previous actions, this:

 

[collige]

Usenet servers get DMCA takedowns all the time now actually.

I'm unclear as to why non-tracker torrent aggregators like KAT, PB, etc aren't subject to the same DMCA protections and practices that a normal search engine would be. Why are they held liable when Google wouldn't be? Can anyone with legal knowledge elaborate?

Except their angle around the FBI/terrorist case was to make a very public show about privacy etc. It just seems a little "off" to me.

Their show about privacy was related to encryption and their protection of users' generated content content (pictures, messages, etc) communicated with their services. It's completely unrelated from complying with law enforcement request for data about how customers interact with their public stores. It's the difference between divulging someone's address and breaking into their house.

 

[pretty done]

Couldn't also pick up Polanski while they were there?

Clearly people watching Game of Thrones for free is much worse than what that guy did. We gotta get the real criminals. #USAUSAUSA

 

[Stumpokapow]

Except their angle around the FBI/terrorist case was to make a very public show about privacy etc. It just seems a little "off" to me.

Their angle was the following:
- They turned over all the emails they had from the San Bernadino shooter
- They turned over his phone backups, which were disabled 6 weeks prior to the shooting, so the feds had access to those
- They recommended that they could force the phone to make a new backup, but law enforcement ignored it, fucked up, and basically triggered a security feature which made that impossible
- The feds wanted Apple to make a version of their operating system that would disable the encryption. i.e. to literally spend money making their product worse. Apple said no.

Apple, like all companies (including GAF if GAF's owner was ever asked), would turn over basic registration information in compliance with a lawful order from cops.

[it's also the case that Apple cooperating is not what did in the KAT guy, the affadavit filed in support of the charges is extensive, this guy left himself open wide and they had nailed him even without the Apple stuff]

 

[Neuromancer]

You sure that isn't a private tracker thing?

Yeah I'm sure.

Investigations?

What the....your investigations?

Ummmm....what?

Don't worry, I'm not doing this in my free time or anything. My job is computer forensics on child exploitation cases. The majority of my targets use torrents and peer to peer networks to receive and distribute CP. I've seen people using this site in particular to find it.

 

[Alpende]

Welp, another one will pop up. You can't fight this stuff.

 

[sammyCYBORG]

The only things I pirate are things that aren't easily accessible and up with modern technology.

Companies don't need the feds to combat it.

 

[Random Painted HIghway]

Wow, lay people really have no idea what federal and state law enforcement can get via grand jury subpoenas or search warrants. This was probably a simple grand jury subpoena that requested all records related to this transaction. Apple would not have known what the ultimate purpose of the request even was, just that they were required to turn over the information, which of course they do regularly for these things.

 

[RealityCheque]

Yeah I'm sure.






Don't worry, I'm not doing this in my free time or anything. My job is computer forensics on child exploitation cases. The majority of my targets use torrents and peer to peer networks to receive and distribute CP. I've seen people using this site in particular to find it.

Really? Seems like a public torrent site (the biggest public torrent site in the world) would be the absolute dumbest place to put that sort of ultra-criminal material. Not saying it isn't true but from what I've ever heard of these sorts of people, they take a lot of time to cover their tracks. Or maybe they are just a lot dumber than I imagined.

 

[see5harp]

It's hard to fathom the amount of money this dude was making off advertisements alone. $20 million a year? Fuck man that's more than most starting pitchers in baseball.

 

[xxracerxx]

Don't worry, I'm not doing this in my free time or anything. My job is computer forensics on child exploitation cases. The majority of my targets use torrents and peer to peer networks to receive and distribute CP. I've seen people using this site in particular to find it.

Ahh, gotcha. Dude you are doing work that I cannot even imagine. Good on you.

 

[TwoDurans]

There was a KAT facebook page? And it was registered to a .me account?

So this guy wanted to get caught, right?

 

[forrest]

Wait, why is it that he can be extradited to the US, over a European nation for example?

Vaulin who is believed to be the owner of Kickass Torrent has been arrested because the site has its server based in Chicago, US.

Full article here: https://www.hackread.com/kickass-torrents-down-owner-arrested/

 

[RealityCheque]

It's hard to fathom the amount of money this dude was making off advertisements alone. $20 million a year? Fuck man that's more than most starting pitchers in baseball.

Yep, what's the odds that the big PR win of taking down Kickass Torrents will be completely ignored by a large number of people who see that number and wonder how they can get a piece of that, now vacant, pie?

The risk/reward of that sort of thing is pretty high.

 

[pompidu]

most crimes committed online allow individuals to be prosecuted in either the country they reside or the country where the victims reside; this is generally a good thing. for example, imagine some canadian runs a phone scam that scams your grandma, and the US has no jurisdiction to prosecute because the guy is in canada, and canada doesn't give you standing because the crimes allegedly occurred in the US. i agree that in this situation it's a little unusual because the implication is that the US was directly responsible for enforcement, not just extradition and prosecution, but I think that was probably with the consent and cooperation of local authorities, who probably don't have the skills necessary to do the digital forensics required for a case like this.



yes because if you know even a basic thing about how computers work you understand that providing the first and last names of someone in compliance of a court order is totally different than specifically designing a version of your operating system to remove the encryption that you use to protect hundreds of millions of innocent people.

but sure, all bad people are the same and any kind of cooperating with authorities is the same.

do you think if the feds did not know the name of the san bernadino shooter, but had his ip address, apple wouldn't have provided the name of the shooter? that's basically the case you need to make to sustain that there's a hypocrisy or disconnect here.

Apples statement on the FBI and the encryption was all about protecting customer data. It even says it in their press release.

In reality it was about protecting their own hardware/software. They are hypocrites. In fact weren't the the second big company to be secretly sharing information to the NSA that was eventually exposed by Snowden?

 

[CloudWolf]

Was actually gonna ask this. At least for movies and shit, hasn't streaming been all the rage? Part of the reason kodi was so popular

Streaming is popular, yes, but not so popular or widely available that it makes torrenting no longer interesting to many.

1. You don't always have internet everywhere. Want to listen to Spotify on a holiday or in a place that doesn't have WiFi? Well, tough luck unless you have a premium account and downloaded everything to your phone.

2. Some big artists are not and will never be on the major music streaming platforms.

3. Television and movie streaming options are still atrocious. You don't notice this that much if you're living in the United States because Netflix, Hulu, etc. are pretty much perfect, but outside of the USA it's a completely different story. Netflix in European countries has a generally pretty mediocre selection so the ban on proxy's has ruined it for many, something like Hulu doesn't exist in many countries, HBO Go is a shitshow (it hasn't worked on my tv at all these past months) and the local options are mostly terrible ('Uitzending Gemist' in The Netherlands still streams everything at 480p instead of HD resolutions, it's absurd).

4. In order to watch many of the top rated US television shows in The Netherlands when they're broadcast, you basically have to torrent. Shows like Archer, Hannibal and The Americans have, as far as I know, never aired in The Netherlands for instance.

That said, many people would probably stop downloading tv shows and films if the streaming options were better. Pretty much everyone I know used Popcorn Time for instance.

 

[many places]

There was a KAT facebook page? And it was registered to a .me account?

So this guy wanted to get caught, right?

Even private trackers have FB pages.

 

[LiK]

another BT site goes down and another will rise up. we've seen this keep happening constantly. KAT got big after PB went down, iirc

 

[collige]

Apples statement on the FBI and the encryption was all about protecting customer data. It even says it in their press release.

In reality it was about protecting their own hardware/software. They are hypocrites. In fact weren't the the second big company to be secretly sharing information to the NSA that was eventually exposed by Snowden?

Customer data meaning data that the generate and store/transmit on Apple systems and services. Them not divulging data about a customer purchase would be the equivalent of them not giving up sales transactions or security videos from one of their physical stores. It's not an unreasonable request and they were legally mandated to do it. Neither of those things were the case for the San Bernardino case

 

[ClosingADoor]

Don't worry, I'm not doing this in my free time or anything. My job is computer forensics on child exploitation cases. The majority of my targets use torrents and peer to peer networks to receive and distribute CP. I've seen people using this site in particular to find it.

Aren't IP-addresses with torrents public, so people uploading and downloading that pretty easy to track down then?

 

[Dennis]

I'm ok with this. Torrent sites like this one are rife with child porn. I see it all the time in my investigations.

Wow really? I had no idea there was child porn on popular torrent sites.

 

[Monocle]

The great hydra of piracy has finally been vanquished!

It cost a lot of time and money, but these super permanent results are totally worth it.

 

[Yaska]

Streaming is popular, yes, but not so popular or widely available that it makes torrenting no longer interesting to many.

1. You don't always have internet everywhere. Want to listen to Spotify on a holiday or in a place that doesn't have WiFi? Well, tough luck unless you have a premium account and downloaded everything to your phone.

2. Some big artists are not and will never be on the major music streaming platforms.

3. Television and movie streaming options are still atrocious. You don't notice this that much if you're living in the United States because Netflix, Hulu, etc. are pretty much perfect, but outside of the USA it's a completely different story. Netflix in European countries has a generally pretty mediocre selection so the ban on proxy's has ruined it for many, something like Hulu doesn't exist in many countries, HBO Go is a shitshow (it hasn't worked on my tv at all these past months) and the local options are mostly terrible ('Uitzending Gemist' in The Netherlands still streams everything at 480p instead of HD resolutions, it's absurd).

4. In order to watch many of the top rated US television shows in The Netherlands when they're broadcast, you basically have to torrent. Shows like Archer, Hannibal and The Americans have, as far as I know, never aired in The Netherlands for instance.

That said, many people would probably stop downloading tv shows and films if the streaming options were better. Pretty much everyone I know used Popcorn Time for instance.

For points 3 and 4 you have to understand how the movie industry and tv industry works. The region locks are mainly there these days because content gets funded by networks or distributors buying the rights during the production phase. There was one thread in GAF about this, from the guy behind the DREDD movie explaining how the funding works. Also as the rights are distributed to many different operators, it's hard to get everything under same umbrella.
Moreover you can't really compare movies and music. While a song may cost even millions to produce they hardly can be compared budget-wise to your blockbuster marvel movies which cost hundreds of millions to make.

Thing is that most people want everything for 9.99 or even less and are not willing to pay to access the content and resort to torrents because "quality is not good enough" or "I can't get it right away" kind of excuses. I'd say that Apple iTunes or Google Play are easy enough and comprehensive enough rental options and are in fact the Steam for movies.

Also Popcorn Time is great on paper, but it's also real easy to track and instead of giving broadcasting companies and distributors an idea how to improve legal option it just shits the whole system. The only people that actually benefit from PT are copyright lawyers that are making killing with handling all the infringement cases caused by PT.

 

[ghostjoke]

So begins the migration to ExtraTorrent.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Apples statement on the FBI and the encryption was all about protecting customer data. It even says it in their press release.

... yes, they want to protect their 200,000,000+ customers personal data and information from government dragnets. that was the point. like, what is the conspiracy here dude? that's not the same thing as turning over one person's first and last names and unencrypted info.

if you've made the decision that you're confident that apple are big hypocrites or selling out information, then, i'm glad for you.

In reality it was about protecting their own hardware/software. They are hypocrites. In fact weren't the the second big company to be secretly sharing information to the NSA that was eventually exposed by Snowden?

err, no, that slide from Snowden's leaked slides referred to the feds successfully being able to break into apple's systems, which is one of the whole reasons they put in always-on encryption on their phones to begin with. look, if you want to be very privacy focused, that's fine, but at least get your facts straight.

 

[Cynar]

The argument that torrenters are the kind of people who wouldn't purchase the content anyway doesn't fly. I know plenty of people who pirate new episodes of shows every week, but will go out and buy the home video release down the line.

Same. It's such bullshit.

 

[johnny956]

... yes, they want to protect their 200,000,000+ customers personal data and information from government dragnets. that was the point. like, what is the conspiracy here dude? that's not the same thing as turning over one person's first and last names and unencrypted info.

if you've made the decision that you're confident that apple are big hypocrites or selling out information, then, i'm glad for you.



err, no, that slide from Snowden's leaked slides referred to the feds successfully being able to break into apple's systems, which is one of the whole reasons they put in always-on encryption on their phones to begin with. look, if you want to be very privacy focused, that's fine, but at least get your facts straight.

I don't understand the uproar over Apple on this particular case. KAS facebook page was registered with an apple domain email. Apple can't fight a warrant like that, it's a pretty open and shut case and every other email provider would give up the exact same thing. This is how most of these guys get caught, sloppiness

 

[Fergie]

 

[Shredderi]

Why would he be extracted to US? I mean this is not a crime in the US exclusively. I would think they have fine prisons in Poland as well?

 

[Ricker]

Fuc...I mean,no idea what this is... oh well

 

[nicoga3000]

If you're going to torrent, I can't even imagine using a public tracker...

 

[jstripes]

Need a steam version for movies, that would further take piracy down

You mean like iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon Video?

 

[CadetMahoney]

but they didnt host any files only torrents

Yea, I guess that defense doesn't work anymore? I could've swore it was a legal argument too.