File Sharing Moves En Masse To The Darknet; Good Luck Shutting That Down

from the the-industry-loses-another-generation dept

Mon, Mar 5th 2012 1:26pm — Mike Masnick

It's not like this wasn't easily predictable, but as the entertainment industry has "succeeded" in taking down Megaupload and continues to move against The Pirate Bay and others, anyone who's followed this space had to have known that file sharing would just move one step further underground. We've seen the same thing after every single "victory" against file sharing since Napster was shut down. Each time, it moves to a system slightly more underground and more distributed. The early ones were still easy to take down but as they get further underground, it just becomes worse for the industry (and makes it that much harder to win back those users). The latest news is that there's been massive uptake of a growing number of anonymous, decentralized file-sharing tools. As is pretty typical in these "shift" periods, it's still not clear which systems will "win" out over the others, but the leaders are starting to emerge. The Torrentfreak article above mentions players like Tribler and RetroShare. People in our comments have been discussing both, as well as Ares Galaxy. Who knows if any of these apps are actually any good, but it seems pretty clear that people are continuing to file share -- they're just finding ways to do so that are even harder to track down and stop. How long until the legacy entertainment industry starts publishing articles about these evil anonymous, decentralized file sharing systems and demanding new laws against them?

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Filed Under: anonymous, darknets, decentralized, encryption, file sharing, underground
Companies: ares galaxy, retroshare, tribler

139 Comments

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Michael, 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:32pm

If they're decentralized, how would they shut them down?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:34pm

Re:
exactly
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:35pm

What are you talking about Tim? The industry is still surfing a wave of cash since the limewire shutdown.
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gorehound (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:35pm

+1
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:38pm

Re:
I can think of a few ways, but they would be worse for the Internet (and harder for the MPAA/RIAA) then IP or DNS blocking.
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Richard (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:40pm

Those who don't study history
are doomed to repeat it.

As I commented before these things follow a pattern that only goes one way.
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Wintermute, 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:42pm

Usenet
Just go old-school and find a Usenet server that still offers the binary newsgroups ;)
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silverscarcat (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:49pm

Re:
By shutting the web down.

That's what they ultimately want.

To take away the thing that's giving people like you and me the ability to speak our minds.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:51pm

Re: Usenet
DMCA Takedowns are making Usenet a pain in the ass now too... They don't take down all the files just enough that the PAR's cant repair.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:53pm

Re: Re:
Meshnets anyone?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Vincent Giannell, 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:55pm

"How long until the legacy entertainment industry starts publishing articles about these evil anonymous, decentralized file sharing systems and demanding new laws against them?"

Nothing. They had every chance they have to put an end to piracy earlier before MegaUpload came along and they blew it.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:57pm

Re: Re: Re: Stockings?
Meshnets are presently a logistical nightmare--though I'm sure somebody will come up with an elegant way to fix them soon enough.
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another mike (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:58pm

Re: Re:
I don't think they actually want it shut down. They want to be the gatekeepers.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:58pm

Pretty much everyone saw this coming; does that mean it was self-fulling?

I'm still waiting to see which one becomes the most prolific.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 1:59pm

It's sad because most of the file sharing on Megaupload was perfectly legal and Megaupload didn't break any laws itself. People want to share non-infringing content and the industry is shutting down various pathways to do that and so people are moving to these other alternative file sharing platforms to also share non-infringing content with.

and since these platforms are less regulated than megaupload, since megaupload removed infringing content in accordance with the DMCA (and even went well above and beyond what the DMCA requires) these alternative platforms will naturally have more infringing material than megauploading giving the industry more excuses to try and attack them.

Of course the industry never intended to stop infringement, they intend to stop competition, which is precisely what they have done outside the Internet through govt established broadcasting and cableco monopolies and through laws that make it too legally risky and expensive for restaurants and other venues to host independent performers (and for bakeries to allow children to draw custom pictures on their birthday cakes because they tend to draw infringing cartoon characters).
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Michael, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:01pm

Re: Re:
Yeah, I think I know what you're alluding to. Kinda creepy. I wouldn't tolerate using the internet under such heavy-handed circumstances.
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Michael, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:04pm

Re: Re:
"By shutting the web down.

That's what they ultimately want."

No, they want to transform the internet into their own media empire.

"To take away the thing that's giving people like you and me the ability to speak our minds."

Yes, censorship has always been at the forefront in their war against free market and freedom of speech.
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Pickle Monger (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:05pm

How long until the legacy entertainment industry starts publishing articles about these evil anonymous, decentralized file sharing systems and demanding new laws against them?

Already there:
The dark web: Guns and drugs for sale on the internet's secret black market
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16801382
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Planespotter (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:09pm

Re: Re: Usenet
The biggest US based providers and re-sellers react to DMCA, my provider just tells them to "go forth and procreate" in some eastern European language that I don't understand.

Usenet may be coming to an end, albeit with a massive bang, as many people have jumped to it rather than traditional filesharing... but who can blame them, from beginning to end you can grab a DVDR in a few minutes.
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rubberpants, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:10pm

Danger
You know that these could be used by terrorists for distributing child porn, right? I'm surprised you support that. For shame.
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Isaac Kotlicky (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:10pm

This is critical -
Perhaps this is the secret to the Grand Unified Theory! 90% of the energy in the Universe is unobservable and "dark" because it's avoiding lawsuits from the RIAA/MPAA!
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Zem, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:11pm

How long until the legacy entertainment industry starts publishing articles
About 5 minutes after they read this article. Where else do you think they get their ideas from.
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Zos (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:12pm

why make things complicated. get an offshore proxy or vpn service
head for the bay or demonoid.

btguard is a great investment, the proxy set up at least can be installed on at least 4 devices on one account. Not sure about the VPN.
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Michael, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:13pm

Re:
The major media specializes in fabricating these "hit man" pieces in order to try and fool people into thinking that something (that they want to control) is engaged in nefarious activity.
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Blatant Coward (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:16pm

Re: This is critical -
Would you download a Galaxy?
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Blatant Coward (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:17pm

Re: Re:
It'll be like the regular internet, but with hookers and blackjack!
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:21pm

Re: Re:
�and then the pirates will use stenographic techniques to encode infringing material into Facebook photos. It�s a losing battle, period.
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Bengie, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:21pm

Freenet
The year of Freenet draws ever nearer.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:23pm

Re: Re: Re:
*steganographic, sorry
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Michael, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:23pm

Re: Re: Re:
Blaiming a fraction of the internet, the "darknet," for crime is akin to blaming dark alleys for drug dealing and gun smuggling and then imposing blockades on every street juncture.
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Michael, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:24pm

Re: Re: This is critical -
"Would you download a Galaxy?"

I don't think my HD has enough "space."

Har-de-har-har. (Stupid puns.)
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Bengie, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:26pm

Re:
Those solutions will only last so long. A large Darknet+OpenNet hybrid would be better.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:32pm

Youtube: Raspberry Pi video capabilities
My next HTPC(Home Theater PC) will cost $35 bucks, yay!
With the new Gnome virtual keyboard instead of using the USB to plugin a keyboard you can just use it to plugin your $95 buck 2TB HDD with 440 DVDs or 220 double DVD's.

And as addon you can go to Shapeways and print a nice looking cover for it.

3D Print a Case for the Raspberry Pi by by Duann in What's Hot on Thursday, March 1. 2012

Oh I'm sorry, this is about online piracy but I don't think pirates are preoccupied about it, there is always a way to transfer data and those are not all online.

I doubt there is a way to transfer terabytes of data in seconds online, while offline people can just hand over an HDD to a friend and there you go 880 DVD's in a matter of seconds transferred. Ok it takes 3 hours to copy all of that on a USB 2.0, but hey there is no tracking, there is no snooping just ol'good sneakers involved.
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Jay (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:39pm

To all of the maximalists...
Where's your copyrights now?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:42pm

Re: Re: This is critical -
What Galaxy we are talking about?

The car, the smartphone or the space galaxy?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:44pm

Shhh, don't talk about Usenet. It's been around longest and remains the best method for obtaining content. Usenet + VPN = win since 1995 (cable modems, woo)

Though I wonder if going after Usenet hasn't happened because it's distributed, index sites are clearly index sites without content, and has there even been a lawsuit won because someone downloaded something illegally? I thought the only filesharing lawsuits won so far were those where the downloaders also uploaded, thus violating the distribution clause.... ?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:47pm

Re:
By shutting down the Internet - just like in Egypt. That seems to have worked well for their *ahem* ... former leaders.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:48pm

Re: Re: Re: This is critical -
Thanks to the RIAA/MPAA, you can actually get all of those on the darknet now!
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The Devil's Coachman (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:53pm

Re: To all of the maximalists...
More importantly, where are all the copyright maximalists now? I think they're all in some underground compound, engaging in furious mutual masturbation marathons, trying to "come" up with new drivel. Give 'em some time. They'll be back.
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Richard (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:56pm

Re: Re: Re: This is critical -
What Galaxy we are talking about?

The car, the smartphone or the space galaxy?

The chocolate bar! (Is that UK only?)
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Torg (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 2:59pm

Re:
Self-fulfilling means something happened because people thought it was going to happen, like how if everyone stops spending money because they think the economy's going to crash and then the economy crashes because no one is spending any money. This was just easily predictable.
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Torg (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:04pm

Re: Re: Re: This is critical -
Ares has a nice recursive quality to it.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:04pm

Instead of continually breaking the internet for dying industries? Why not push to get rid of the industries that have issues with it.

Content will always be made, even if there's no money involved. Believe it or not, artists actually created content for enjoyment and not the money.
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orbitalinsertion (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:07pm

Re:
DPI. Then they just revoke the internet connections per IP address.
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TDR, 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:07pm

Lamar Rottingham: That's a wild boar!
Robin TPB: No, no, that's a wild pig. *points to Prince John MAFIAA Dodd* That's a wild bore.
Lamar Rottingham: And website your illegal movies download music to from it a is!
Robin TPB: What?
Lamar Rottingham: I mean, don't you know it is illegal to download music and movies from your website?
Robin TPB: Is it not also illegal to exploit people and usurp their culture for your profits?
Prince John MAFIAA Dodd: Careful, Robin, you've gone too far.
Robin TPB: I've only just begun. If you do not stop passing these evil laws, I shall lead the good people of the internet in a revolt against you.
Prince John MAFIAA Dodd: And why should the people listen to you?
Robin TPB: Because, unlike some other pirate sites, I can speak with a pirate accent.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:10pm

Almost all darknets have their own search engines embedded as do the other options like Tribler and Ares Galaxy which are both normal bittorrent clients besides the search engine functions and are not darknets unless used over something like I2P.

Now what I find it incredible is that we can watch in realtime things unfolding thanks to SourceForge open sharing of the statistical data they collect.

Ares Galaxy on the SourceForge platform jumpend from a few thousand weekly downloads to millions of weekly downloads, others did too like Retroshare that jumped from one thousand weekly downloads to 6 thousands weekly downloads that is 600% increase every other filesharing listed there on the top(aka: most popular) saw a increase too and more notably every country where copyright is a problem is where people are jumping faster onto the darknet bandwagon.

Once those platform are proven to be secure the rest of the world will jump into it too, which will bring privacy back to all, since encrypted connections are harder to monitor and they are not using SSL to do so, they are using their own secure transport layers which don't have a middleman to be coerced to give out keys for decrypting anything.

Knowing that, the entertainment industry trying to force search engines to do something is a waste of time, closing the "cloud" is a waste of time, what they need to do and don't want to is to go after users and that means very bad PR and rapidly decline of their market share if they ever do it in a massive scale.

This is why legislating monopolies into existence always fails eventually the conditions that existed to maintain those monopolies change and they all fail and there is nothing those people can do about it.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:12pm

Re: Re:
> By shutting the web down.

The rabbit hole goes way deeper than that.

Think about what the Internet really is. A network of networks. That one of the several possible internets won its place as the Internet is mostly a historical accident.

Shutting the Internet down would only mean a new Internet, a new network of networks, would appear. The only way to prevent that would be to prevent networking itself.

And since any general purpose computer can, with just a little effort, be made to network with other general purpose computers (even if by doing things like using the sound card as a modem), the only way to prevent any networking would be to kill the general purpose computer itself.

For another text that looks at this topic, see Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing by Cory Doctorow.
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MrWilson, 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
But what if I wanted to infringe copyrights in shorthand?
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MrWilson, 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:23pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
If adjacent buildings were just built with shared walls instead of alleys between them, the crime rate would just plummet!
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pixelpusher220 (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:30pm

Re:
People trading amongst their friends is not comparable to filesharing anonymously whether via Usenet or torrents.

As soon a RapidShare darknet hits a critical number of users, then nobody will control it and *somebody* will be co-opted and in go the RA/MAFIAA trackers.

I read the article and sharing between friends who exchange PGP keys isn't going to get enough content into each dark net in order to be attractive.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:47pm

Re:
Well done, sir. Well done. If I was wearing a hat, this would be the part where I tip it to you for that excellent comment. It also helps that I'm a Mel Brooks fan and recognized where it was from by the second line.
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Franklin G Ryzzo (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 3:55pm

Re:
I know this is all off topic, but I just order a Pi and am planning on using it for the same thing. A 35 buck Media Center that does 1080p video is too good to pass up! This is going to be my first experience with Linux, but I'm really looking forward to learning it now. It's something I've wanted to do for a while now but now I finally have the motivation. Thanks for the shapeways link on the case! I expected the 3d community to pick this up pretty quick, and they didn't fail to live up to that expectation. I'm trying to talk an artist friend into making me a one off case (maybe wood), but I'm not holding my breath based on how long most of his projects take, lol
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:09pm

...and the wack-a-mole starts anew.

This is precisely what happened when Napster was shut down. That was repeated again when AudioGalaxy shut down. Suddenly where there was only one main place to share files in a few short years there were literally thousands.

Each time that something causes one to close new ones are opened up learning from the past.
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Idwal (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not shared walls! The criminals could just rent their own buildings and that would be lik having invisible criminals! We need to have an Homeland Security listening post between each building.

Unless you want invisible criminals...
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Idwal (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not shared walls! The criminals could just rent their own buildings and that would be like having invisible criminals! We need to have an Homeland Security listening post between each building.

Unless you want invisible criminals...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Idwal (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not shared walls! The criminals could just rent their own buildings and that would be like having invisible criminals! We need to have an Homeland Security listening post between each building.

Unless you want invisible criminals...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:25pm

The "darknet" isn't dark at all. If it's dark, nobody would find it. If people can find it (or get invited in) then the authorities won't be far behind.

Decentralization doesn't really help either, it actually makes it worse, making the systems more prone to hackers, fake files, and other sneaky systems. Basically, in a completely distributed system, you could offer up one piece of a DVD per user seeking, and have that piece be incorrect, and destroy every download. Yes, the piece could check sum right, but still not be correct.

Moreover, the "darknets" solve the biggest problems right now: They won't get indexed on Google, and if they do, they aren't very dark. Those who really want to pirate will always do it, one way or another. But this will make it much harder for the casual pirate to get their free movies and warez, and perhaps push them towards legal alternatives (including freeware options).

It's a plus for everyone. The faster the torrents, the pirate forums, and the indexes of file lockers disappear, the better it is for everyone involved.
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Watchit (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:33pm

Re: Re: Re:
Meshnets will work someday! just not today unfortunately!
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Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:39pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Workable meshnets are 20 years away.

Just like commercially viable fusion power.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:51pm

Re:
You need to understand something that is incredibly important:

Without easy internet trading, you have fewer people to trade with (sneakernets are generally very small), and the "source" material from outside is harder to get ahold of. Basically, you end up in a situation where unless one of your 5 - 10 friends that you trust to trade stuff with have actually purchased or rented the product, you won't have it to start with.

So the technology side of storage is meaningless, unless there is something to put on it.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:51pm

Re: Re: Re:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120221/02544717824/be-afraid-russia-china-seek-to-put-place-top-d own-regulation-internet.shtml#c21

Looks like they are just stealing their hitpiece ideas from techdirt. Comments no less. Oh BBC please do a story about how I am going to use the internet to incite a dolphin & whale rebellion.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:53pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Walls make people too anonymous. If they just get rid of the walls, no more alleys.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:55pm

Re:
That motion you see is just more and more people ending up with fewer and fewer options. Clearly, with all the torrent sites and file lockers closing down, shutting off sharing, and making it very hard for things to happen, there are plenty of roaches scurrying around trying to stay out of the light.

It's not long before everyone is going to be standing on a narrow few solutions, and then it's way easier for the authorities to work to take them out.

At some point, the options to pirate become just so hard, just so complicated, and just so unreliable and full of risk that many people will just stop doing it.

As I said to Mike about a year ago, you need to understand that the pendulum is reached it's peak about 3 or 4 years ago in one direction, and now it is swinging back in the other direction. All the work to try to slow it won't amount to much, it's a force of nature. Balance will be achieved over time, you just have to accept that the golden era of piracy is coming to a close, at least for now.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:56pm

Re:
Yeah, just like the disappearance of napster and limewire completely made causal pirates go back to buying 30 movies a year and movie studio profits increased by 20 billion.

Whats it called again when you keep doing the same thing and expecting different results?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 4:58pm

Re: Re:
and the golden age of film lives on! Let the record profits continue...ah, I mean start.
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ltlw0lf (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 5:01pm

Re: Re: This is critical -
Would you download a Galaxy?

No thanks. Already have one. However, if you have a universe I could download I'd be interested.
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Zenstrive (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 5:21pm

Re: Re: Re:
This reminds me of the trend start up by Apple. Really. Closed system, apps bought only from appstores, musics that work only on Apple devices, etc etc.
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Torg (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 5:28pm

Re:
If knowing where something is on the Net helped combat it then the The Pirate Bay would've died a long time ago. As it turns out authorities being somewhere doesn't necessarily do much.

Hackers and fake files are also a problem with torrents. People figure out how to identify and defend against them. If the faulty pieces you propose as a solution ever become a real problem, the clients can be updated with them in mind. Maybe sacrifice some extra bandwidth to check pieces that are offered in isolation or something. It would be annoying, but not crippling. And with the web presence required to consistently interfere with millions of users, the content companies could start their own online services instead. You know, to compete.

People use Google to find free stuff because it's easy. If Google is no longer the easiest solution then people will no longer use it. What'll happen is the casual pirate will learn from their slightly-less-casual friend that there's this new program that lets you download movies for free, and it even has its own player. Or they'll google "how to get free movies" and find that there's this new program that lets you download movies for free, and it has its own search function. And then the casual pirate continues to casually pirate.
More people discovering freeware would be cool, but I'm not sure how anyone really benefits from that. The person still isn't paying, and the old companies still aren't getting paid, so the arrangement, from any perspective except a legal one, is exactly the same as piracy. And as they delve deeper into the wonderful world of freeware, they're increasingly likely to discover a darknet program, at which point we're back where we started, but now the pirate has a greater respect for the independent programmer and Creative Commons. And as long as the other legal alternatives remain as they are, it's going to take a lot of pushing to convince someone to pay 20 bucks for one movie.

File lockers are where I get most of my music, because that's where most of the musicians I listen to put their music. I fail to see how I'd be better off without them.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 5:35pm

Re: Re:
Boring!
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The person getting your order., 5 Mar 2012 @ 5:52pm

Re:
People can't move to legal options if there aren't any, you moron.
Most the world can't even watch YouTube videos yet, nor do they have money for plastic discs nobody is selling to them anyway. And if Youtube is available, then guess what, those are the casual pirates. So the next step is to what? Shut down YouTube? Because that's where they'll be getting their stuff at. Unless you shut down YouTube, you won't stop casual pirates.

Guess what Mr.Tie, the real world doesn't work like your Ivory tower in D.C, and it never will.
Some of these days, you will have to exit your shiny office and live in the real world, with the rest of us. You fucking elitist twit.

P.S:
Oh, and don't forget to order your next coffee with extra cream, we'll make sure do add the special 'blend'.
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Torg (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 6:11pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
But then the crime will just move to the sewers! Clearly we need to return to the good old days of cesspools and open air sewers.
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TtfnJohn (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 6:37pm

Re:
Neither your or I know if darknets will get indexed on Google, or at least parts of them won't if they're part of the broader web or internet. It doesn't mean they identify themselves as that as there will be other ways to determine that.

Actually, decentralization makes files LESS prone to cracking not more so. Just what part of what torrent does the cracker break in order to screw up the download and not cause a retry. Distributed downloads check more than a checksum to see that the piece you just got is the one the seed sent.

I remember all the cheering from people like you when Napster was shut down and how that would cripple piracy. It didn't. It increased it.

And remember that bittorrent is a protocol NOT a program. Would bittorrent be part of the darknet? It wouldn't surprise me if the protocol was but that won't be all. It may be part bittorrent, part FTP, part HTTP and who knows what else. And it won't be long before downloading infringing material is as easy or easier than it is now.

It's far too early to gloat. Most file lockers are perfectly legal as is most other cloud storage, forums have been around since before the dawn of the Web and will also continue, torrents will continue to be used because they're an internet protocol. Repeat after me...just like FTP is.

There is no plus here for the people who pay you. Only somewhere else they'll have to dig for and find. If you or anyone denies a market what it wants it will find a way to get it. And then the chance that RIAA signed artists and MPAA member companies will recapture that market which was theirs to start with will drop to something less than the square root of -1.

Have fun.
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illuminaut (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 7:02pm

Re: Re:
At some point, the options to pirate become just so hard, just so complicated, and just so unreliable and full of risk that many people will just stop doing it.

marked funny because this is exactly the opposite of what is actually going on in reality. don't let that pendulum hit you on its way back
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 7:43pm

Re: Re:
I remember all the cheering from people like you when Napster was shut down and how that would cripple piracy. It didn't. It increased it.

Are you saying Napster demise spurred piracy? To what extent did increased access to the internet, faster speeds and the proliferation of iPods contribute? I'd guess that those were the biggest factors.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 7:45pm

Re: Usenet
RIP Videotron, October 2008
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Torg (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 8:01pm

Re: Re: Re:
That's a good point. All factors must be considered. Still, the point remains: general accessibility contributes more to piracy than a particular website, and we've already seen what happens when Congress tries to decrease the accessibility of the Internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 9:22pm

Re:
"It's sad because most of the file sharing on Megaupload was perfectly legal"

Now there is a stinking pile of BS.
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Suja (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 9:26pm

Re:
actually the darknet is dark, pitch black actually

it is just lit up by lots and lots of flashing neons signs made up of the pirated content like a huge underground city on crack
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 9:27pm

Re: Re:
Torg, you don't get it. If things move to a "darknet", the casual pirate is locked out. If the casual pirate can get in, there then casual law enforcement people can get in to, and your dark net is like the football in the middle of the superbowl - very well lit, and not dark at all.

The darknet theory only works when it's a secret. A public secret is a contradiction in terms.

"File lockers are where I get most of my music, because that's where most of the musicians I listen to put their music. I fail to see how I'd be better off without them."

Your favorite musicians might want to work on assuring that they can reach you all the time by (gasp) actually paying for a little bandwidth and a little server space. Then they can be sure to reach you. Perhaps that solution isn't cool enough for you?
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 9:40pm

Big Pharma has more clout than RIAA - Online Pharmacies already blocked
Apparently Big Pharma has more clout than RIAA as a large number of Online Pharmacies have already been blocked from US users.
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Andrew D. Todd, 5 Mar 2012 @ 10:03pm

To: Anonymous Coward, #57
A darknet is simply a variation of the traditional underground "cell system" used by political revolutionaries. The system allows for a certain percentage of informers, and for a certain percentage of the organization's members dying under torture in the police interrogation rooms. Consider Pontecorvo's _The Battle of Algiers_. In it, the character, Colonel Mathieu, charged with suppressing the revolt says, after he has described the National Liberation Front organization:

"The reason for this geometry is so that each militant will know only three members in the entire organization... contacts take place only by written instructions. That is why we do not know our adversaries: because, in practice, they do not know each other... We must make the necessary investigations to proceed from one vertex to another in the entire pyramid... The method is interrogation [torture]. And interrogation becomes a method when conducted in such a manner as always to obtain a result, or rather, an answer. In practice, demonstrating a false humanitarianism only leads to the ridiculous and impotence." (The Battle of Algiers, Scene 73).

And of course, you remember that the Algerians won the war. Large-scale torture only triggered large-scale revolution.

Now, applying this to file sharing, bear in mind that the economic fortunes of the movie and recording industries are tied to a quite small number of movies and songs, the "top forty." These are by definition, fairly common, and a file sharer doesn't have to go very far to find them.

What will inevitably happen is that the RIAA will find that the only thing it can do against darknets is to kidnap large numbers of children and interrogate them with the electrodes. Of course, having done so, they will have to kill the children, having gone so far that they cannot turn back. There was an evil phase in Brazil and other South American nations during the 1980's, when large numbers of shopkeepers were regularly paying the local police to kill beggar children who hung out around their establishments, waiting their chance to steal stuff. Simply the price of modernization, and all that, you know... I think you will find that Cary Sherman will not be able to control some of his more ambitious apparatchiks... and they will do... certain things. Sherman will probably wind up desperately trying to convince the police of his own non-involvement.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 10:07pm

Went to my son's dorm to visit a couple weekends ago. They had terrabyte drives sitting around swapping not one or two files back and forth but thousands of movies and songs. Each of these belonging to someone who no doubt takes them back home across the country and swaps with others. Who needs the internet? Eventually there are going to be 10 terrabyte thumb drives..anyone care to imagine how lame these individual site shut downs will look then?
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Ed C., 5 Mar 2012 @ 10:15pm

Re: Re:
Guess what? Even with 0 piracy, you'll make $0 from 0 sales when you offer 0 legal content in their country. It doesn't even take a Hollywood accountant to make those numbers add up.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 10:17pm

Re: Danger
And how do I know your post isn't itself a steganographically concealed link to CP? Answer: I don't.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 10:28pm

Re: Re: Re:
"Torg, you don't get it."

No, we get it. See the war on drugs. Any casual person can get drugs and look how long that's been going on.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 10:34pm

Re: Re:
[citation needed]

Do you honestly believe that the majority of content on Megaupload infringed?

Megaupload even responded to DMCA takedowns (and they're not even in the U.S.) and they went well above and beyond DMCA requirements. Do you have any evidence to back your statement or do you continue to tell lies and expect others to take your pro-IP position seriously.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2012 @ 10:38pm

Re: Re: Re:
I've read tweets from several publishers, that are very unhappy with Mega shutting down. They mentioned they had the quickest take-downs in the business, on-par with YouTube. Now they're left with no way to use DMCA notices, since most now ignore them completely or are very slow to respond.
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Torg (profile), 5 Mar 2012 @ 10:51pm

Re: Re: Re:
The casual pirate just has to talk to his slightly-less-casual friend to get initial access. Everyone has one; a classmate or coworker or something. You know what happens if a police officer asks their not-so-casual pirate friend for access to the darknet? They learn that their not-so-casual friend has access to the darknet. And that's it. That's what it means to be decentralized: even when you're in there's no center to go to to get everyone else in it. Each computer talks only to other computers that it knows, and utility comes from the principle of degrees of separation. The darknet as a whole isn't a secret at all. Each individual user's piece is its own secret. That's what makes it formidable, not a generalized Keep Out sign.

"Your favorite musicians might want to work on assuring that they can reach you all the time by (gasp) actually paying for a little bandwidth and a little server space. Then they can be sure to reach you."

I don't see why they should have to, since currently they're making files that they created available on services dedicated to making files available, and in no sane world would that be problematic.

"Perhaps that solution isn't cool enough for you?"

I don't think I understand the question.
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PaulT (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 12:51am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"musics that work only on Apple devices"

Even Apple couldn't make that one last, however...
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PaulT (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 12:53am

Re: Re: Re:
"Do you honestly believe that the majority of content on Megaupload infringed?"

Yes, he does. I'm yet to see a citation for this belief, however.
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PaulT (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 1:01am

Re: Re:
Yes, because piracy never existed before the internet. Still struggling with that reality thing, huh?
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 1:21am

A solution
To get rid of content piracy the media industry has to get rid of humans. Plain and easy! Ooops, no customers left :-)
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G Thompson (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 1:33am

Re: Usenet
Actually I used to recieve some old Fidonet groups way back when BBS's were around and Sysops.. like me.. were Gods ;) using packet radio. Mostly VHF though also HF.

The only thing that would stop that nowadays is EMP's, sunspot activity, and "pirate radio tracker vans" Muwahahhahaha
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 1:43am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Stockings?
And in the meantime, we'll all be back on SneakerNets. My 500GB USB hard drive occupies the same space as a dozen compact audio cassettes, but instead of holding 20 albums it could hold 4000.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 2:49am

they're just finding ways to do so that are even harder to track down

You're telling me! I'm having a harder time now trying to track down all the music I wanna steal!

Hey-o!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 3:12am

Re: Re:
Keep telling yourself that.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 3:41am

Those of us who built the Internet...
...are not going to let mere government and meddling corporations interfere with it. As I've said here repeatedly, this is only the beginning -- just a small taste of what we're working on. (And no, we're not going to be defeated by the ISPs, the registrars, or national-level firewalls, because we're working on bypassing them entirely.)
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 4:16am

Re: Re: Usenet
Can't say I've noticed the impact given the 500GB of stuff I've currently got from Usernet ;-)
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 4:36am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
And guess where the crime will go? Out in the middle of nowhere. Congratulations! You've just destroyed humanity.
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joe, 6 Mar 2012 @ 6:11am

Times have already changed I can tell. I as a person am a good "sample" of the upper middle class, who is always a bit ahead. I am also ahead in terms of going through the consequences of the financial crisis that is changing our world.

The change on behavior is quite impressive: i no longer watch tv, i no longer by dvds or cds. I will never go back to it, even if the internet is completely shut down.

These guys have lost, the world is changing but they don't realize it.
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Bengie, 6 Mar 2012 @ 6:19am

Re: Re: Re:
That's why you have Darknet+Opennet hybrids.

You can remain in a darknet, but other people you're connected to can act as an edge router for you.

Yes, someone takes a higher risk, but if they were going to take that risk anyway, at least you get to benefit. Just don't be a d-bag and coerce your friend into being that edge router.
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Hephaestus (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 6:44am

Re: Those who don't study history
Agreed. Its funny everything is happening as you, I, and everyone here predicted. I can't wait for this encrypted distributed network to grow. The great thing is with everyone generating their own encryption keys this will be more secure than getting an SSL cert from verisign.

The only possible law I can see the content types push for, would be one where you have to register every encryption key you use so you can be monitored online. Which would be unworkable on so many levels.
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Rapnel (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 6:47am

Re: Re:
Imagine that the world was flat and you could walk off the end of it.

I can see that you've reached the end of your reality string. If you pull hard enough on it you can pull yourself through and around in a complete circle.

Balance will be achieved by standing on one foot, with your arms straight out and your head up and staring at the sky. Remain balanced for three or four years and then you can look around and see what your wishful thinking has wrought. (spoiler - Nothing, no shortages of ingenuity, creativity nor technological advances were realized during your balancing act)

Golden Era of Piracy? - Bitch, You have know idea what ails ya.
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Becka, 6 Mar 2012 @ 6:53am

Re: Re: Re:
Home taping is killing the music industry!

(Sweet heaven it's been dying a long time... and I'm showing my age).
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root, 6 Mar 2012 @ 7:22am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stockings?
uucico is your friend
biff -y || die
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 7:31am

Re: Re:
You call yourself a Mel brooks fan and took *that* long? the word "Rottingham" gave it away already.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 7:36am

Re: Re:
And if they take away the last "pirate" source, I will *STILL* not pay a single cent to those motherfucking bastards in suits.

You see, unlike mike who said he wants the companies to adapt so that they can live on, I want them to die. Slow and painful preferably, although in a way as quick as possible would be better so that they can't cause any more damage.

I will never pay for anything of **AAs again. out of principle.
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DannyB (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 7:42am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stockings?
FidoNet type systems could make a comeback if things became repressive enough.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 7:44am

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 5th, 2012 @ 2:32pm
But I just want to share it with random people across the spanish of the globe... I don't have that Many hard drives.... Unless... Maybe I could download some hard drives....
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DannyB (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 7:54am

Re:
Artists may create content for reasons other than money.

But dinosaur gatekeepers don't erect fences, write draconian laws and censorship, screw artists and consumers just for their own enjoyment.

Oh, wait. They do.

They are all about money. To them, ill gotten money == enjoyment.

Nevermind.
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monkyyy, 6 Mar 2012 @ 9:23am

Re: Freenet
no it isnt, it will never work well enough, we need a better system then freenet
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monkyyy, 6 Mar 2012 @ 9:45am

Re: Re:
meh, the first p2p only tv show was last year, i see no extra unreliability, while tpb is now annoying(with its torrents that download the real torrent file that is still new), i switched to kat, i see no golden age ending, if anything it stalled ON the moving train of moores law
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monkyyy, 6 Mar 2012 @ 9:54am

im not liking timibler, no selection to speak of.... how is it the new way to get torrents?
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monkyyy, 6 Mar 2012 @ 9:59am

Re:
oh nm, u have to leave it running, and by the looks of it favorate channels, still not as nice of the old google way
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stevn m, 6 Mar 2012 @ 10:14am

comment
look for zero day downloads, digital comics preservation group, hundreds of comics being scanned into cbr files before they hit the comic store. Used to have 6o character file names. Now just 3 character file names. GBy's of files.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 10:21am

Response to: TDR on Mar 5th, 2012 @ 3:07pm
Funny, I just watched RHMIT a couple days ago...
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hugh halford-thompson, 6 Mar 2012 @ 10:24am

Re:
you cant
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Hephaestus (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 12:39pm

Re: Re: This is critical -
Your making a ford joke aren't you?

In which yes I would...
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 12:58pm

Re: Re: Re:
what are you alluding to... tracking chips on your computer?
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Thoren, 6 Mar 2012 @ 1:05pm

Re: Re: Re:
If they had their way, there would ONLY be official, approved "channel" web sites from each company, and nothing else would be available anywhere online.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2012 @ 2:16pm

Re:
I tagged you as funny for thinking that one user supplying one counterfeit piece of a large and widely distributed media file can destroy the entire download permanently.
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rabbit, 6 Mar 2012 @ 5:29pm

Imagine
Imagine what would happen if instead of running deeper file sharers simply stopped. Stop buying from, lets say one major record label, lets say for a year. Imagine if all the Internet users realized that the problem is not the technology but the fact that their government has been acquired by the industry and is being used against them in order to kill the non-corporate Internet. What would happen if artists signed with this major label realize it and go indie because nobody buys their music anymore. Imagine how your government may even listen to you if the funds from this major label dry out. Now, if you want to support your politicians (maybe not exactly yours...) and the great art these labels produce, please ignore this. Otherwise imagine how little effort is needed for achieving this result.
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Torg (profile), 6 Mar 2012 @ 6:08pm

Re: Imagine
I'm always willing to do my part in doing nothing.
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Ross Goldstein, 7 Mar 2012 @ 4:50am

Hasn't Ares been around since the time of Napster coming onto the scene? Maybe Ares Galaxy is just a revamped version?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Mar 2012 @ 5:40am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Credit where it's due, Apple wasn't trying to make it last they actually fought with the RIAA constituents to make it go away.
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mercer, 16 Mar 2012 @ 1:09am

I started using TAWKLE. its the best file sharing website. it offers unlimited uploads and downloads and its for free
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Joe, 22 Mar 2012 @ 10:06pm

Re: Re:
Nice theory. Only works with the old protocols. That is, unless you want to block ALL encrypted connections. Someone with connections to 150+ IP addresses is obviously using some kind of P2P network.
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joe, 22 Mar 2012 @ 11:32pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Well, I was thinking that they would just mug you in the restroom and we need to get rid of them but... wow, that's not a bad idea, either! We need to get rid of the buildings!
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Joe, 22 Mar 2012 @ 11:47pm

Re:
Actually, eMule and the like have a solution to 'well known fakes' and bad clients. You actually have a kind of credit system ala BitCoin but greatly simpler and without all the people trying to steal yours using keyloggers. ;)

Freenet and I2P are worlds above TOR and Winny. Getting into the network is easy, as is figuring out if someone has a node. But actually knowing their content and communications is way harder than with TOR. If having a node on the network itself becomes a crime, you're right in that it would be trivial to use 'physical exploits' AKA Gestapo seizures to examine every open node in a country and then use the node's content to find evidence of both the crime of owning a node and the content you provided/saved as well as a list to give to friendly countries' law enforcement to follow up with similar laws. I wonder if the 1st and 2nd amendments could both be used in addition to the normal evidence ones to fight such a law. (Remember: 'encryption is a munition'!) Then again, if someone is in the mindset to write it, they probably don't respect the highest laws anyways. Heck, no laws period except as a means to more power. Morning of the snakes if you know what I mean. Or just lookup a certain band of arsonists and hammer-wielders who swarmed a certain European country looking for certain people right before WWII.
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Joe, 22 Mar 2012 @ 11:50pm

Re:
I think this is why PCs get the bad rap when lots of people are trading entire hard drive partitions (images, technically) full of console games. On a console, you don't bother with BitTorrent since someone else several trades back did all the downloads for you!
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Joe, 22 Mar 2012 @ 11:56pm

Re: Re:
I2P has search engines. Freenet has chatrooms but... ugh we really need less idiots on there. It's like the Usenet of the 21st century. Both in good and bad ways. Please come on one of them so we can reach record levels! Freenet sadly only has about 10-15K estimated nodes but if that hit 100K, it would probably take off as new developers get interested. I2P is better though since it can run on a router (no data store=no need of huge RAM/storage space).
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Joe, 22 Mar 2012 @ 11:59pm

Re: Imagine
They'll just use it as an excuse to claim "OMG we need more government protection of our right to profit! Add previous sales to everyone's tax bill or cable bill!" and then use the standard 'piracy' tirade.

They faught tooth and nail to make it hard to figure out who's a member of RIAA.
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Me, 24 Mar 2012 @ 11:18pm

Re: Re: This is critical -
If I could yes.
And I could store it in that empty fucking head of yours.
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egghead (profile), 27 Apr 2012 @ 9:45am

Re: Re: Re: This is critical -
I recall reading somewhere that we now have been able to store more bits in a square inch than there are stars in the Milky Way.

And, yes, I did get the pun.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Nov 2012 @ 10:46am

Re: Re: Re:
This is exactly right. They want to turn computers into television sets and modems into cable boxes.
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Joe1, 13 Jan 2013 @ 7:29pm

Re: Re: Re:
I suggest you look up a little product called PGP for email... Or TLS/SSL. Most of the issues mentioned in these comments are solved already. Freenet for example is designed based on the assumption that the enemy is already behind the gate - there is no gate in fact but just lots and lots of obstacles if you want an analogy. ;)
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Dec 2014 @ 4:23pm

Re: Re:
They lost power then came back in a military coup and now resume their rule in a reign or terror?
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Dec 2014 @ 4:59pm

Child porn is the big problem with these services. They're so effective that there's no real way to stop it aside from expecting all the users to police it manually(a task not enough people will participate in). I downloaded Tribler yesterday and I've been playing around with it. The interface definitely leaves something to be desired, but it works pretty well once you've had it running a while and have acquired enough connections. The cp is already there, and you can bet the MAFIAA will target any service that becomes popular using the cp as an excuse. I can see them going after anyone who even participates in the indexing of the illegal files(which is pretty much everyone using the system).

I encourage everyone to try one of these new clients, and start building the user base. It really is a pretty powerful solution.
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RedRedMane, 3 Feb 2015 @ 8:06pm

And deeper and deeper we go! You know, it really is fascinating what folks can "come up with" when they are forced to think way outside the box. I've often tossed around the idea of creating a 100% de-centralized "virtual" DarkNet with sophisticated encryption, which would only be accessible via unsecured Wifi! I don't know if that's even POSSIBLE, but it's good "food for thought." Virtual "BitCoin" options are also a neat idea. I'd call it the "GhostCoin" system.
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