Attacks On File Sharing Simply Drive People Further Underground
from the it-doesn't-make-them-buy dept
Admittedly it’s just an estimate, but reports coming out of Sweden suggest that, rather than stop file sharing, under the new IPRED law, a growing number of file sharing users have simply gone further underground using anonymizing services. Of course, this shouldn’t surprise anyone, as plenty of people have been predicting that’s exactly that would happen for the better part of a decade. You would think that folks in the entertainment industry might actually pay attention since those predictions from years back have come true. But instead, they’d rather attack those of us who have pointed out why their strategy isn’t working. At what point do they stop and realize that their critics actually are giving them good advice?
Filed Under: encryption, file sharing, underground
Comments on “Attacks On File Sharing Simply Drive People Further Underground”
Stopping the attacks on critics and realizing the good advice they’re getting would require them to admit they were wrong all along, so, in short, it will never happen.
But then they'd have to admit....
That their violations of the right to privacy didn’t actually help them hold on to their mini monopolies.
Translation from the actual story, not the torrent freak link:
No one knows with complete certainty how many Swedes who have been concerned by the FRA-debate and ipredlagen and decided to join some kind of anonymiseringstjänst. The companies who supply anonymous claims that the interest has exploded during the year. But the blinds, how many customers they actually have.
Now, let’s look at this more closely. It’s only Sweden, it’s in the middle of TPB and the Pirate Party stuff, and TPB guys are actively pushing VPN and other tools to help people hide so they can do whatever legal things they do online.
If nothing else Mike, this should explain to you why Hulu is blocking you. I can’t imagine you could write those two stories without being able to make the connection.
Re: Re:
The reason Hulu blocks VPNs is to stop people from other countries (other than the US that is) to see their content.
It has nothing to do with potential illicit behaviour shielded behind VPNs.
Re: Re: Re:
No, but Mike is all upset because Hulu blocks him because he uses a VPN. With VPN usage on the rise (claims) outside of the US, it would seem to be a wise move by Hulu.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
No it’s not a wise move by Hulu. Why would you want to prevent people from seeing your adds? Hulu’s content owners are being a damn ostrich and sticking their heads in the sand and hoping it all will go away.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I still fail to see the relevance to this article. Stay on topic please.
Re: Re:
What is hulu?
Re: Re: Re:
hu cares?
Re: Re:
I love to start my morning with a cup of coffee and logic failure. Gets the juice pumping in my brain as I try to find out what the connection is.
For instance why would hulu care about people doing illegal stuff while watching “The Family Guy” on their website.
history repeats itself
Napster was centralized file sharing. They tried to squash it.
Then came decentralized file sharing, making it harder to find who shared what. They tried to squash that
Then came bittorrent, everyone shares a tiny piece with torrent files in a central location. And they are currently trying to squash it.
What’s next?
Decentralized torrent trackers?
Re: history repeats itself
No, next is that people quit working so hard to steal stuff and actually pay for it.
Re: Re: history repeats itself
We’re not feeding the trolls today. Please go back under your bridge.
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself
Sorry: AC’s can’t criticize other ACs for trolling. Bad form.
Re: Re: history repeats itself
The point here is not that people are trying harder to “steal stuff” as you so eloquently put it.
most of us will follow the VPN/IP hiding route because we’re sick of government agencies and industry lobbyists monitoring EVERY DAMN THING WE DO.
is it not bad enough that you cant walk through most large cities without being constantly monitored on CCTV?!
now we’re having every movement, every detail, in fact EVERYTHING (mobile phones, wireless connections, credit cards, passports, credit history, car licence plate, IP address, email addresses) monitored and filtered to enable big industry and our own governments to make more money out of us (whether through marketing, taxes or obscene lawsuits).
I WILL hide my personal details when im using the internet because well yes i on occasion may download a pirate file (in order to assess whether i should buy it 😉 ) but more because its getting ridiculous how much our free speech/human rights are suffering and being abused.
Evidently as you post anonymously you dont want YOUR details being monitored by people online so maybe you should think before you make such silly off-hand remarks. either that or you could just post who you are and base your comment on fact as opposed to taking the side of the big companies who are trying to shaft EVERYONE (artists/performers included BTW!).
unless of course you are on their payroll in which case read and learn about your customers.
Oh yeah and gotta slip this one in for the record… Mandelson (UK politician) is a crook
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself
You need a higher grade tin foil for your hat, the evil radio waves are still getting through and making you type garbage.
Re: Re: Re:2 history repeats itself
Oh… im sorry. forgot to put my lead-lined mesh layer on too.
thanks for the advice. guess being worried about these things is stupid really. not like we have any control over what happens these days anyway.
the so-called “elected” parties just do as they please regardless of our (the “electors”) opinions.
oh, and thanks for the trolling. good to see you can make a statement of your own that bears some relevance to the point in question…
Re: Re: Re:2 history repeats itself
You’re a horrible troll. You should really give it up. Not very good at all. The quality of trolling has really gone downhill around here.
Re: Re: Re:3 history repeats itself
It’s actually gone downhill on most of the internets.
Re: Re: Re:4 history repeats itself
it’s TEH internets not “the”, Duh
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself
Queue massive rationalization #23.
Re: Re: history repeats itself
No, next is that people quit working so hard to steal stuff and actually pay for it.
it’s not hard, it’s just inconvenient. in the end, that is the point: they can’t stop piracy, just make it temporarily less convenient. it was inconvenient switching from napster to kazaa, then from kazaa to bit torrent, and switching trackers is inconvenient, but it never stops.
these things always end in blanket licenses (radio did, the vcr did, you get the picture) but the idiots in hollywood seem to think they can win this time for some strange reason.
so what will happen? at some point a voluntary license will come out: a pass to that we can buy to keep doing what we want to do legally. it’s really the only way forward.
Re: Re: history repeats itself
Just sort of paraphrasing Marcel de Jong above with a lovely story someone posted here at Techdirt some time ago.
Here’s the link:
http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20090922%2F0310156273&threaded=true&sp=1#c284
but I’ll quote anyway for convenience:
“It reminds me of a tale from long ago (well the 70s actually).
The operators of the University’s mainframe computer kept a number of lineprinter picture files, they were used as a quick way of testing the full width of the drum and the character set. The older ones among you may remember the Mona Lisa, Snoopy etc etc. Users would print them out from time to time to put on their walls.
At some point the authorities decided that this was a waste of paper and put the pictures into a protected directory where users couldn’t get them. Of course a few people had made their own copies already and these copies quickly multiplied as people shared them around. So now file storage space (then an expensive commodity) was being wasted as well as paper.
Of course the authorities didn’t stand still, they started looking at all the large files on the system and deleting any picture files that they found. As you will probably have guessed they couldn’t complete this process before the word got around and people quickly encrypted their files to look like innocent experimental datasets. These files were of course bigger than the original pictures so now paper, even more file store and CPU (then expensive) and man hours were being expended and the problem wasn’t fixed.
Everything they do will make the file sharing “problem” worse and more expensive, When will they learn?”
Re: history repeats itself
funny you mention decentralized torrent tracker….
there’s growing support for DHT to keep from having central coordination…
read about DHT and bittorrent….i can’t explain it well enough to educate someone….
Re: history repeats itself
What’s next?
Decentralized torrent trackers?
encrypted connections to foil deep packet inspections and tunnels to hide origination and termination points.
Re: Re: history repeats itself
…all of which would create probably cause for a warrant. The harder you try to hide, the more guilty you look.
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself
I would like to see the look on the judge’s face when he is handed a request for 50 million warrents.
File sharing can’t be stopped. Information is like life in a way, you can slow it down but you can’t stop it. Instead of making your customer base hate you, why not embrace what they want and figure out a way to make money in doing so? Is it really that hard to figure out?
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself
Do you have lock on your front door? A really good one? What are you trying to hide, thief?
Idiots.
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself
“…all of which would create probably cause for a warrant. The harder you try to hide, the more guilty you look.”
Haha, that’s ridiculous. Taking cautionary measures on the intertubes is now going to be probable cause? That should be fun. Nevermind all that nonsensical craziness over identity theft, but now you can’t anonymize yourself, even though there are TONS of good, legitimate reasons to do so.
Anonymous Coward, educate thyself: http://www.torproject.org/torusers.html.en
Just a quick example from one non-profit anonymizer. Let’s see, users of the service include:
1. The United States Navy (GASP!): In fact, they DEVELOPED the program initially…so arrest the entire USN with PROBABLE CAUSE! I suggest starting with the Secretary of the Navy…see how that one works out for you…
2. CIA spooks abroad: Our spies use Tor when accessing electronic resources controlled by hostile forces. Stupid heroes, always trying to pirate music in Iran…
3. Such clearly evil Terrorist groups as Reporters Without Borders, The United States International Broadcasting Bureau, Citizen Journalists in China, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Global Voices.
All suspect because of your “probably cause”?
Odd.
Re: Re: Re:2 history repeats itself
DH, surely you jest…
It’s not “identity theft” it’s “identity SHARING”.
Re: Re: Re:3 history repeats itself
“It’s not “identity theft” it’s “identity SHARING”.”
Hence the nonsensical bit. Identity Theft is one of the most idiotic terms I can think of.
It brings to mind that truly stupid movie, The Net, where Miss Congeniality actually had her identity stolen (she no longer had it, in regard to her basic civil rights) and it was given to another person. This laughable Crash of her life happened with such Speed that it was Practicaly Magic. Hell, she didn’t even have 28 Days to prepare, it’s not like they gavce her 2 Weeks Notice or anything. Such an incident would have become Infamous, something even The Prince of Egypt would have seen on the news as he was Making Sandwiches.
Okay, I have no idea why I decided to make an entire paragraph using Sandra Bullock movies…but it was really fun!
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself
Really, really bad logic, AC. A licensed locksmith is now a likely criminal because he has a set of lock picks that COULD be used illegally? The owner of a car is a likely drunk driver because he *could* get behind the wheel after a few? A person who uses an secure anon service after getting their identity stolen or spammed into submission is assumed a likely criminal because the use such a service? Ridiculous. Most technologies (and devices and fluids) can be used for criminal purposes somehow, somewhere. But that does not mean that are indicative of criminal activity on their face.
Re: Re: Re: history repeats itself
…all of which would create probably cause for a warrant. The harder you try to hide, the more guilty you look.
sorry, no. that’s the beauty of encrypted connections.
ssh, vpn, ssl, you name it, all just look like encrypted connections on the wire.
so IF you can get a warrant based on my volume of encrypted traffic, good luck figuring out what the traffic actually is, since it’s… wait for it… encrypted!
i guess you could kick down my front door and seize everything. that’s definitely a sustainable practice for law enforcement to apply to millions of people. and again, you might catch the dumb ones, but thanks to free software like truecrypt and encryption being built into operating systems like vista and ubuntu, seizing computers won’t get you any evidence either because the drives are, say it with me, encrypted!
Re: Re: Re:2 history repeats itself
“but thanks to free software like truecrypt”
I found that interesting from a business/security standpoint, but I’m a bit concerned that, since I’ve not used encryption software before (have little practical use for it other than personal security and best practices), I’ concerned I either won’t know how to use it or will screw the pooch by doing something stupid with it and not being able to remedy.
How user friendly is it? I’m fairly technical, but certainly not a code monkey or command-line level guy…
Re: Re: Re:3 history repeats itself
How user friendly is it? I’m fairly technical, but certainly not a code monkey or command-line level guy…
it’s friendly enough, once a container is opened (i.e. decrypted) it’s like any other drive with a drive letter and whatnot. once you close the container (unmount the volume or shut the machine down) then it’s encrypted again. every time you boot the machine/mount the container you have to enter a password.
the trouble isn’t ease of use, it that fact that strong crypto is not forgiving. if you forget your key there is no force on this earth that will help you recover your data.
it’s one of murphy’s laws of combat: building it so the enemy can’t get in means building it so you can’t escape.
Re: Re: Re:4 history repeats itself
Nice, thanks. I’ve got an old ass HP Pavillion I use just to play around with stuff that I could throw out of the window and not feel bad, so I think I’ll use that to get acclimated.
Cheers…
Re: Re: Re:2 history repeats itself
Torrent relies on moving a huge number of bytes both from and to a large number of end connections in a rather small period of time.
The pattern is obvious, encrypted or not.
Besides, all ISPs need to do really put a dent in P2P is enact a rather steep per-byte surcharge on all upstrean traffic.
Run up your internet bill a couple of hundred dollars a month, and I suspect that most people will stop (or greatly reduce) funding the habits of others.
Re: Re: Re:3 history repeats itself
The pattern is obvious, encrypted or not.
obvious is a strong word to use, but the point is valid, for now.
right now there is no need to disguise the pattern. if the need becomes apparent, then the tools will evolve. you can already rate limit most torrent clients as it is (the good ones anyway), and you can schedule times to seed and stop seeding automatically, plus tons of other stuff.
that’s why this is a losing battle for the enforcement crowd. one side, those who would seek to stop file sharing, have only one weapon: money. file sharers have two weapons: time and talent. it’s your basic war of attrition except the file sharers are using infinite resources.
Besides, all ISPs need to do really put a dent in P2P is enact a rather steep per-byte surcharge on all upstrean traffic.
we’ll have to see how that plays out. with the grassroots resistance to those sorts of practices, ISPs may not be in a position to implement those policies.
and even if they succeed, there is always the hard drive party via the “small-world network.”
Run up your internet bill a couple of hundred dollars a month, and I suspect that most people will stop (or greatly reduce) funding the habits of others.
i am not so sure that the super-nodes (the really good seeders) are residential users. most private trackers offer free accounts for people with 10mbit up, so there must be a market for people with data center boxes.
plus, on your basic public tracker torrent there are thousands of seeds for really popular torrents, presumably the popular torrents are the ones the MPAA and the like are watching and sending complaints on.
so, how is it that there could be thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) of seeds such that i can get 600k downloads on really popular stuff?
i suppose the complaints departments might just be outnumbered, and i suppose some seeders are very well hidden, but i suspect that a non-trivial number of seeders are just virtual private servers in some data center somewhere, paying data center rates for transfer.
Attacks on File Sharing
The attack you are talking about is not on ‘filesharing’ but on ‘illegal filesharing’. Are you suggesting that because ‘a growing number of file sharing users have simply gone further underground using anonymizing services’ this is justification for illegal activity? I think a growing number of people’s brains are being warped by the internet.
Stealing is stealing whether its electronically or physically or whether you like or dislike the record industry.
Re: Attacks on File Sharing
Leaving aside that it’s infringement, not theft, the attack is indeed on “filesharing”.
The intent may be to attack illegal filesharing, but the result is an attack on all filesharing (and privacy), mostly because it’s very, very difficult to differentiate between the two.
Look at just about every discussion about torrents, for example. Despite the copious number of legitimate purposes to which this technology is put, the discussion always equates p2p filesharing with copyright infringement as if infringement is the only purpose to which it is put.
Re: Attacks on File Sharing
“Stealing is stealing whether its electronically or physically”
True, but copying is not stealing. With theft, the owner no longer has the item in question. Copying creates a new item based off the existing one.
Re: Re: Attacks on File Sharing
Hey, as long as you can live with the moral implications that you stole something, but were able to hide behind “I just copied it”… good on you. Hopefully you never have a really good idea or make a product that other people can just copy, then perhaps you might have a different opinion.
Re: Re: Re: Attacks on File Sharing
Why do you assume that Lisa engages in copyright violation?
But I wanted to respond to this part:
“Hopefully you never have a really good idea or make a product that other people can just copy, then perhaps you might have a different opinion.”
Actually, my entire 25+ year career has been producing exactly this type of thing, albeit software rather than music or movies. And I do not have a different opinion, even though all of the (useful, anyway) software I’ve written in my lifetime has been illegally copied and distributed at one time or another.
Casual infringers do me no measurable harm, and some of them have led to business and profits I would not have obtained otherwise.
Re: Re: Re: Attacks on File Sharing
What, you never xeroxed a page out of a book at a library, ever, really? Or, never copied a recipe out of someone else’s recipe book, what about, someone gave you a mixtape once, recorded a song off the radio, printed out a web page of useful information copied and pasted from an online document. All of these are just copying. Or, from your viewpoint theft. Millions of school children every year commit theft when they Xerox pages from reference books for use in school reports or homework. Lock up all them Damn Dirty Thieves..err children..err copyers?
Re: Re: Re:2 Attacks on File Sharing
“… xeroxed a page out of a book at a library…”
You do realize that there’s this little thing called “fair use”, do you not?
Re: Re: Re:3 Attacks on File Sharing
That would be the “fair use” that copyright maximalists are doing everything in their power to get rid of or render obsolete, right?
As an example, did you know that book publishers have become so overbearing about ignoring fair use that many places don’t allow you to make the copies at all anymore, even though they are perfectly legal?
Those publishers call such people making legal copies “thieves.”
Re: Re: Re: Attacks on File Sharing
“Hopefully you never have a really good idea or make a product that other people can just copy, then perhaps you might have a different opinion.”
If you think creating worthwhile content would affect viewpoints on IP you’ve clearly never checked up on the free software/free culture(anti-ip) movements. Do you honestly believe they could have gotten where they are today without at least reasonably talented people backing them?
Re: Re: Attacks on File Sharing
Lisa I disagree – if it’s illegal copying it is stealing.
Someone has spent time and money making it; it could be software, a building design, an engine design, a medical recipe’, a film, a song. You are wrong and have made my point precisely about morals being warped by ‘illegal filesharing’.
Re: Re: Re: Attacks on File Sharing
The definition of stealing is that the previous owner no longer owns it. Please do not muddle the conversation with emotional terms like stealing, because it’s counter-productive. And in a different lawbook all together even.
Call it copyright infringement, as that’s the proper term, and it’s also as illegal. (just gouverned by a different law)
And you can keep your preconceived notions about techdirters at the door also. We do not condone copyright infringement, but we do care about the proper naming of things.
It’s not theft, never has been never will be, unless PHYSICAL property changes hands.
Re: Re: Re: Attacks on File Sharing
The law itself says that it’s not theft.
I cannot see how it is theft from a moral or logical standpoint, either. I also don’t see how this is an example of my morals being “warped by illegal filesharing” since I do not engage in or condone illegal filesharing, whatever you wish to call it.
Re: Re: Re: Attacks on File Sharing
“You are wrong and have made my point precisely about morals being warped by ‘illegal filesharing’.”
Actually, it’d be more correct to say copyright warped morality. It is only in the last few hundred years that we have felt we have the right to restrict coping.
Re: Attacks on File Sharing
“Stealing is stealing whether its electronically or physically or whether you like or dislike the record industry.”
Ignorance is ignorance whether you type it electronically or write it physically or whether you like or dislike the dictionary.
Re: Attacks on File Sharing
Are you suggesting that because ‘a growing number of file sharing users have simply gone further underground using anonymizing services’ this is justification for illegal activity?
it’s not justification. it’s pointing out that it is impossible to stop file sharing and it’s therefore a waste of corporate and government resources to try to stop it.
Stealing is stealing whether its electronically or physically or whether you like or dislike the record industry.
wasting time and money trying to pass these ridiculous laws is just bad business. bad business is bad business whether it’s governmental or corporate and whether you like or dislike the way the market has changed.
file sharing, right or wrong, cannot be stopped. every minute/dollar you spend fighting it is a minute/dollar wasted. it’s time and money that corporations should be investing in their futures, and it’s time and money that government should be using to protect, rather than erode, our civil liberties.
as this situation gets more and more out of hand, it won’t just be time and money wasted, it will be time and money that corporations are investing in the ill will of a growing number of potential customers and that governments will be investing in the erosion of our civil liberties.
fighting file sharing is bad because file sharing cannot be stopped, it will go on long after content companies have bankrupted themselves out of existence, this is why we can’t let important things, like privacy, be tossed out in a myopic attempt to protect failing businesses.
Re: Attacks on File Sharing
See, I like your music, but I find it hard to reconcile that with your attitudes to people. I’d be happy to pass that on for you, but I’d be worried that you’d litigate instead of actually connecting with more people.
Also, the increase of use in anonymizing services could be down to the fear of being hacked, and NOT just for sharing files of all kinds.
or maybe take the reverse of hulu VPN? i mean find a country that dont have strong IP law, VPN your connection to that country then start file sharing?
good luck for MPAA to enforce IP LAW in china…. the law that only protect china resident from foreigner, even if the chinese is wrong…
or whether you like or dislike the dictionary.
There are legal words and there are linguistic words. Sometimes these words are the same despite having different meanings in different contexts. “Stealing”, linguistically, can be used in conjunction with the intangible whether you’d like to admit it or not.
“STEAL may apply to any surreptitious taking of something and DIFFERS FROM THE OTHER TERMS BY COMMONLY APPLYING TO INTANGIBLES AS WELL AS MATERIAL THINGS”.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/steal
Fewer people....
FTFA: “Måns Svensson, PhD in Sociology of Law in Lund, estimates the percentage of all Swedes who are hidden on the Internet to be as high as 6 or 7 percent. “
From TorrentFreak: “According to new research carried out by music group IFPI, around 40% of Swedes between 15 and 74 illegally share files every single day.”
Let’s see, 6 or 7% vs. 40%?
Seems like a major reduction to me. Another survey put the number at 11%, which still means roughly a 40-50% reduction.
Re: Fewer people....
It doesn’t take a PhD to see that comparing the number of Swedes who use encryption to the number sharing files is like comparing apples to rocks.
Re: Re: Fewer people....
The original article makes that connection, does it not? “…rather than stop file sharing, under the new IPRED law, a growing number of file sharing users have simply gone further underground using anonymizing services.”
But I see your point, which would in turn mean that LESS than 6 or 7% are using encryption services to share, which then means that file sharing percentages have been cut even further.
I don’t think you’re helping his case.