South African BitTorrent users beware

[Kevin Lancaster]

South African BitTorrent users beware

Safact has stated it watches BitTorrent activity on local IP addresses together with its international partner.

 

[Soul Assassin]

TLS v1.2 encrypted NNTP downloads, have fun Safact.

 

[profeet]

South African BitTorrent users beware

Safact has stated it watches BitTorrent activity on local IP addresses together with its international partner.

Voyeurists? :erm:

 

[Thor]

This sucks.

 

[ghostR]

avoid public trackers like a plague

 

[Rickster]

 

[MrGray]

btguard ftw

 

[Kingofmybbknowitalls]

Still cannot understand how SA law can connect an IP address to a person when you cannot even do that in the States.

https://torrentfreak.com/ip-address-not-person-140324/

If someone uses a neighbour's FON network for example to download Torrents, who will then be liable?

What about any other type of public hotspot with a hundred or so simultaneous users like at an airport?

 

[Johnatan56]

The whole point of BitTorrent is its ability to share files with complete strangers. So, encryption does not hide the actual data people are sharing, everyone can still connect to a BitTorrent swarm, record your IP-address, and send you an infringement notice.

http://superuser.com/questions/421150/what-does-the-encryption-setting-of-utorrent-do

 

[Fulcrum29]

I have one question,

According to the managing director of the Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft (Safact), Jacques Allers, an IP address is not considered personal data, and can be collected without permission.

“An IP address can only be considered personal data when combined with other user-specific data, such as when it is used to build a personal profile,” said Allers.

uhm,

“It should be noted that the use of BitTorrent to download copyright-infringing content is a criminal offence and a number of agencies are working to monitor and catalogue international torrent activity.”

is that not part of profile building?

 

[ghostR]

What difference does that make? your IP address is still advertised???

 

[myKey]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAGGAGAGAGAGAGAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHhahahahahahha>_HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

 

[Soul Assassin]

The so-called ‘encryption’ of BitTorrent traffic isn’t really encryption, it’s obfuscation. It provides no anonymity whatsoever, and only temporarily evades traffic shaping.

 

[Neoprod]

Confirmed...Rickster works for SAFACT.

 

[myKey]

Confirmed...Rickster works for SAFACT.

 

[Totempole]

Once you've tracked the IP address to the account holder, how do you prove who the offender was in a household of like 10 people for example?

The point is, you can't hold the ISP account holder liable, unless you can prove beyond any doubt that the account holder was in fact the infringer, or was at the very least aware that the infringement was being committed.

At the end of the day, unless you're the original seeder of a particular file, I'd imagine these guys are going to have a hard time making an arrest. I'd imagine they'd have to fight dirty themselves in order to successfully achieve what they're setting out to do.

For example, I recall some legal entity claiming that you can't download a Torrent without partially uploading the file, which constitutes illegal distribution. Even if this was true, that would also mean that in order to collect IP addresses, you would have to download (and potentially upload) a portion of the file contained in the Torrent as well.

So the method used to obtain said IP addresses is most likely just as illegal as the actual leeching and seeding of the file in question.

 

[Neoprod]

Once you've tracked the IP address to the account holder, how do you prove who the offender was in a household of like 10 people for example?

The point is, you can't hold the ISP account holder liable, unless you can prove beyond any doubt that the account holder was in fact the infringer, or was at the very least aware that the infringement was being committed.

At the end of the day, unless you're the original seeder of a particular file, I'd imagine these guys are going to have a hard time making an arrest. I'd imagine they'd have to fight dirty themselves in order to successfully achieve what they're setting out to do.

For example, I recall some legal entity claiming that you can't download a Torrent without partially uploading the file, which constitutes illegal distribution. Even if this was true, that would also mean that in order to collect IP addresses, you would have to download (and potentially upload) a portion of the file contained in the Torrent as well.

So the method used to obtain said IP addresses is most likely just as illegal as the actual leeching and seeding of the file in question.

set upload rate to 0? used to work...I no longer use torrents that way (go via a cloud service) so dunno if that is still do-able. I remember you could see all the IP addresses of machines in the swarm before actually downloading anything either.

 

[Johnatan56]

Once you've tracked the IP address to the account holder, how do you prove who the offender was in a household of like 10 people for example?

The point is, you can't hold the ISP account holder liable, unless you can prove beyond any doubt that the account holder was in fact the infringer, or was at the very least aware that the infringement was being committed.

At the end of the day, unless you're the original seeder of a particular file, I'd imagine these guys are going to have a hard time making an arrest. I'd imagine they'd have to fight dirty themselves in order to successfully achieve what they're setting out to do.

For example, I recall some legal entity claiming that you can't download a Torrent without partially uploading the file, which constitutes illegal distribution. Even if this was true, that would also mean that in order to collect IP addresses, you would have to download (and potentially upload) a portion of the file contained in the Torrent as well.

So the method used to obtain said IP addresses is most likely just as illegal as the actual leeching and seeding of the file in question.

This is an interesting read for Europe and open WiFi hot-spots: https://www.privateinternetaccess.c...or-strike-germanys-open-wi-fi-liability-laws/

set upload rate to 0? used to work...I no longer use torrents that way (go via a cloud service) so dunno if that is still do-able. I remember you could see all the IP addresses of machines in the swarm before actually downloading anything either.

Erm, 0 means infinity... (in the case of torrent download clients)

 

[Totempole]

set upload rate to 0? used to work...I no longer use torrents that way (go via a cloud service) so dunno if that is still do-able. I remember you could see all the IP addresses of machines in the swarm before actually downloading anything either.

0 is "Unlimited" in Bittorrent. The lowest you can set is 1. You can use a caching server, but in that case, your IP address won't even feature, so that's a bit of a moot point.

The article to which I was referring (this one) was back in 2010.

Those that use BitTorrent to download files over the Internet know that it's usually impossible to download without uploading (or seeding) as well.

 

[myKey]

0 is "Unlimited" in Bittorrent. The lowest you can set is 1. You can use a caching server, but in that case, your IP address won't even feature, so that's a bit of a moot point.

The artical to which I was referring (this one) to was back in 2010.

0 is not always unlimited. Some clients use -1 as unlimited and treat 0 as 0.