Torrentspy is monitored by Copyright Thoughtpolice
My coworker just got a nasty letter from his ISP (optonline) accusing him of copyright infringement. It turns out that his kid got caught downloading some warez from one of the trackers indexed by Torrentspy.
Conclusions are simple: someone is monitoring Torrentspy network. I don’t know if they do this by setting up decoys, or if they actually connect to legitimate torrents and log the IP’s in the swarm. But either way, they are out there and if you are not careful you might get caught.
The ISP my coworker is using seems to be doing the right thing. They notified him about the complaint, and warned him that future complaints may lead to termination of his account. It doesn’t seem that they were willing to cough up his personal data so far, so he might get lucky and avoid being slapped with one of those frivolous lawsuits.
The poor kid is not allowed to use BitTottent anymore. He got a stern talking to from his pop for using these new-fangled, easily trackable p2p technologies instead of leaching from Usenet the way internet Gods intended it. 
Sigh… I really liked TorrentSpy - it had lots of content, and large community behind it. But I guess it’s time to move on…
As many people mentioned in the comments, my assumption that Torrentspy itself is being monitored might not be correct. It’s possible that one or more trackers indexed by Torrentspy are monitored, but not necessarily the whole site.
In either case, IP blocking software such as PeerGuardian, or the SafePeer Azureus Plugin may drastically lower your chances of being caught.
Related Posts:
December 28th, 2006 at 12:11 pm (2208) [Quote]
What’s Usenet?
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 12:43 pm (2209) [Quote]
Hmm… I can’t figure out if this is a sarcastic “shh… don’t tell people about Usenet” comment, or “I don’t know what are you talking about” comment.
If it’s the former, then: lol
If it’s the later then… Well, this is why we have define tag at google:
define:usenet (hope this helps)
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:16 pm (2214) [Quote]
Its obvious this is posted by FBI. You gmen dont scare me. This type of stuff is reported all the time on www.themostgeneroussoul.com
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:19 pm (2215) [Quote]
I discovered this months ago and reported the trackers as such to torrentspy. They didn’t seem to give a sh*t. All of the trackers I reported are still listed as ‘valid.’
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:28 pm (2216) [Quote]
usenet - www.binnews.com
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:30 pm (2217) [Quote]
Wow, the same thing happened to me, and I have the same ISP, and I downloaded from the same site, and I’m also a kid. It scared me so much I haven’t downloaded anything on Bittorrent, P2P, or anything similar since. Wow, this is freaky… I sure did learn my lesson…
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:31 pm (2218) [Quote]
Better that this kid was caught by his ISP than by the RIAA/MPAA or their ilk. They have shown no remorse when it comes to protecting their copyrighted property.
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:39 pm (2219) [Quote]
Wow, the same exact thing happened to me. I’m a kid, I have the same ISP, downloaded from the same site, and I learnt my lesson. Never touched Bittorrent or anything similar since…It scared the **** out of me. Luckily, nothing else ever happened
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:40 pm (2220) [Quote]
TOR anyone?
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:45 pm (2221) [Quote]
Is PeerGuardian any help? I’ve been using that for a while and have never had any problems
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:50 pm (2222) [Quote]
Your coworker’s son gets caught downloading videogames and this makes his ISP “thought police?” You’re a lunatic.
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:52 pm (2223) [Quote]
Inaccurate, Torrentspy is a website it only hosts the .torrent files, there is no Torrentspy network. Same thing for every other popular torrent indexing site. Your ISP gets the DMCA letter when one of their IPs is found in a torrent they are monitoring and has nothing to do with where you got the torrent file. The indexing site has nothing to do with this, you are wrong!
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:52 pm (2224) [Quote]
What was he actually cited for downloading? They should tell him the exact name of the torrent. If it was a movie or song than it may not have been torrentspy that got him in trouble but the torrent in general.
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:55 pm (2225) [Quote]
i have received about 4 such emails from my isp in the last year. I ignore them. But i live in the land of oz, so it wouldn’t be worth the effort to come and get me.
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 9:58 pm (2226) [Quote]
Use Peer Guardian then you will dramatically lower your chances of getting caught. That is if you do that evil thing of downloading any copyrighted material.
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/p2p_software/p2p_tools/peerguardian. cfm
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 10:11 pm (2229) [Quote]
That what the Azureus SafePeer plugin is for.
Posted usingIt blocks spying IP ranges from accessing your torrents, meaning you can still download using the (much more user friendly than usenet) bittorrent protocol
December 28th, 2006 at 10:15 pm (2230) [Quote]
Will anyone ever get a clue about this? It’s not torrentspy or piratebay they are monitoring and even if they are so what. Use peerguardian and ignore all the anti-p2p/govt/spyware/fakes/trojan/virus folks. This is a real community effort. Nuf said.
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 10:17 pm (2231) [Quote]
I wonder if commenting on TorrentSpy can be used against you too…
Hehe, commented just for the fancy Firefox+Ubuntu
.
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 10:19 pm (2232) [Quote]
I would tell them to bite my shinny metal ass.
Posted usingIf he was downloading “wares”. There’s not much that the maker of
such wares can do but complain.
honestly if your isp would cut your connection for downloads its time to find a
new ISP.
December 28th, 2006 at 10:52 pm (2236) [Quote]
this is similiar to what had happened to a coworker of mine. our isp is comcast and he got the same type of email.
beware!!
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 11:14 pm (2237) [Quote]
Well i had a letter from my isp of copyright infrigement a month ago, which was a complaint from microsoft of accusing me of downloading their copyrights. It was a file from demonoid so i encurage you people not to download torrents since this stuff is pretty deep all im saying if you want something so bad just buy it there is a chance that you will get caught. I got caught but I believe it was a warning message. If you get a letter best chances of getting out of trouble delete all the illegal stuff you have downloaded, this way the court will see that you are sorry. I have my mother doing some searches on google about RIAAs and lawsuits. people have gotten letter from isp of accusations but so far in her searches they are not sueing people they are mostly sueing companys.
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 11:20 pm (2238) [Quote]
About 3 years back a coworker of mine got the same type of letter from the same ISP here in Brooklyn - only he had been sharing (not just downloading) from Direct Connect hubs through DC++.
He stopped using it that night, and they never proceeded further.
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 11:27 pm (2239) [Quote]
bittorrent is for n00bs…
Posted usingDecember 28th, 2006 at 11:33 pm (2240) [Quote]
The thought police is the right term - from my experience.
Posted usingMore to come.
December 28th, 2006 at 11:50 pm (2242) [Quote]
I didn’t know usenet was even around anymore. I still remember getting my first pr0n off usenet using AOL back in the mid 90’s.
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 12:06 am (2243) [Quote]
[…] I have to admit: I download Torrents… there I said it. Everybody does it, Why can’t I… I have 10Meg sitting there, waiting to be used. I’ll also admit: I like the NBC TV show Las Vegas. So I record ever episode on my PVR, except one week when I was having trouble with it. So I decided to jump on Torrentspy as get that episode. 20 min download wa-bam. 3 weeks later I get an E-mail from my ISP (Charter) about copyright infringement. I didn’t think too much about it, thought it was fairly common, until I read this: http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/ 2006/12/28/torrentspy-is-monitored-by-copyright-thoughtpolice/ […]
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 12:52 am (2244) [Quote]
i got one too - for law and order svu
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 12:55 am (2245) [Quote]
…and this is news because?
Interested parties have been monitoring torrents for longer than you seem to realize. If you think torrentspy (and others) have been “under the radar” until now then you would be mistaken.
If any sharing tech is easy enough for Joe Citizen to aquire and use naturally interested parties are right there alongside you.
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 1:02 am (2246) [Quote]
[…] read more | digg story […]
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 1:45 am (2247) [Quote]
So… Get him to use Demonoid instead!
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 1:49 am (2248) [Quote]
all public torrent sites are monitored,
but they cant monitor millions of people on p2p ,
Posted using Unbranded Firefox 2.0.0.2pre onthey only do that with a number of torrents , usually the jigga music albums,
December 29th, 2006 at 2:48 am (2249) [Quote]
Or the kid should just anonymize his http requests before visiting any such sites. Then just use Safepeer to block the ISP from becoming his peer. Easy
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 5:43 am (2250) [Quote]
What’s PeerGuardian2 ?
Posted usingWhat’s a peer list you feed into it?
December 29th, 2006 at 6:22 am (2252) [Quote]
You don’t know what usenet is? You’re kidding right? Newsgroups…ring a bell yet?
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 6:28 am (2253) [Quote]
Wow. My paranoia was absolutely justified. I wonder what happens if someone “catches” me while I’m using torrentspy for finding/getting _legal_ content. Will I need a “human - legalspeak”-translator? E. g.:
Posted usingalias “Creative Commons”=”musician doesn’t have kids that would starve if I don’t buy CDs”
or
“Free and Open Source Software”=”everybody’s allowed to steal it”
Let teeh fun begin!
December 29th, 2006 at 7:38 am (2254) [Quote]
Just so you know… no… As you said… Torrentapy indexes other trackers… and is not a tracker in itself.
Look to the tracker as the problem.. after all the torrents are indexed across many many boards.
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 8:38 am (2255) [Quote]
Torrentspy was a good network, although it was full of ads
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 8:54 am (2256) [Quote]
Hey! What’s the first rule of Usenet Club?
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 10:11 am (2257) [Quote]
Maybe torrentspy just accidentally indexed a spy-tracker…?
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 10:19 am (2258) [Quote]
The same thing happened to me. I called my ISP and blamed it on guests that had been using my computer. They said that it was just an email they received, and for legal purposes they had forwarded the email to me, they did not release any information. They said that basically, the persons who stole the movie didn’t like me giving it away for such a long period of time, and next time don’t leave my torrent open for that long. My ISP is the second largest in my country *I live in Canada* So they would care if it was that big of a deal. I received that and one other notice for a different movie about 3 years ago and I have not heard or received anything since. I have not slowed on my downloading and most of my downloading is done from Torrentspy. Just thought I would throw my experience out there. I don’t know if it has to do with where I live, but it doesn’t appear to be a big deal.
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 1:03 pm (2261) [Quote]
[…] My coworker just got a nasty letter from his ISP (optonline) accusing him of copyright infringement. It turns out that his kid got caught downloading some warez from one of the trackers indexed by Torrentspy. Conclusions are simple: someone is monitoring Torrentspy network. I don’t know if they do this by setting up decoys, or if they actually connect to legitimate torrents and log the IP’s in the swarm. But either way, they are out there and if you are not careful you might get caught. Terminally Incoherent Blog Archive Torrentspy is monitored by Copyright Thoughtpolice __________________ Gifts: Silly[x][x] […]
Posted using Unknown browserDecember 29th, 2006 at 2:25 pm (2263) [Quote]
Dave - Usenet is a service similar to websites, i think they’re originally news servers, you can log into to them, search in different catergories and download if you see something you like.
Most ISPs provide some access to newsgroups(aka usenet), but most people prefer to pay for superior services, like GigaNews(google that)
Hope that helped!
Posted usingSee ya!
December 29th, 2006 at 2:52 pm (2264) [Quote]
Which ISP was it?
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 5:47 pm (2268) [Quote]
I am not at all surprised that fewer people know about usenet.
Posted usingIf it wasn’t for the binary groups I doubt most providers would
bother to carry it. Ten years ago it was the place to go for
discussion, but now it has become a wasteland of spam and
forgery. I got tired of having to translate full headers just to
make sure the person I am replying to really is that person.
December 29th, 2006 at 6:25 pm (2269) [Quote]
Private sites are way safer.
Posted usingPeerGuardian2 will help if you really need to use Public sites
December 29th, 2006 at 7:07 pm (2270) [Quote]
This article is technically misleading. As you said: his kid got caught downloading some warez from one of the trackers indexed by Torrentspy.
The torrent to the purportedly illegal content could easily have been indexed somewhere else too. And of course TorrentSpy doesn’t host any of the content anyway. Finally Torrentspy also tracks torrents for many legal things. As an example: http://www.torrentspy.com/search?query=ubuntu
Now, if your friends kid was download illegal content via bittorrent, that’s definitely wrong, and the warning is appropriate — but if the ISP is tracking http headers and busting him for going to torrentspy, that’s completely inappropriate
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 7:33 pm (2271) [Quote]
usenet??
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 8:20 pm (2272) [Quote]
… moving on to mininova.org …
Posted usingDecember 29th, 2006 at 8:55 pm (2273) [Quote]
“The poor kid is not allowed to use BitTottent anymore. He got a stern talking to from his pop for using these new-fangled, easily trackable p2p technologies instead of leaching from Usenet the way internet Gods intended it.” Bahaha! Right on!
Posted usingBut I’m glad ‘optonline’ did the right thing and sent him a letter about it before just giving away his personal details.
December 29th, 2006 at 11:49 pm (2279) [Quote]
Thanks for the comments everyone!
Indeed, this is not necessarily Torrentspy but one of the trackers they index. So perhaps I’m to harsh on the site.
Thanks for the tip about PeerGuardian, SafePeer and etc. I never really used these, but perhaps this is a good time.
Posted usingDecember 30th, 2006 at 1:28 am (2281) [Quote]
Holy crap. This many people read this blog? I’ve never seen more than like 4 comments on this thing before.
Posted usingDecember 30th, 2006 at 5:04 am (2282) [Quote]
Copyright stuff always brings on a big discussion of how much the enforcer-people suck
Posted usingDecember 30th, 2006 at 10:48 am (2283) [Quote]
Also, the Geek News Central Podcast mentioned and linked to this article. The Geek News Central Podcast has thousands of listeners.
Posted usingJanuary 6th, 2007 at 2:35 am (2336) [Quote]
You damm people dont get it .
It dont matter how you hide your #ip it comes back to your server. And they still know who you are..
GROW UP FOLKS . Get a job buy something . look at the christmas presents yall bought now go to wolly world buy a movie not a music cd. they cost too damm much . sit down watch it and stop worrying about the damm torrents . and the fbi the cops. OMG .THE COPS ARE HERE LOOKING AT US DONT POST NO MORE LMAO
Posted usingJanuary 6th, 2007 at 3:00 am (2337) [Quote]
Wait… What? My IP comes back to my server? What server? Who are they? How do they know who I am? Music cd’s cost more than movies? Dude, I’m really trying here but I can’t figure out what are you talking about.
First, the kid I was talking about got busted for warez, not music or movies.
Second, the only people who can connect my dynamic IP to my name and address are working at my ISP. The copyright holders must subopena the ISP for that info, and not all ISP’s are willing to give it out without a court order.
Yeah, you can always get caught even if you use peer guardian (I’m guessing this was your point, but I’m still not sure) but then again, anything that lowers the chances of being fucked is a good thing no?
Btw, if you use tor then I don’t think anyone could trace it back in any meaningful and convenient way (though your connection speed would suffer).
Oh, and you should really not use IE when you post “You damn people don’t get it” comments cause it does not lend you any credibility. Just a tip.
Posted usingJanuary 6th, 2007 at 3:03 am (2338) [Quote]
And an old version of IE at that! He probably got an illegal warez’d copy of XP, and he cannot install IE7 due to the Genuine Advantage. Damned nub here. “Another Nut” is for sure.
Posted usingJanuary 6th, 2007 at 4:09 pm (2341) [Quote]
[…] http://www.terminally-incoherent.com/blog/2006/12/28/torrentspy-is-mon itored-by-copyright-thoughtpolice/ […]
Posted usingJanuary 7th, 2007 at 1:04 am (2342) [Quote]
Bittorent clients list the downloaders by their ip.
Posted usingIt is amazing that the downloaders / uploaders have never been gone after before by the RAAA with their itimidation tactics.
Just that it was millions of people to go after at one time.
Still if it is intimidation tactics you only have to go after seveal.
Goes to show you how the music industry after abusing both artists and the general public is out of touch with reality sequestering in luxury that it took them this long to even think if this tactic.
Guess they finally had it pointed out to them that there was difffirent p2p file sharing available than Kaaza.
It is always funny to watch the plants on various news shows of the banks and banks of computers with
the experts” manning them.
Nothing but movie sets in essence.
February 13th, 2007 at 3:32 pm (2963) [Quote]
[…] Automated Content Policing: A number of new products that promise to spider online catalogs and flag copyrighted content will become vogue for both the discovery of infringing uses and for reporting content and context to refine ad targetting. Google’s deployment of their solution on YouTube should serve to indicate if such systems are currently realistic on a large scale. More aggressive policing could include more honeypots, client-side indexing by trojans and even malicious viruses. […]
Posted usingMarch 30th, 2007 at 9:15 am (3587) [Quote]
George Orwell’s 1984 - Big Brother is Watching You
Posted using=)
Use tor, proxies, vpn..
April 17th, 2007 at 6:00 am (4145) [Quote]
Amazing how all of these controls and controls over simple transactions and events in our lives have been introduced as standard , acceptable and even “for our own good” after sept 11
Posted usingSeptember 6th, 2007 at 5:30 am (6075) [Quote]
Go to inavid.com for easy step instructions on how to get around this minor problem. Its an easy solution that anyone should do no matter what torrent or p2p client their using.
Posted usingGo to inavid.com for easy step instructions on how to get around this minor problem. Its an easy solution that anyone should do no matter what torrent or p2p client their using.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:23 am (6079) [Quote]
@Kiril - Tor operators will likely disagree. They really hate when people channel BT traffic through the network and this behavior is frowned upon.
Oh, and I’m done with Torrentspy. Demonoid FTW.
@jadog - I fixed your link. That’s why I put the little buttons on the top of the comment box. It’s amazing how many people mess up the link tag even if the button is there.
Posted using