They kill trackers, we respond with…text files! LOL

…A database of 17,000,000 Bitsnoop torrents from 08/02/20012 and just under 2,000,000 from ThePirateBay. These text files are dumps of magnet links from aforementioned sites/trackers.

You can use magnet links direct in many torrent clients. This method will work regardless of what happens to PirateBay or Bitsnoop. This method is being used to create enormous text files/databases which will serve as a backup to date, regardless of what happens to the trackers/sites.

” MarcusOrlyius from reddit created complete list of BitSnoop’s torrents from the 8th February 2012. The list has been split up by category into seperate files, the URLs removed to save space and then 7zipped.

There are 34 lists, one for each category and each entry in the list contains the info hash and the title of the torrent. If you want more details about the torrent, just go to BitSnoop and do a search for the info hash. Alternatively, you can go to the torrent page directly with the following URL:

And if you don’t like BitSnoop, you can just google the info hash and find loads of sites with that specific torrent.

He’ll be updating the list on a weekly or monthly basis at /r/BSLists.

(NOTE: I did not create this torrent!) ”

17,000,000 Bitsnoop torrents here >

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:f5615dfb80ac995787c1b2219a75df7805278dea

” Somewhere on TorrentFreak, I found out a simple comment, that with the magnet links, the whole Pirate Bay fits on USB stick. So, I thought, why not test it out?

So, I went trough all the Pirate Bay torrents and downloaded as little necessary information as possible for the dump to be somehow useful.

And wow, ALL the pirate bay magnets are just 164 MB unzipped, 90 MB zipped. That is really, really small!

The format is simple. An example:

7015954|Ubuntu 11.10 Alternate 64-bit|707047424|2|5|5316391aed813d4283178dce2b95c8ad56c5be72

7015954 is the piratebay ID of the torrent
Ubuntu 11.10 Alternate 64-bit is the name (there CAN be “|” in the name)
707047424 is the size in bytes
2 is the number of seeders at the time of the snapshot
5 is the number of leechers
5316391aed813d4283178dce2b95c8ad56c5be72 is the magnet link hash

If you want the magnet link correctly, you have to write
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:5316391aed813d4283178dce2b95c8ad56c5be72

I did NOT download comments and/or descriptions, since that would be too big and I didn’t want it to be as complete as possible, but as small as possible.

The only thing that’s strange is that I found out only about 1.5 millions of torrents, while there is something about 4 millions of torrents in TPB footer. However, I think I am correct and TPB footer is not

Enjoy. ” Posted by Allisfine 2012-02-08 03:48:18 GMT

ThePirateBay Torrent database here >

https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7016365

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:938802790a385c49307f34cca4c30f80b03df59c

Henrik Ponten… Delusional ****.

Sweden’s second largest torrent site has shut down its operations with immediate effect following threats from Antipiratbyrån. In closing, the site – which appeared in Google’s 2010 Zeitgeist report – bemoaned the “fascist tendencies” of the entertainment industries. Meanwhile, Sweden’s Pirate Party is celebrating the influx of hundreds of new members as a direct result of the closure.

On February 1st, Sweden’s Supreme Court announced that it would not be granting leave to appeal in the long-running Pirate Bay case. This means that the prison sentences and millions of dollars in fines previously handed out to the four defendants will stand.

Quickly, prominent copyright enforcers for the entertainment industries – Hollywood lawyer Monique Wadsted and Antipiratbyrån lawyer Henrik Pontén – announced that the decision would signal a new crackdown on file-sharing sites in Sweden.

Although there was no immediate news of site closures, now there is a significant development. Tankafetast, Sweden’s second largest torrent site behind The Pirate Bay, has announced that it has ceased its operations with immediate effect.

“After many ifs and buts, we have decided to close down TankaFetast,” the site’s operators said in a statement.

Rest of Story here > http://torrentfreak.com/swedish-piracy-crackdown-2-torrent-site-calls-it-quits-120223/

It’s not the first time this **** has flapped his gums and spouted insanity. Just a couple of years ago, regarding the raid on the Sunnydale server in Sweden…. Ponten spewed the following words “The well-organized pirates on the scene seem to have an inflated sense of their own ability to conceal themselves, but this raid shows that we can get to them,” said Anti-Piracy Agency lawyer Henrik Pontén in a statement. “Copyright applies to the internet too and we will continue to prioritize efforts to counteract these well-organized groups.”

Anti-piracy lawyer Henrik Pontén even made the very lofty claim that the Sunnydale file-sharing ring was the source of all illegal content on The Pirate Bay. I don’t know whether people should laugh or simply feel embarrassed for him.

Vic Toews “Lawful Access Act”

How does it feel, Vic? If you want to stick your nose into other peoples business don’t go fucking crying when other people stick theirs in yours, as it were. It seems a little…. hypocritical?

The Canadian public safety minister Vic Toews has called in the police to investigate threats made against him and his family in response to his internet privacy bill, which has also provoked a storm of online protest.

“Over the last few weeks I have been subjected to an extensive personal attack by my political opponents as a result of certain legislation that I have introduced in the House of Commons on behalf of the federal government,” he wrote in a widely-published letter to constituents. “These attacks, which have included criminal acts and threats of criminal acts against me and my family, have been referred to the police for investigation.”

On Tuesday Toews proposed the “Lawful Access Act” in the Canadian parliament, a bill that requires ISPs to install monitoring equipment for the police and to hand over identifying information and internet histories on customers without a warrant. The news of the bill hit Twitter immediately and less than two hours later the name of the bill was changed to “The Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act.”

The bill faced fierce criticism from the opposition, with accusations of hypocrisy, since the government has also proposed a law to destroy gun ownership records on the basis of privacy. Liberal MP Sean Casey requested the computer and BlackBerry records of MPs as part of the debate. Toews defended the bill, telling an opposition MP, “He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”

The intrusive nature of the legislation, and Toews’ comments, also provoked a Twitter campaign dubbed #TellVicEverything, where Canadians would tweet random data about their lives, and #DontToewsMeBro, after the common internet meme. But someone posting as @vikileaks30 also began posting details of Toews expenses claims and rather messy divorce records, and the account soon had thousands of followers.

Toews acknowledged the attacks in his letter, saying they were from publicly available documents. The allegations covered his expenses claims and the ending of his 30 year marriage after a seven-year affair with the couple’s babysitter and the impregnation of a much younger woman who became his second wife.

“I will be fully accountable for any responsibility that I bear for the breakdown of my previous marriage but that accountability is not something I owe to the public generally or to my political opponents in particular. It is a personal accountability which I cannot avoid nor do I seek to do so,” he writes.

The IP address behind @vikileaks30 was traced to a user in the Canadian House of Commons by the Ottawa Citizen, and a parliamentary investigation has now been launched. Around 4,000 internet users use that IP address, but all major political parties have denied any involvement with the account. Shortly after the news broke the account was deleted, with the author denying being in Ottawa and said it was “shutting down before any other innocent people are targeted.”

Conservative foreign affairs minister John Baird accused the main opposition New Democratic Party of being behind the smear campaign, and attacked them in parliament. “Not only have they stooped to the lowest of the lows, but they have been running this nasty Internet dirty-trick campaign with taxpayers’ money,” he said.

Meanwhile, the government appears to be back-pedaling on the bill itself. In an interview with CBC News Toews said that the government was open to debate and amendments on the legislation, and expressed surprise at some of the more intrusive parts of the bill.

“This is the first time that I’m hearing this somehow extends ordinary police emergency powers [to telecommunications]. In my opinion, it doesn’t. And it shouldn’t,” he said.

Republished from; http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/18/police_threats_canada_internet_toews/

SABAM Charged With Copyright Fraud, Embezzlement, Money Laundering

Fucking Classic. Can you smell the hypocrisy?

Belgium – home of child murders and paedophile rings. Also, it would appear, they have a bit of a problem with their “Société d’Auteurs Belge – Belgische Auteurs Maatschappij” or, more simply put, music industry leeches. You know, people like the RIAA and MPAA and all those other useless parasitic organisations who hang out of the arse end of people who actually have creative talent. You know, the ones who are always whining on about their `community` of artists, and how they are being defrauded, stolen from by those awful, dishonest internet `pirates`.

Well it would seem that SABAM are a little less than honest themselves. Copyright Fraud? Oh dear, that doesn’t look good does it now? Embezzlement?? That’s even worse, not to mention money laundering. Wow, just imagine what they haven’t been caught for yet. You know how icebergs work.

Back in 2004, a Belgian composer filed a complaint against local music rights group SABAM.
Philippe Delhaye, an associate member of SABAM, claimed that there had been “breaches” in the correct payment of his royalties.

Former financial directors Jean Huysmans and Marcel Raiglot, as well as current finance director Luc Van Oycke are being held accountable for corruption and forgery. No way. You’re kidding. I thought all these people were good, honest people. Like the kind of straight up chaps who work for the RIAA. They are all about ensuring everyone else is OK, aren’t they?

“We are pleased that the merits of the case will be heard by the criminal court,” says SABAM general manager Christophe Depreter. “I am fully confident that we can show that nothing wrong happened.”

Presumably in the same way that BP `showed` that recent oil spills were `nothing to do with them`…

A date has not yet been set for the court hearing.

Virgin et al pay off law enforcement to investigate “crimes”…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9061383/Private-firms-give-UK-police-forces-millions-of-pounds-to-investigate-crimes.html

SOCA seize popular music blog and threaten visitors.

Today, the UK Government’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) took over RnBXclusive.com and arrested its operators. Founded in 2008, RnBXclusive.com was one of the most popular R&B / hip hop blogs on the internet.

SOCA not only seized the website, they also posted an intimidating and threatening message for visitors and users.

Is this a sign of things to come in the U.K? We shall see.

UPDATE:

It would appear that SOCA have realised (subsequent to David Allen Green pointing out to SOCA on his JackofKent twitter account) that the third sentence of http://rnbxclusive.com warning notice may be a contempt of court, given second sentence”.

A statement on the SOCA website claims the initial message was only temporary. “SOCA’s holding message to users who had been frequenting the website was taken offline at the conclusion of the first phase of the operation on 15 February,”

MMMkay. They only changed it because they were found out to be breaking the law themselves (and ahem, lying).

ACTA: Facts Misconceptions and questions.

By David Meyer , 29 January, 2012 19:23 [Reproduced without permission from ZDNet [ http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/communication-breakdown-10000030/acta-facts-misconceptions-and-questions-10025310/ ]]

It’s good to see that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, otherwise known as ACTA, is at last getting the attention it deserves.

I suspect this is due to people becoming increasingly invigorated and educated after the SOPA and PIPA defeats, as well as the Megaupload takedown, in the last couple of weeks. However, this very welcome explosion of interest has also resulted in inaccurate, out-of-date and misinterpreted information flying around like so much shrapnel.

I’m not a legal expert, but I have been covering ACTA for a long time now. Reading some of the stuff out there, I thought it would be worthwhile to reread the text of the finalised treaty, just to make sure I was certain what was correct and what was not.

It’s a good time to take stock, so here are some key points about the contents and process of the treaty and about the next steps. If I’m wrong on any of these points, please comment to let me know.

ACTA is not law anywhere yet

ACTA has been signed by: Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, the US, the EU, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

But, despite the fact that everyone in that list up to “the US” signed last October, none of these signing ‘parties’ have ratified it yet. Signing is separate from (and often a precursor to) ratification. Signing essentially means the government will try to get the treaty ratified.

Ratifying treaties is usually the job of the national legislature (in the case of the EU, it is the European Parliament). There’s probably an interesting story to be told about each country’s ratification process (and this is certainly where anti-ACTA activists should focus their attention), but until that process is completed, the treaty is meaningless.

By the way, these are the countries that took part in the ACTA negotiations but have not yet even signed the treaty: Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Switzerland.

ACTA’s formulation was secretive and it focuses entirely on the rights of the content industry

This is the best-known bit, so I’ll be brief. ACTA is a trade treaty even though its subject matter is civil and criminal enforcement, and its odd classification meant that it could be negotiated behind closed doors. It was only through leaks that the wider public got to see what was going on, and the resulting pressure probably helped get rid of some of the nastier bits in the early drafts (more on which later).

The language of the treaty also seems to suggest a certain one-sidedness. From Article 28, here’s what looks to me like the biggest reference to anyone who isn’t a rights-holder, a government, a judge or a criminal:

Each Party shall endeavour to promote, where appropriate, the establishment and maintenance of formal or informal mechanisms, such as advisory groups, whereby its competent authorities may receive the views of right holders and other relevant stakeholders.

“Other relevant stakeholders” is about it, I’m afraid.

ACTA demands the criminalisation of ‘commercial-scale’ copyright infringement

Each signatory (that has ratified ACTA at a national or union level, but let’s take that as a given from now on) has to make “copyright or related rights piracy on a commercial scale” a civil and criminal offence. Now, remember that ACTA deals a lot with knock-off physical goods, but this applies to digital infringement too.

The penalties must include “imprisonment as well as monetary fines”, although the two do not need to be imposed in tandem. Aiding and abetting has to be a crime too.

So, what’s ‘commercial scale’? In the section on criminal penalties, we have this: “Acts carried out on a commercial scale include at least those carried out as commercial activities for direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage.”

Then, in Article 27, which deals specifically with digital infringement (my emphasis):

Each Party’s enforcement procedures shall apply to infringement of copyright or related rights over digital networks, which may include the unlawful use of means of widespread distribution for infringing purposes. These procedures shall be implemented in a manner that avoids the creation of barriers to legitimate activity, including electronic commerce, and, consistent with that Party’s law, preserves fundamental principles such as freedom of expression, fair process, and privacy.

“Widespread distribution” is a fundamental characteristic of the internet, so read that as you will.

ACTA criminalises DRM circumvention

Also a crime: breaking digital rights management and decrypting material that’s been scrambled for copyright protection purposes.

Ratification of ACTA means not only that breaking these measures must be illegal, but also that it must be a crime to distribute technology or services that are “primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing an effective technological measure; or [have] only a limited commercially significant purpose other than circumventing an effective technological measure”.

Oh, and stripping rights management information, such as the embedded data identifying the author or artist? Crime.

ACTA does not force ISPs to snoop

This treaty has gone through many revisions and is a big improvement over earlier drafts. By way of example, ACTA used to compel signatories to introduce three-strikes laws. For these revisions you can thank some of the negotiators, but also whoever leaked those earlier drafts so the rest of the world could see what was going on and apply some pressure.

Many if not most instances of the word “may” in the finalised ACTA once read “shall”. There’s a big difference between these two words. Section 4 of Article 27 reads (my emphasis):

A Party may provide, in accordance with its laws and regulations, its competent authorities with the authority to order an online service provider to disclose expeditiously to a right holder information sufficient to identify a subscriber whose account was allegedly used for infringement, where that right holder has filed a legally sufficient claim of trademark or copyright or related rights infringement, and where such information is being sought for the purpose of protecting or enforcing those rights.

That’s not compulsion. It’s saying the signatory’s courts can, if they want, force ISPs to snoop, but it’s not saying this has to happen. In other words, this bit’s meaningless. It makes no difference. See also: the section that says countries may criminalise filming the screen in a cinema.

ACTA probably means signatories have to block or take down infringing websites

In Article 8, which deals with injunctions and civil enforcement, ACTA says that every signatory’s courts must be able to order an infringer to desist, and must be able to force a third party under its jurisdiction to “prevent goods that involve the infringement of an intellectual property right from entering into the channels of commerce”.

However, the same article also includes this follow-on. I confess I don’t completely understand it, but it looks to me like it may allow governments to stick to damages instead:

Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section, a Party may limit the remedies available against use by governments, or by third parties authorised by a government, without the authorisation of the right holder, to the payment of remuneration, provided that the Party complies with the provisions of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement specifically addressing such use. In other cases, the remedies under this Section shall apply or, where these remedies are inconsistent with a Party’s law, declaratory judgments and adequate compensation shall be available.

As I say, I could use some clarification on this bit. Help me out and I’ll update.

ACTA’s guide to damages calculation is questionable

The civil enforcement penalties for copyright infringement in ACTA include damages, to be paid by the wrongdoer to the plaintiff. Now, calculating the actual cost of so-called piracy has always been a tricky business. Rights-holders have occasionally come up with some ludicrous estimates of the damage, that usually involve lots of multipliers.

Part of the problem in estimating the real cost is that an unlawful download does not necessarily mean a lost sale. The person downloading an album, for example, may like it so much that they then go and buy it. Equally, it may be that they were never going to buy it whether they downloaded it unlawfully or not.

Over to Article 9 of ACTA:

In determining the amount of damages for infringement of intellectual property rights, a Party’s judicial authorities shall have the authority to consider, inter alia, any legitimate measure of value the right holder submits, which may include lost profits, the value of the infringed goods or services measured by the market price, or the suggested retail price.

You see the problem.

ACTA demands ‘provisional measures’ with no immediate right of reply

A tricky one, this. From Article 12:

Each Party shall provide that its judicial authorities have the authority to adopt provisional measures inaudita altera parte [without the other party being heard] where appropriate, in particular where any delay is likely to cause irreparable harm to the right holder, or where there is a demonstrable risk of evidence being destroyed.

That looks bad on the surface, but it goes on to say that the applicant must provide “any reasonably available evidence” to get the provisional measure (probably an injunction) and is also liable to compensate the subject of the measure if it turns out an infringement didn’t take place.

The drug question

One of the big criticisms of ACTA is that its definition of ‘intellectual property’ could be taken to apply to medicines. Critics say this means the treaty represents a huge, pro-Big Pharma crackdown on the manufacturing of generic drugs.

That may be the case. I’m not an expert on this, but I can call out those who have said ACTA doesn’t define intellectual property at all. It does, by referring back to the TRIPS agreement that was ACTA’s predecessor. And TRIPS pretty much includes medicines in its remit.

[EDIT, 31 Jan: Looking at the drug question again, I'm fairly sure ACTA doesn't actually have much of an impact here. The biggest worries were to do with border measures, and ACTA specifically excludes patent protection, which is where generic drugs may otherwise fall foul. That said, a recent tweet from digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes appears to suggest otherwise...]

Next steps?

As I say, I’m an observer not an activist, but those fighting against ACTA haven’t yet run out of time.

Influencing ACTA during its formulation was always going to be difficult at best, given its designation as a treaty. However, now that it’s finalised, activists have to remember that they cannot influence the contents of the document anymore. It’s now a “yes or no” question.

Those who want to fight ACTA need to go to their elected representatives or whoever it is that ratifies treaties in their country (or union, thinking of the EU) and say it’s too flawed to accept. As I say, time hasn’t run out for them yet, but there’s not much of it left.

As the European Commission has said, failure to ratify will mean it’s “back to the drawing board”.

MEP Quits ACTA Charade in protest…

Reproduced from; http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/communication-breakdown-10000030/mep-quits-acta-charade-in-protest-at-eu-signing-10025297/

A French MEP has quit the process of scrutinising ACTA for the European Parliament, calling the treaty’s passage through the EU legislative system a masquerade.

In a statement on Thursday, Kader Arif denounced the signing of ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) by the EU and 22 member states earlier in the day. He said the European Parliament was being undermined and the process was a “charade” in which he would no longer participate.

An EU diplomat signed ACTA, which is aimed at harmonising the intellectual property enforcement regimes of many countries, on behalf of the European Commission, along with member states including the UK.

However, the European Parliament will only vote on ACTA in June, after the EU International Trade Committee (INTA) examines it. Arif was the person in that committee who was assigned as ‘rapporteur’ with special responsibility for the treaty.

“I want to denounce as the greatest of all the process that led to the signing of this agreement: no association of civil society, lack of transparency from the beginning of negotiations, successive postponements of the signing of the text without any explanation being given, setting aside the claims of the European Parliament [despite those views being] expressed in several resolutions of our Assembly,” Arif said, according to an automated translation of his statement.

Arif said he had as rapporteur “faced unprecedented manoeuvres of the right of Parliament to impose an accelerated schedule to pass the agreement as soon as possible before the public is alerted, thereby depriving Parliament of its right of expression and the tools at its disposal to carry the legitimate demands of citizens”.

The Commission says ACTA, which had many hardline clauses removed during its behind-closed-doors negotiations, will in its present form not mean any changes to EU law.

However, the MEP said ACTA would have an impact on civil liberties, ISPs’ responsibilities and the manufacturing of generic drugs.

“This agreement may [have a] major impact on the lives of our citizens, and yet everything is done [so that] the European Parliament has no say,” Arif said. “I will not participate in this charade.”

UK signs ACTA as activists urge resistance

The UK and 21 other European Union member states have signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, better known as ACTA.

The countries signed the treaty, which aims to harmonise copyright enforcement across much of the world, in Tokyo on Thursday. However, the signatures of the EU member states and the EU itself will count for nothing unless the European Parliament gives its approval to ACTA in June, and digital activists have urged citizens to lobby their MEPs against voting yes.

Only five EU countries did not sign ACTA – Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia. Good on You! Though I fear they will ultimately be coerced.