
YTS torrent tracker part of new anti-piracy scheme - stiray
https://torrentfreak.com/yts-torrent-giant-is-part-of-a-bizarre-brand-new-anti-piracy-scheme-200823/
======
dia80
I saw the article refers to the Prenda Law saga, I just looked it up and saw
the main protagonists had been sent to jail. This line from Wikipedia made me
chuckle as sounds like the exactly like a game of the prisoners dilema

In 2019, Steele and Hansmeier both pleaded guilty in Federal court to a range
of criminal charges related to and including extortion and fraudulent conduct,
with substantial sums of their criminal proceeds to be reimbursed. Steele
received a reduced sentence of 5 years due to his cooperation and Hansmeier,
who had not cooperated, was sentenced to 14 years. [13]

~~~
kiba
Protagonists?

~~~
badrabbit
If you think the law is bad, that is what they are?

~~~
detaro
"Protagonist" doesn't necessarily have a positive judgment attached to it,
does it? I.e. if the main player in a story is the bad guy, we still say
"protagonist"?

~~~
badrabbit
Not sure, but in a good vs evil story I think it does. I naturally assumed due
to the implucation of an antagonist a protagonist always meant the subject of
the conflict (every plot has a conflict they say). But you might be right, I
can see how it can simply mean the center of a story.

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simongr3dal
Have anybody discussed how this[0] could complicate things? The developer of
the popular tracker, Opentracker, has built in a feature where it throws in
bogus but real IPs when you ask for seeders.

It reduces efficiency for people who are trying to download from seeders that
don't exist, but also introduces deniability because if you ask the tracker
for a list of seeders your IP being on that list could reasonably explained as
it being one of the bogus IPs.

To verify that your IP is actually seeding you have to connect and try to
download from it, but does the act of downloading from a peer change the
situation so it is actually some kind of entrapment or at least commiting to
have done a crime as part of the investigation?

[0]: [http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect-
deniabili...](http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect-deniability/)

~~~
jlgaddis
> _... does the act of downloading from a peer change the situation so it is
> actually some kind of entrapment or at least commiting to have done a crime
> as part of the investigation?_

No.

It certainly wouldn't be entrapment and it's not "a crime" for you to download
files that you own the copyright for (or, in these types of situations, have
been granted permission by the copyright owner -- whom you would typically be
working on behalf of -- to download).

In my opinion, the addition of the "bogus IPs" is pretty pointless. Once
you've gathered a list of seeders, it's trivial to actually connect to them
and verify that they are sharing (portions of) the file.

In fact, I would think you'd _have_ to do that in order to be able to affirm
that the file was, in fact, being "shared". You couldn't honestly state that
it _was_ if you didn't verify that to be true.

I can't recall the name of it now but the firm that does this stuff on behalf
of HBO (or did, when I worked at an ISP and received e-mails from them)
connects to the "seeders" and downloads (part of) the file(s) from them to
verify that they're _actually_ illegally sharing copyrighted content.

~~~
hellotomyrars
I agree with you in spirit but part of the reason copyright trolling even
still exist is down to the fact that many judges presiding over the cases lack
even a basic understanding of how any of it works.

An IP is a terrible way to identify someone and the judges who actually know a
thing or two have already learned that.

The copyright trolling industry has worked its hardest to try and goose the
legal process in their favor at all junctures and the reality is most judges
just don’t have the knowledge to properly adjudicate these cases so the
technical nuance of bogus IPs just doesn’t matter. In most cases the copyright
trolls just make declarative statements about what their tech discovered. Some
cases by more informed defendants have been tossed because they were unwilling
to disclose how the data was collected.

Ultimately if you stand up to the copyright trolls, they usually stand down.
It’s not worth them to actually fight. They’re hoping for the drive-by payout.

~~~
beagle3
Unfortunately for humanity, and to great joy among trolls and three letter
agencies, IPv6 is by construction (perhaps accidentally but that doesn’t
natter) an excellent way in practice to identify a device, household and
therefore a person (or small liable group)

Non of the ISPs in my area are offering IPv6 prefix randomization - if I want
not to be correlated, I need to switch ISPs. I am staying with IPv4 for now.

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stiray
A tad off topic but it fits nicely, installgentoo wiki had a very nice article
about private trackers:
[https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Private_trackers](https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Private_trackers)

~~~
raspyberr
I think installgentoo has a few interesting things on it but hopefully you're
not confusing it with the actual gentoo wiki:
[https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Main_Page)

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jb775
The main question to ask her is why is YTS throwing their users under the bus?
Were the operators of YTS threatened with lawsuits? Or is YTS being run as a
honeytrap to lure unsuspecting users with the intention of eventually
receiving copyright settlement money kickbacks?

Seems like the strategy here is to go after low hanging fruit (people who
create user accounts and people who don't use a vpn) using scare tactics with
no intention of actually prosecuting.

~~~
loeg
> Were the operators of YTS threatened with lawsuits?

7th sentence:

> The background to this ‘partnership’ appears to have its roots in cases
> where YTS itself was sued by attorney Kerry Culpepper for copyright
> infringement.

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Nextgrid
Is there any evidence that this “YTS” that we’re talking about right now is
the _real_ YTS? Whoever was behind YTS got into legal trouble a few years ago
and shut down his site, leaving the markets to lots of copycats with YTS-
inspired designs and domain names.

~~~
milankragujevic
There is no official YTS. YIFY-TORRENTS was shut down, the most popular and
semi-professional site is YTS.(some domain), but there is no official one.

~~~
Dahoon
The original would still be the real one even if it has been shut down.

~~~
milankragujevic
Well yes, but it wouldn't be YTS but YIFY-TORRENTS.

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McDyver
The next generation tracker will have to be something like what doctors do
with "assisted suicide" instead of "euthanasia": Different independent
entities, each performing an action that is legal, that in the end lets the
user get the link.

~~~
vbezhenar
The real solution is to use Tor-like network where you're using multiple
intermediate proxy-servers located in different countries with different laws.
And make that network extremely popular for lawful content. So when you're
downloading Ubuntu, some of your traffic will transmit encrypted parts of
copyrighted cinema. You have no idea what are you transmitting, you're just
obeying protocol (which you should, because otherwise peers will throttle you)
and downloading legal content.

At this point US have to make that network illegal, causing huge collateral
damage. Note that even torrents are not illegal, so it would be quite a
precedent.

~~~
waste_monk
>The real solution is to use Tor-like network where you're using multiple
intermediate proxy-servers located in different countries with different laws

There are a number of Tor like anonymizing networks already, and they're all
slow as hell and unable to handle bulk traffic. This idea has been raised many
times and it's never worked out. Compromises have to be made, and if you want
good anonymity/privacy then speed is usually the first thing to go.

>And make that network extremely popular for lawful content

There are already plenty of distribution paths for lawful content that can be
fast because they don't have to hide in the shadows. Where is the value add?
How will you get media companies to buy in? Almost no one is going to
willingly buy in solely on the basis of "we need your traffic to help cover
our illegal file distribution".

>So when you're downloading Ubuntu, some of your traffic will transmit
encrypted parts of copyrighted cinema. You have no idea what are you
transmitting, you're just obeying protocol (which you should, because
otherwise peers will throttle you) and downloading legal content.

That's basically how I2P operates (you have to contribute disk and bandwidth
to the network to store and serve files, and you don't have the key to decrypt
unless you happen to request a resource that's already locally cached), and
it's extremely slow. Not to mention the risk that you end up storing and
distributing the _really_ illegal stuff like child sexual abuse materials, not
just pirated movies, which is far beyond most people's risk/comfort
thresholds. You can't have a network like this "just" for pirate media without
it being abused for darker purposes, and a lot of people are simply unwilling
to support that.

>At this point US have to make that network illegal, causing huge collateral
damage. Note that even torrents are not illegal, so it would be quite a
precedent.

They don't have to make it illegal, just so unusable that the vast majority of
people don't bother. Which it already is. Which is why we use torrents instead
of already having a solution like what you describe. Not to mention that it
doesn't have to be illegal for carriers to try and throttle/interfere with it
under the guise of traffic shaping and fair use.

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kevingadd
I wonder if YTS users could go after the operator in court for its illegal
conduct, or for its use of their personal data in particular. I'm guessing the
site being illegal isn't relevant unless they personally have their copyrights
infringed, but I wouldn't be surprised if this use of individuals' data
without consent is illegal, especially if the shakedown letters turn out to be
fraudulent.

~~~
ikeboy
Unclean hands doctrine. You can't sue someone when the complaint at issue is
you doing something wrong. You'd have to find someone that didn't infringe on
anything, and even then you'd have to fight an uphill battle. In the absence
of a contract saying the data can never be shared, it's unclear what the cause
of action would even be.

~~~
29083011397778
It would be up to the courts if you've done anything wrong though -
downloading a torrent file isn't illegal, per TFA. Who's to say you followed
through with a torrent client to use it?

~~~
ikeboy
If you haven't, what's the harm? Where are the damages?

~~~
kevingadd
The harm is your IP address and other information being provided to a company
that's trying to extort you...

~~~
ikeboy
As above, what's the cause of action?

~~~
thaumasiotes
> The harm is your IP address and other information being provided to a
> company that's trying to extort you...

If you get sued, you've suffered damages and you have a cause of action. You'd
need to show that YTS _wrongly_ provided your information, but in the
hypothetical where you in fact did nothing wrong, that seems theoretically
doable.

~~~
ikeboy
You might have a malicious prosecution case against the party that sued you. I
still don't see a cause of action or damages against a third party that
provided information that they likely would have been forced to provide in
discovery anyway.

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dom96
I'm surprised there aren't torrent trackers that run on Tor available (or
maybe I just haven't heard of them). Seems like it would be a perfect way to
avoid both shutdown and the service's ability to identify its users. Am I
missing something?

~~~
Santosh83
TPB has an .onion site.

But the real danger with torrents is when you're actually sharing the data.
Any of the IPs you connect to could be a malicious peer who will later track
down your IP through legal channels and send you abusive notices.

I guess the way to protect yourself there is to torrent only over a VPN or
through a seedbox.

~~~
ximeng
End game then is VPN providers get sued for piracy. So people use VPN
providers in uncooperative jurisdictions. Then VPNs eventually get coopted
into sharing user information as IP owners invest more over time in copyright
enforcement.

~~~
4AoZqrH2fsk5UB
Yup. I use ProtonVPN on account of its Swiss jurisdiction and no-logs policy.

It’s not perfect, but puts up enough obstacles for me to feel better about it
than some fly-by-night VPN

~~~
gruez
> Yup. I use ProtonVPN on account of its Swiss jurisdiction and no-logs
> policy.

Can switzerland even be considered "non-cooperative"? I mean, most people
probably think so because of their reputation as a an "offshore bank", but
that's been eroded due to the passing of FATCA.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
Switzerland is interesting from a copyright aspect in multiple ways:

\- Downloading copyrighted material, even from obviously shady sources, is
perfectly legal.

\- Sharing said material with your friends, even if you obtained it from an
obviously shady source, is perfectly legal.

\- Sharing it with random strangers (as happens while torrenting) is not
legal, but hard to prosecute, because:

\- private companies collecting IP addresses to sue uploaders violate privacy
laws, and thus commit a crime themselves (!) [1]

I didn't check, but I'd also assume:

\- That ISPs and VPN providers aren't required (and quite likely even aren't
_allowed_ ) to disclose the identity behind an IP address to a private entity

\- That VPN providers (unlike ISPs) aren't required to maintain such logs, and
thus typically don't.

For comparison, in Germany, downloading from "obviously illegal" sources is
prohibited, further sharing a copy from such sources among friends is
prohibited (and since breaking copy protection is prohibited too, having a
DRM-free copy of the content is a pretty strong indicator that it comes from
an illegal source - unless you got it from a Swiss friend...).

[1] [https://www.weka.ch/themen/it-technik/it-sicherheit-und-
rech...](https://www.weka.ch/themen/it-technik/it-sicherheit-und-
recht/informatikrecht/article/ip-adressen-es-gilt-das-datenschutzrecht/)

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gruez
People seem to think this is some sort of betrayal, but anyone could have done
it. The whole point of trackers is to allow anyone to get a list of peers who
have the same torrent. If anything, this gives me a startup idea: archive.org,
but for torrent swarms. Scrape public torrent sites, grab all their torrents,
for each torrent connect to their associated tracker and grab their peer list
periodically. You can even try connecting to them and grab a few bytes to
confirm they're actually uploading. Now you have a list of IPs known to have
committed copyright infringement. Sell this list to copyright trolls
years/months later for $$$.

~~~
password4321
[https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/](https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/)

~~~
donmcronald
That says I downloaded ssni-845-C.mp4 7GB (XXX) three days ago, but I didn't.
WTF is that all about?

~~~
xfer
Dynamic IP or CGNAT by your ISP.

~~~
donmcronald
Nope. DHCP IP, but they're effectively static. It hasn't changed for 2 years.

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jokoon
I was always curious why the website told me to register, felt very
suspicious. Some torrents are restricted to users, weirdly.

Not to mention the occasional shady popup ads.

The weirdest thing about YTS, is the high quantity of very low-quality movies
it has. I mean things you would not watch even if it was free. It makes it
impossible to really pick anything.

So in doubt and in paranoia, I would say that I have low trust for YTS.

~~~
libertine
>I was always curious why the website told me to register, felt very
suspicious. Some torrents are restricted to users, weirdly.

That was mostly to control ratios, and force people to seed torrents and stop
them from leeching (downloading and delete the torrent/not seed).

If you had a bad ratio, your access to seeds was also limited therefore the
speed at which you downloaded was capped.

Some trackers eventually started to monetize themselves by offering "premium
accounts" that would bypass the ratio, and allowed users to leech.

Mind that this is my knowledge from almost 20 years ago.

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deadalus
seedr.cc, bitport.io, zbigz.com, offcloud.com exist to solve exactly this
problem. Downloading openly from public trackers is extremely risky. Even
private trackers have been known to be monitored by DMCA agencies[0].

[0] :
[https://old.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/4iele6/empornium_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/4iele6/empornium_monitored_by_dmca_companies/)

~~~
xfer
How is giving your credit card to these companies any more secure? For all i
know they could be selling the user registration data with payment info to
some lawyer.

~~~
deadalus
You can use privacy.com or pay using Bitcoin.

