

Filesharing site revealed to be anti-piracy ‘honeypot’ - stephenaturner
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/25/filesharing-site-anti-piracy-honeypot-uploadertalk-user-data?CMP=ema_632&et_cid=53911&et_rid=steve@stephen-turner.net&Linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.theguardian.com%2ftechnology%2f2013%2foct%2f25%2ffilesharing-site-anti-piracy-honeypot-uploadertalk-user-data

======
Surio
From the comments section of that article:

Original Permalink to the comment:

[http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-
permalink/28303586](http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-
permalink/28303586)

>> This wasn't a "high-profile" website! Do some research! Alexa ranks these
cowboys as being the 234,734th most popular website on the 'net.

This was a small time site, this is a small time outfit who are trying to get
into the anti-piracy business by using a nothing site who nobody used to
generate news (and business). Congratulations on being duped!

[http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-
permalink/28303653](http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-
permalink/28303653)

>> I have a blog (no I'm not telling you the address, I like to post
anonymously!), it gets about 300-500 hits a day, I'm 299,749th on alexa btw.
So this "high profile" website you just generated a nothing story about gets,
at most, about 1000 hits per day. Real big time!

~~~
ma2rten
Maybe it's not so much that the site was high profile, but the people on it.
Also it may the case that people, who are into warez don't have Alexa toolbar
installed.

~~~
Surio
Oh. I know where you are coming from and do understand what you mention. And
someone on the comments in guardian made this point too, and one response for
that, that I liked was:

Original: [http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-
permalink/28303485](http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-
permalink/28303485)

(I am also attaching the entire long-ishly written comment here for retaining
a cogency to the discussion, that link hopping might disrupt)

 __ _Comment_ __

Except... this will get people at the bottom of the food chain. The type of
people who upload to web based download sites without proxying are likely to
be school kids, people with limited technical knowledge (splitting a large
file up in winrar really doesn 't count as being technically proficient!), who
want to share a movie with their family/friends, or people who use websites
who index these sort of things (in the vague belief they are immune to the
law, but facilitating piracy is now an offence), and offer people who upload
additional privileges.

They distribute to very few people (compared to say bittorrent). No big fish
are being fried in this action. No release groups will be caught. Few (if any)
mass-uploaders will be caught.

This is a cheap sideshow in which a bunch of nobodies get a bunch of ACS Law
type letters demanding somewhere approaching (or above) £1k to avoid criminal
action, and those who fight it will likely find the case dropped (there are so
many untested defences, and nobody wants to test them. If the defence of
"wasn't me gov, my router got hacked" became a valid defence, everyone for
eternity would welcome their day in court and use the same defence!).

People share on the internet, either ideas, opinions (even in comments like
this), music, movies, etc. That's how people are. You have to remember that
before big (or even small!) business arrived on the web and made trillions,
people were already here, on the internet or (pre-web) on bulletin boards;
sharing "stuff". Not just other people's ideas and inventions, but writing
entire applications and even protocols. The web itself was based (and became
successful) on this very idea of sharing, being unregulated and being free.

We are a social race and we like to share the things we like with others, and
the internet is the perfect platform for us to do that.

Obviously that cannot be allowed to happen unfettered, or the major movie and
games industries will be wiped out (there has to be seen to be some control,
but they'd have to shut down most of he internet to wipe out piracy. It will
always happen, no matter how many "honeypot" sites and bit-torrent tracking
companies are running).

If internet bandwidth (to the home) continues to grow at the current pace then
there will be real problems in 10/15 years. You could download every album
that was EVER in the charts in less than an hour (you can already download
group discographies in under an hour, even ones who kicked out A LOT of
music). You could download a studio's entire back catalogue of movies in less
than a day (100s of films, every day!). Rather than making the "piracy funds
terrorism" crap and suing people for 10s and even 100s of thousand of dollars
(these cases have mostly happened in the US), they could embrace technology.

Despite all the negative numbers and constant deluge of misinformation we are
being sold (as a lie - enough is never enough in this world!), game sales,
music sales and movie sales (or sales of movie services) have NEVER been
higher than they are now, and we are still on an upward trajectory.

Many (most?) people who can afford movies/games/music (and maybe we should add
books to that) will pay for digital copies, or access to digital
rentals/services, as long as the price is right and the service is good.

Steam (a service for legally downloading PC games - which were on the edge of
dying out because of mass-piracy) now has an estimated 70% of the market/$4
Billion market share. Founder Gabe Newell famously said:

 _In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy.
Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For
example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7,
purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal
provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months
after the U.S. release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store,
then the pirate 's service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the
value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by
creating uncertainty_

------
shitlord
CAUTION: if you follow links from that article, prepare yourself for some
extremely fucked up shit. I was wondering how CashWhore doxxed so many people,
so I followed the link to WJunction, then clicked on one of the threads. There
was a link to a site with young girls without much clothing. I had to close my
browser immediately. Just wanted to put that out there, if anyone is browsing
from work or doesn't have a strong stomach.

~~~
tluyben2
No adblock installed? It's just a one-of-many-of-its-kind boring forum when I
clicked on the link?

Also; fucked up shit; I guess you are talking about 'normal' modern porn?
Where they let 20somethings look like 16-18? Or it is something else / worse?

~~~
shitlord
I have adblock. I went to the forum and clicked on a 'technical support'
thread to see what kind of things people were using.

What I saw was not that 'normal' stuff. It was clearly prepubescent and sexual
in nature.

------
dexen
Looks like a failed publicity stunt to me, borderline link farm. There's
hardly any posts on this forum -- a mere hundred threads spread over dozen
sub-forums, plus a bot-populated "News" section. No telling how much of the
threads are just seed posts by forum founders. Moreover, polls -- a popular
fixture of forums -- seem deserted.

Any damage dealt to piracy scene will be minimal, and the `NukePiracy LLC'
will soon be forgotten.

------
tomphoolery
> Where Real Uploaders Meet

This slogan reads like a bad dating site

~~~
phyalow
More of a Freudian slip I thought.

------
digitailor
I'm confused by this. This guy has publicly admitted, in detail, that he
started a site specifically in order to facilitate copyright infringement.
Regardless of his view of his own "intention", this is a violation. He's
enabled piracy and has stated his specific intent to do so, and he is not a
government agent.

What if someone started a club where drugs were sold and then publicly
announced a year later that is why they started the club? Except it was
supposed to be a citizen's sting operation? And he was trying to get a payout
from the feds by providing information? Does he think that provides immunity?
My guess is they'd nail him to the wall while laughing at him.

Hasn't this guy opened himself up to legal action, both governmental and
private, by his statements? He has stated publicly that he enabled "illegal"
activities IN ORDER TO MAKE A PROFIT.

What about Nuke Piracy's complicence through acquisition?

On another note, that is in no way an analysis or conversation starter, or
even constructive: what a prick.

------
drill_sarge
>A high-profile file-sharing site

I have never heard of that site and after looking at it, it really looks like
a shitty scam site for dummies.

------
wavesounds
“I work for Nuke Piracy now, this is very bad for anyone profiting from
piracy,” proclaimed WDF.

Except WDF really did profit from piracy by literally selling everyone else
out. Ironic.

------
blackdogie
Aside : Did anyone notice that stephen's email address is hidden in the URL.
These analytics tracking programs should really anonymize things a bit better.

------
moistgorilla
I can't help but laugh. I always joke with my irc buds that we are chatting in
a NSA honeypot. Maybe it's actually true? lol I think I'm actually
disillusioned now. Just another example of why you should never put
information you wouldn't want someone to know on the internet.

~~~
krapp
Ironically, it turns out the entire internet is an NSA honeypot.

~~~
galenko
Why else would they listen in to the majority of the Internet traffic? That's
like the whole point.

iPhone phones home with its location? NSA's most likely listening.

Googled for something naughty? NSA's most likely listening.

Chatting on an open Internet Relay Chat server? Yup.

------
erkose
I don't think a "honeypot" is protected by law for any criminal activity it
engages in.

------
frank_boyd
Don't want to risk downloading from a honeypot?

Download encrypted and anonymously (from friends-of-friends-of-friends-of-
friends-of... you get the picture):
[http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/](http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/)

