
Free Anonymous BitTorrent Becomes Reality With BitBlinder  - peter123
http://torrentfreak.com/free-anonymous-bittorrent-becomes-reality-with-bitblinder-090611/
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jrockway
Apparently the MPAA and RIAA never watched Star Wars:

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip
through your fingers."

(And yes, I know that Star Wars is not the original source of this sentiment.)

The most amusing part about all of this is that the MPAA and RIAA "crackdown"
and prosecution of file sharers has forced them to develop technology that is
nearly impossible to monitor. Terrorists and child pornographers (+) are
infinitely grateful. If nobody got sued for downloading albums, this would
probably have not been necessary. Ah, corporations and governments... always
thinking about society's best interests...

(+) Yes, I chose these two so that I could sound like a politician. jrockway
for President.

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tjmc
_"Acting as an exit node provides the operator with plausible deniability,
since they will have no idea what data is passing through."_

This is a weak defence at best and a huge risk to whoever acts as an end node.
What if someone further up the chain is downloading child pornography? Do you
really want to be protecting their IP, relaying their traffic and sending your
own IP in the clear?

~~~
azanar
I suspect you would probably make the same argument about being a Tor
endpoint.

Given that Tor has been available for a while, are there examples of
maintainers of Tor end nodes being held accountable for the traffic they pass
on behalf of others?

This seems bred the same philosophy as holding an ISP accountable for the
traffic of its customers, or holding the administrator of 4chan accountable
for what is posted on there. It seems tenuous.

Maybe I'm missing something. How many jurisdictions are there now where an
unknowing facilitator can be held accountable for the criminal acts of those
he is facilitating?

Either way, I'm not fond of this philosophy of scaring everyone into the clear
simply to avoid gruesome labeling.

~~~
swombat
There was an example of one guy having the police come to his house and seize
his computers, before eventually returning them. Needless to say, he was shit-
scared that his neighbours would find out that he was suspected of child
pornography (though of course he was not guilty). His account was posted here
some 6 months ago or so.

I think it's a matter of numbers, though. If TOR (or equivalent) was as
popular as BT, even the police would realise it is pointless.

~~~
sdfx
This is the post you are talking about:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=526140>

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chaosmachine
It seems this is just an ratio-enforced version of TOR, with the added
downside of having a single point of failure (the ratio tracking company).

"it will also be possible to buy ‘upload credit’ to use BitBlinder"

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dbul
The guys behind this are from the Winter/Spring 2009 AlphaLab batch (as
Innomi.net):

<http://www.alphalab.org/meet_our_companies.aspx>

Informative: [http://startuppittsburgh.com/2009/05/innominet-interview-
abo...](http://startuppittsburgh.com/2009/05/innominet-interview-about-
bitblinder/)

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paul9290
Why would anyone want to use this?

FOr me it's 2009 and most the things I want digitally are available online
legally to enjoy (music, tv shows, some movies). The only reason you would use
this is so you can feel totally safe downloading things you would have
otherwise had to pay for. Why do you need to feel safe are you worried about
getting caught? Maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place!

I'm reformed as I stole, downloaded and horded everything via edonkey and bit
torrent. Reformed after running my own startup and now having access to most
things i want to enjoy freely and legally online to stream.

~~~
crocowhile
_Reformed after running my own startup and now having access to most things i
want to enjoy freely and legally online to stream._

Is nice to hear you can afford to buy legally everything you like but I think
those who endorse P2P and sharing they do that especially because they see it
as a way for less wealthy people to access information.

I think your opinion is very similar to the one of the discographic industry
when they say that every CD you download is a CD that you don't buy.

~~~
vollmond
I don't think that's what he was saying. I think he's talking about services
such as Grooveshark and Hulu.

 _having access to most things i want to enjoy freely and legally online to
stream._

