
The Pirate Bay's Anonymity Service Signs 100,000 Users Pre-Launch  - peter123
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/the-pirate-bays.html
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froo
The whole thing oozes irony.

Users are now paying for a service to "protect" them while they download
stuff, that they didn't want to pay for.

Not only have the RIAA and MPAA completely failed to slow down the
filesharers, their heavy handed tactics have provided a way for TPB to
monetise their services.

So in the end, which side does Hollywood think is going to win? before you
answer that I'll pose four more questions.

1) Are the number of filesharers increasing or decreasing?

2) Who's technology is evolving more rapidly, Hollywood or the P2P community?

3) Is it more convenient to go sit in a crowded cinema and pay for overpriced
tickets/popcorn/drinks, or click "download this torrent" ?

4) Do you really think users are concerned with respecting the copyrights of
studio's that glorify theft in their films? (eg Gone in 60 seconds, The
Italian Job, The Oceans 11 Films etc)

~~~
Celcius
The issue is far more complicated than just file sharing, the issue of file
sharing has simply brought the anonymizing services to light to the general
public. Sweden recently passed a law that lets our government perform targeted
mass surveillance and is in the process of passing data retention laws.
Essentially our government are bullying its people into civil disobedience.

Now all the studies and polls I've seen in Sweden since the file sharing
debate went mainstream a few years back is that people think file sharing for
personal use is ok and my own anecdotal experience suggest it's no longer
something you brush under the table it's something you do openly.

This is going on at the same time as the Cinemas in Sweden reported no loss in
ticket sales between 1997-2007 (also consider this is the time when home
cinema packages went mainstream) and SF the biggest cinema company reported
record ticket sales for 2009. This is in a country where virtually everyone
have access to at the least 24mbit DSL.

Personally I like going to the movies as does my friends, we see 3-10 movies a
year even though we take no moral issue with piracy and don't mind watching
movies on tiny 12" laptop screens when we feel like it. You go too the movies
for the experience it sort of like why would you go out and drink in a crowded
bar where you have to que for overpriced alcohol and possibly be hassled by
random drunks when you can have a party at home with whoever you like.

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eli
"100k Signed up for _mailing list_ about service" != "100k _signed up_ for the
fee-based service"

I signed up because I want to learn more, but I'm not planning on using it.

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paul7986
These countries need their own Hulu and other sites like it!

I never download anymore. Have no need, as 90% of the stuff I want to watch I
can stream. I can wait for the other 10 %.

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miracle
No need to protocol ips anymore, the police simply needs to raid all the
people paying for that service. :)

~~~
Celcius
It's not illegal to pay for an anonymizing service in most parts of the world
including Sweden.

~~~
eli
In fact, a cheap high-speed VPN is useful for plenty of legal purposes. If it
really costs only 5EUR a month, it's a reasonable way to secure your surfing
at a public cafe -- provided you trust TPB.

~~~
eru
Too bad, tor's latency makes it painful to use for daily browsing..

~~~
eli
I'd be more concerned about the extremely high likelihood that your tor exit
node is hostile and sniffing your traffic.

~~~
eru
That's not too much of a problem. Or at least it's not a problem that tor
pretends to solve. Once your traffic its out of the last node, it's considered
public anyway.

~~~
eli
Which makes it precisely terrible for the use case that started this thread --
safe surfing on public wifi.

It's _way_ more likely that a bad guy is sniffing traffic leaving his tor node
than there being a bad guy in the same cafe as you.

