You read that right.
In following with our decision to skip .torrent-files in the nearby future one of the biggest steps will come on the 29th of February. We will stop serving .torrent-files for all torrents that has has more than 10 peers from this date.
End of communication.
This was announced a little less than two weeks ago, but it's virtually coming off the heels of a virtual ban from the high court in the UK. Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde explains.
As for the deletion of torrent files, read the official forum post here.
*shrug* - BitTorrent is already searchable within BitTorrent. It's not like you need TPB, it just makes it a little easier to search for things with a web search engine.
We need to move the Web to a more p2p model, anyway. The server-client model lends itself to centralized control and regulation.
Clayton -
Well.. there is always Google...Often I find myself just googling torrents rather than searching on torrent search engines, hehe.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Clayton:BitTorrent is already searchable within BitTorrent. It's not like you need TPB, it just makes it a little easier to search for things with a web search engine.
Explain.
MaikU:Well.. there is always Google...Often I find myself just googling torrents rather than searching on torrent search engines, hehe.
Uh. And where do these results point to?
My understanding is that TPB lists torrents. You could use BitTorrent to discover torrents. TPB has a Web-based UI.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
Just download BitTorrent. There is a "search for Torrents" feature... you just type in the title of what you're looking for and it returns results like a search engine. The Pirate Bay just provides extras like detailed descriptions, user ratings, and so on. BT doesn't need any HTTP-based website in order to be searchable and to transfer files.
I kind of always knew about search bars like that (they are available as addons on browsers too)...but if they're so convenient and effective, why have so many people gone out of their way to use online sites...enough to make Torrent sites some of the highest ranked..ThePirateBay alone among the top 100 websites...in the world..?
The websites are easier and better, but you don't necessarily need them.
Does no one on this forum use private trackers? Using the BT client to search? Really? You might as well play a 360 with an old NES controller.
I haven't used pubbies in years . They are loaded with viruses, companies can track public torrents, as well as authorities, they have advertisments (the bane of my internet experience), etc. When Isohunt went down I knew that all of the public trackers would go the same way. Private trackers have to be "infiltrated" by authorities and even then, until they become ADMINs, they have severely limited information on the other users. And I've never had any kind of scare about losing them or anything of the sort.
@JJ: Don't get me wrong, it's definitely not good that TPB and these other torrent sites are being shut down through intimidation. Lots of people were using them. That said, it's not some kind of Red Alert for information freedom and does not represent any kind of big win by the Copyright Establishment. The takedown of Napster was a much bigger deal than this but even that just gave us a new generation of peer-to-peer sharing. I don't think it's even technologically feasible for them to take down BitTorrent (BT was designed with the lessons from Napster in mind, so the index is distributed) so that's why I rate these recent news stories as "shrug."
As I said, I think it will be good for us all if the Web moves to a more peer-to-peer model anyway and this will have the effect of incentivizing non-DNS-based browsing capability (i.e. "peer-to-peer Web")
In fact, I believe that this move is inevitable but it will be driven by data privacy not media-sharing. My prediction is that within twenty years, there will be no Web as we know it today. I predict that you won't access content through a "browser" that fetches passively formatted text/image data - also known as "web pages" - at all.
Instead, you're going to have dedicated "active networks" which package an entire user experience including video, audio, file-management and other OS-like capabilities and so on. You will have a "compute environment" that is like your desktop today except that you will be able to access it on your home desktop, on your smart-phone, on your laptop, etc. These active network compute environments will still be capable of fetching HTML pages from what used to be "the Web" and a few ancient websites will continue to cling on like the old BBS directories that are still around but the Web will no longer be the central focus. I also predict there will be an "open source active network" which will be the "Linux" of active networks. You might have a Microsoft active network, a Google active network, an Apple active network and so on, and these active networks will be able to talk to one another through various protocols but will generally be "walled off" from each other and from the open-source active network.
Bear in mind these are my private speculations, FWIW.
I don't think it's even technologically feasible for them to take down BitTorrent (BT was designed with the lessons from Napster in mind, so the index is distributed)
I'm pretty sure that torrents were the original way the internet was constructed. What we know today is where it developed over the last twenty years. BT is still too complicated for most who just use email, netflix, and google can figure out, tbh imo.
#4chan (iRC) used to be how i first started sharing things online. Mods for Half-Life and communication during gaming is what I used it for.
Your prediction sounds like what Google has stated their ambition to be with ChromeOS. It is not much of a prediction and it will come about way before 20 years. In 20 years computers will be unrecognizeable; quantum cores/atom processors and probably actual holographic screens because that is the only way 3D TV will be popular and not require glasses. In 3-5 years we will have the cloud based DNS structure that Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. have all said that they want and that is centralized the way that the government wants so that they can have effective police power over it.
Remember when Steve Jobs said he wanted computers to be "just devices" that were basically useless without a connection to the internet? That is the kind of data handling that I fear; complete control of digital distribution by the monied and political elite.
Our quandary is people seem to want privacy on the internet and want things for cheap or for free, but that is not the way it works. As long as IP is monetized through law, we will have privacy. When all information is free there will be no way to monetize it.
The tech industry knows this and is anticipating a calculated bottleneck of information distribution that they control. This way you are paying for their "services" rather than the content.
EDITED
Your predictio0n sounds like what Google has stated their ambition to be with ChromeOS. It is not much of a prediction and it will come about way before 20 years. In 20 years computers will be unrecognizeable. In 3-5 we will have the cloud based DNS structure that Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. have all said that they want.
The difference is that they each want to "take over" with their respective technological solution but it's not going to happen and - whether the Establishment likes it or not - an "open source" alternative to all of this will emerge.
Remember when Steve Jobs said he wanted computers to be "just devices" that were basically useless without a connection to the internet? That is the kind of data handling that I fear.
The Apple model cannot scale. A hardware device becomes exponentially more useful the more devices it can connect to/communicate with. The big corporate players want everything to be "standardized" so they can use technology to enforce the corporate model (small players have to beg and pay off the big players if they want to play the game).
But contrary to the PR, the purpose of standardization is to make compliant hardware work with fewer other devices... "non-standard" devices. HDMI is the perfect model of this... the idea is that HDMI devices can only talk to other HDMI devices so that content doesn't "leak" out of the HDMI ecosystem. Apple's business model is built on the segregation of Apple hardware - it makes their devices an attractive market for IP companies but it also makes cripples the the capacity of their devices to interconnect with other non-Apple devices.
To a certain extent, I think this tension is always going to be there. IP producers will always want to sell into closed-ecosystems and consumers will always prefer to buy "open platform" hardware, all things equal.
Our quandary is people seem to want privacy on the internet, but want things for cheap or for free, but that is not the way it works. As long as IP is monetized through law, we will have privacy. When all information is free there will be no way to monetize it.
That is because information is inherently non-scarce once it is published (copying is virtually zero cost in the digital age).
I agree that strong privacy is not compatible with a "free internet" - Google is the perfect example of this kind of information lure... they're offering you all these free Gigabytes but they provide no client-side encryption. They want people to upload everything but how can you upload credit card, financial statements, legal documents, private photos, business plans and so on in plaintext?? Only the total morons will fall for it. The simple fact is that the current solutions being offered are not even close to what people want. The Establishment wants a trusted server (server-side security) model but only an untrusted server/peer-to-peer (client-side encryption) model is going to satisfy consumer demand.
They cannot control the distribution of private information. You and I might be talking past each other here but I don't see any winning end game strategy for the telcos/Establishment in terms of ubiquitous surveillance. In fact, that's why I think the intelligence services have set up the big lures (YouTube, Facebook, Google, etc.) because they want to lull people into a sense that they don't need client-side encryption. The intelligence services understand that if people start demanding tools that automate the lockdown of their private data (e.g. TrueCrypt), widespread digital surveillance will go the way of the dinosaurs.
As far as media distribution goes, it's the flip side of the same coin. If they can't implement widespread surveillance of private data, they can't filter it, either. And if they can't filter the data, they have no control over what people transfer between each other. It's like if the Vatican was trying to block all heretical manuscripts but then everybody started writing 100% of everything encrypted. The only way to stop the heretical texts is to simply stop all information transfers whatsoever. Either that, or ban encryption... aka "use a random number, go to jail." But then there's always steganography and protocol encryption.
Clayton:[...] The only way to stop the heretical texts is to simply stop all information transfers whatsoever. Either that, or ban encryption... aka "use a random number, go to jail." [...]
Which is where I think that we are heading, at least in the USA. It will be just like when guards at check points in Nazi Germany would ask, "your papers, please." But in this case, it will be software checking to see that a user is allowed to transfer data (over a network) to another user.
Btw, have you considered making a thread on computer privacy?
I'm not sure about this. Just as the banks came together for the Fed Res Act, despite their competitive nature, the tech giants and government will too and do so to produce a cloud based DNS that they all base operations from. You're right there will always be hostility and competition for market dominance, but at what is the question. If Google Chrome OS becomes the norm, you will have no way to transmit data from you "devices" without the cloud knowing. You are maybe more optimistic than I about a "final solution" for internet liberty, but so far private trackers have done exactly what you are saying.
The Apple model cannot scale. A hardware device becomes exponentially more useful the more devices it can connect to/communicate with. The big corporate players want everything to be "standardized" so they can use technology to enforce the corporate model (small players have to beg and pay off the big players if they want to play the game). But contrary to the PR, the purpose of standardization is to make compliant hardware work with fewer other devices... "non-standard" devices. HDMI is the perfect model of this... the idea is that HDMI devices can only talk to other HDMI devices so that content doesn't "leak" out of the HDMI ecosystem. Apple's business model is built on the segregation of Apple hardware - it makes their devices an attractive market for IP companies but it also makes cripples the the capacity of their devices to interconnect with other non-Apple devices.
That is not exactly what I was referring to. I meant the distribution method of iTunes, et al. You are right in this instance, but Apple already dropped "Mac" from the title of their OS in anticipation of playing ball with third party developers, just as they caved for chip production to intel and AMD years ago. Their caving was a necessary consequence of the flaws you point out.
HDMI? You mean blutooth or something? HDMI is a video/sound i/o format...It does work with all kinds of things as it is a universally recognized type of bus connection. It is almost like USB (Universal Serial Bus). OOoohh, you were referring to HDCP. I remember graphics companies pushing the benefits of that a few years ago. I had no idea that HDMI was an attempt at security... Was DVI? Or optical? or VGA?? Can I tape things with FRAPS at full res on some HDMI transmitted data?
If this was true, would we be where we are today? These gigantic companies that are trying to close off competition are loved by people, idolized by some. I prefer to buy 'open platform' things. This is why I have a PC and not a PS3. No chip developer is going to sue me for modify my machine for my own ends, no matter how nefarious they may or may nor be.
Agreed. And this has far reaching consequences.
They cannot control the distribution of private information. You and I might be talking past each other here but I don't see any winning end game strategy for the telcos/Establishment in terms of ubiquitous surveillance. In fact, that's why I think the intelligence services have set up the big lures (YouTube, Facebook, Google, etc.) because they want to lull people into a sense that they don't need client-side encryption. The intelligence services understand that if people start demanding tools that automate the lockdown of their private data (e.g. TrueCrypt), widespread digital surveillance will go the way of the dinosaurs. As far as media distribution goes, it's the flip side of the same coin. If they can't implement widespread surveillance of private data, they can't filter it, either. And if they can't filter the data, they have no control over what people transfer between each other. It's like if the Vatican was trying to block all heretical manuscripts but then everybody started writing 100% of everything encrypted. The only way to stop the heretical texts is to simply stop all information transfers whatsoever. Either that, or ban encryption... aka "use a random number, go to jail." But then there's always steganography and protocol encryption.
They cannot control the distribution of private information, this is true, but private person's data is more of a marketing tool to them and is not where my point was directed. I was addressing their commercial production and sales thereof. I agree with your sentiments regarding surveillance and user initiated encryption methods, but the average internet user will not go that far. They don't read the EULA's; they don't care.
As far as media distribution goes, it's the flip side of the same coin. If they can't implement widespread surveillance of private data, they can't filter it, either. And if they can't filter the data, they have no control over what people transfer between each other.
As for commercial information...If people move away from direct control over the files they very well may lose control of distribution. People are already comfortable with paying for streaming video/music (netflix, spodify), they will be lulled into thinking that their laptops and tablets aren't useful or that hard drives are a thing of the past. The worst thing for commercial digital distribution is unknown demand (lost profits to them) because of private distribution of pirated files. The future on the cloud network: Files as contraband.
This is where they would like to head but, frankly, I truly believe it is impossible. The problem is that there is simply too much economic inertia behind secure data transfer. I work for one of the largest tech firms (100k employees, $50B annual revenue) and when US Customs seized a laptop of some guy crossing into Canada a couple years ago, our IT department rolled out full hard-disk encryption in less than a month. Bear in mind that this is a gigantic, slow corporation where even simple things like getting your chair replaced in your cubicle can take weeks because of the bureaucratic red tape. But they rolled out full hard disk encryption on 100,000+ systems in less than one month... from zero-to-sixty. I was amazed.
And we haven't even mentioned VPNs. Most large corporations and many other entities operate a VPN (a fully encrypted, digital channel over an unsecured network, often the Internet). SSH is also common among the technical community (software engineering, universities, etc.) I'm not saying any of these are a magic wand or that they are unbreakable by the intelligence services - my point is that they have become an integral part of the economic and legal order (a corporation transferring legal documents or personal data over the Internet without protection of a VPN could be opening itself up to lawsuit for gross negligence in data security). As much as the Establishment hates the idea of simply not being able to get at your data no-way no-how, I think that the smarter people in the Establishment have realized that it's not a hill worth dying on.
Security is a holistic problem so they don't need to prohibit people from using encryption, they simply need to lure them into making other mistakes, like leaving their life's history on their Gmail account including names, numbers, addresses, pet names, and so on. If they want to crack your password, a subpoena of your Gmail account will make that a lot easier since most people tend to choose passwords that have some significance so they'll remember them. This is why I use completely random passwords - I use a system to generate pronounceable random passwords so they can be remembered verbally... it's no more difficult than learning a new phrase in a foreign language. I also use PasswordSafe so I only have to remember one really long password.
On the subject of privacy/security.
1) I'm not a security professional. Bruce Schneier is.
2) But I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about security issues.
3) The most important principle of security is that everything matters. You can have a 6-inch thick steel front-door but if an attacker can simply drive his Ford pickup through the sheetrock walls, what good is the door? Securing one thing while leaving everything else insecure is possibly even more dangerous than having no security at all. At least you know you're insecure if you have no security but flawed security systems can leave you believing you are secure when you are not.
4) The next most important principle of security is the principle of secrecy. If you have a big long password but to remember it you have to write it on a sticky note and you leave the sticky note in your top drawer, your password is useless because it is not secret. An attacker can simply rifle through your drawers, happen upon your password and unlock whatever the password protects.
The ultimate secrets are those that are stored in your brain. Keeping secrets secret against a determined attacker is very hard. If you type your password on a keyboard, he may have installed a key-logger, or he might have sensitive RF equipment that can pick up the trace RF signals coming off your keyboard or he might be monitoring the fluctuations in electrical power outside your house (yes, this is theoretically possible), and so on. The old CRT monitors threw off huge RF signals that could be used to reproduce the image remotely... that white van parked outside your house could very well be the NSA with extremely sensitive electrical equipment watching your every move on your computer screen.
Then there are trojans like the FBI's Carnivore and before that Magic Lantern. These are keylogging software. Or, if they do a sneak and peek under the PATRIOT Act, they might install one of those cute little USB interposers (you can actually buy them commercially) that simply logs every keystroke coming from the keyboard; completely undetectable by anti-virus software.
The rabbit hole goes as deep as you're willing to go. What matters is not the minutiae of the cat-and-mouse game between measures and counter-measures but a sound understanding of the principle of secrecy. Is it possible by any means for an attacker to come to know your password? The answer is almost certainly yes unless you're Edward Lyle (Gene Hackman) from the movie Enemy of the State. It's just a matter of thinking hard enough about it.
5) A good security solution that you will follow with discipline is better than a "perfect" security that is too burdensome. This is a corrolary to point 3 above - everything matters, even your human foibles. Better to choose a good password and change it regularly than have an unbreakable password that you never change because it takes so long to remember a new one that it's not worth the trouble.
6) Identity has nothing to do with security even though popular discussion of security issues frequently confuses identity with security. Schneier talks about this principle at length in many of his blog posts. The government touts new ID cards for "increased security"; "security companies" try to peddle their latest thumb- or retina-scanner as a panacea for all security needs.
The trouble is that all identification systems involve some kind of attestation which can be forged. As brutal as it sounds, a thumb- or retina-scanner will not stop a determined attacker from inducing the owner of the retina or thumb to place it on the scanner on pain of separation of the body part of interest from its owner. You might as well install a lock and tape the key above it with a note: "To All Bad Guys: Please Do Not Use the Key. Thanks, Mgt".
Thumbprints are also fairly easy to lift from any smooth surface, it's just a matter of getting hold of an object which has been touched by someone whose thumbprint you need to counterfeit.
7) Along the lines of point 5, I think that the most urgent thing that most people need to think about is the behavioral component of their security. Do you shred documents with financial/personal data on them? If your bank account is wiped out by crooks, it will be difficult to pay for the encryption software to keep your data secure. Everything matters. But don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
Most people really don't need to worry about government spying. Military grade encryption is a waste of effort. Your greatest threats lie closer to home. A vindictive ex-wife is probably a much greater security threat than the anything that the US government will ever do to you. I'm a fairly strict believer that PINs and passwords should be kept private even between spouses and family members, just to keep things simple. It also reduces the potential for accidental security compromises.
If you're engaging in some kind of high-risk behavior such as black-market buying and selling or secreting money off to tax-havens or whatever, you need to start thinking on a much higher level of security unless you like prison. You're playing in the big leagues and security takes on a whole new dimension... even your parents, siblings, friends, wife and children are a security threat in the sense that they can be threatened (yes, they can be) in order to force you to divulge what they want to know. What encryption product you are using on your laptop somehow doesn't compare. Everything matters.
8) The Establishment is generally not too worried about the worst-case-scenario security obstacles (the lone nut with the unbreakable encryption). Rather, they are worried about preventing the widespread adoption of even moderately effective security. That's why I wrote this blog post some time back proposing a "Widespread Surveillance Resistant Email Protocol." So, I see a pretty big distinction between the privacy cause and individual privacy. Individual privacy is actually very attainable with some fairly moderate measures provided you aren't in the high-risk category mentioned above because the government isn't surveilling in depth, they're surveilling in breadth, looking for patterns. If you're not making patterns, you don't have much to worry about from the Big Boys.
But you still need security from private actors and they're much easier to defeat. Just TrueCrypt your main hard drive and you're done.
Clayton:[...] Most people really don't need to worry about government spying. Military grade encryption is a waste of effort. Your greatest threats lie closer to home. A vindictive ex-wife is probably a much greater security threat than the anything that the US government will ever do to you. I'm a fairly strict believer that PINs and passwords should be kept private even between spouses and family members, just to keep things simple. It also reduces the potential for accidental security compromises. [...]
Good point. I think that for pretty much everyone, data loss and theft is much is a much more important issue than the government going after someone's data (at least for now). You don't want to lose your inventory and bookkeeping files or have someone steal your product roadmap.
Also, I'm amazed at how many high school and college students trust their BF/GF/BBFs with their Facebook, etc. passswords. One small fight over girl and next thing you know, your sexual preference on FB goes from "women" to "men".
Any suggestions on software to encrypt communication (email, SMS, IM, etc.)?
Unfortunately, there still aren't any really great easy-to-use solutions after all these years. I think the intelligence services are doing an excellent job trying to keep the demand for such solutions low in order to reduce the likelihood that they emerge. PGP was a response, in part, to a proposal during the Clinton years to install a V-chip in every communications device that would permit the government to "tap" into any digital communication. The Establishment went into a frenzy when PGP hit the streets. They even tried throwing Zimmerman into Federal prison for "nuclear treaty violations" of all things!
Since then, they have been much more careful. There have been no new "V-chip" style proposals. When the NSA tapped the Cisco Internet backbone (about a third of all Internet traffic goes through this particular backbone) under the Bush administration, it was kept hush-hush. To this day, most Americans don't know about it even though it made the national news once and the telcos remain protected from liability by the PATRIOT Act. The program is certainly still around and bigger than ever.
I've used a chat encryption called Pidgin once. It worked. I've used PGP for emails. It works but it's a bit klunky. Other than that, I don't really have any suggestions.
Clayton:@JJ: Don't get me wrong, it's definitely not good that TPB and these other torrent sites are being shut down through intimidation.
Where did you get the idea that TPB was getting shut down?
Lots of people were using them.
Were?
(Bear in mind the URL was switched to ".se" from ".org" within the last month, so you have to look at the last 7 days or so. Just in case you miss it, the ranking is 70. As in, 70 out of [the World Wide Web].)
I don't think it's even technologically feasible for them to take down BitTorrent
I think you're missing the point. The entire reason this thread exists is because the owners of TPB are ensuring that you're right.
Clayton:Most people really don't need to worry about government spying. Military grade encryption is a waste of effort. Your greatest threats lie closer to home. A vindictive ex-wife is probably a much greater security threat than the anything that the US government will ever do to you. I'm a fairly strict believer that PINs and passwords should be kept private even between spouses and family members, just to keep things simple. It also reduces the potential for accidental security compromises.
Now there's something I never thought I would have seen coming from that user.
"Does no one on this forum use private trackers? "
I wonder what you mean. I thought some of those got closed. And you also have to find a way to join, which is not easy, and upload a lot of things to keep your ratio up. It's not as easy as the public torrents. but if there is something I've never heard of, I'd like to hear about it.
It's rather to easy to shut down any file sharing service without any legal process: DoS the servers/clients. Corporate execs are apparently too stupid to figure this out. So, instead of spending, say, $100 on a set of dynamic IPs they spend $1m lobbying for useless statutes.
Clayton, what would be your P2P internet solution when the transmission lines are owned by ISPs?
Just to clarify some information about .torrents and Magnet Links. Yes, The Pirate Bay will stop hosting .torrent files, but they will be shifting towards using only Magnet Links.
Magnet links are just a unique hash to that specific content/file, which can then allow you to find a file in a completely decentralized way throughout the network.
A dumbed down version, but covers the general idea:
What a .torrent file does:
- Stores information about all of the filenames
- Lengths of each file
- Hash of every single piece (lets say every 512 KB), so the client can check to make sure no parts are corrupted.
- Tracker information (a server which stores peer information).
You ask the tracker "who do you know is sharing this file?" And you get a list of peers.
What a Magnet Link does:
- Stores a hash of the each file.
What happens with a Magnet Link is you will send the unique hash out to your fellow peers, and ask "are you sharing this file, or does anyone you know share this file." They will ask their peers, and on and on. Once you find someone sharing the file, you will recieve all of the important information (everything that used to be stored in a .torrent).
One of the only disadvantages is a slower startup speed (since you have to wait for replies).
Besides that, everything will be the same, and you will not be dependant upon the servers (Trackers) telling you who to connect to in order to download the file.
Tex2002ans:Just to clarify some information about .torrents and Magnet Links. Yes, The Pirate Bay will stop hosting .torrent files, but they will be shifting towards using only Magnet Links.
They're not "shifting" to anything. The magnet links have always been there. They're just removing all the torrent files (with more than 10 peers). Just like the title of the thread and the OP says.
But thanks for basically copying everything that's said in the forum link provided in the OP.
Do you have any tips for avoiding the IP trolls when using BitTorrent? I've learned to avoid TV/movies/music. I only download e-books and comics. It's been okay so far, but if there is a simple measure which would improve security I would appreciate it.
Is it usually the original "providers" of content who get busted, or the seeders too?
Scrooge McDuck:Do you have any tips for avoiding the IP trolls when using BitTorrent? I've learned to avoid TV/movies/music. I only download e-books and comics. It's been okay so far, but if there is a simple measure which would improve security I would appreciate it.
How exactly did you "learn" to avoid the very things torrents are actually best for? Did you get sued or something?
If you're that paranoid, just force encryption on all your transmissions, use an IP blocker (and a normal firewall), proxies if you can, and ultimately, an IP not registered to yourself.
How the hell would anyone be able to determine who was the original "provider" of the material?
I have read numerous instances of people getting warning letters from their ISPs. Especially regarding HBO programming. How do you enable encryption on your transmissions? I looked through preferences but didn't see anything. By original providers I mean those that put up files on BitTorrent and/or make the posts containing said files.
What client do you use? Just do a websearch for that client's name and "encryption"
John Ess: "Does no one on this forum use private trackers? " I wonder what you mean. I thought some of those got closed. And you also have to find a way to join, which is not easy, and upload a lot of things to keep your ratio up. It's not as easy as the public torrents. but if there is something I've never heard of, I'd like to hear about it.
Private trackers are same public trackers just only require registration. No need to keep ratio up or anything else. I know a very useful method to download anything from a tracker without it seeing the amount of data I downloaded. The trick is very simple if you use uTorrent: just remove the tracker instantly (or when you get enough peers and speed) from your uTorrent client when you start downloading a file from it. That's it. I personally didn't believe it so had to "investigate", but yeah, it seems to work just great. So here we go :)
Doesn't matter who owns the lines, if my traffic is encrypted, they don't know what I'm sending/receiving so they can't filter it.
The trick is very simple if you use uTorrent: just remove the tracker instantly (or when you get enough peers and speed) from your uTorrent client when you start downloading a file from it.
That kind of defeats the purpose...
"
Clayton -"
Until they block what they cannot analyze. :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A
@Wibee: There's too much economic inertia for them to do that. Every major corporation in the world uses VPNs and so do many other private individuals and organizations. The government simply cannot peer into this traffic but it represents an incalculable amount of economic activity.
And then there's always steganography. Steganographic software can invisibly embed data anywhere... photos, audio, video, PDF or text documents, you name it. This is a game that does not end well for the Establishment and the smart ones in the Establishment figured that out a long time ago. That's why they're more interested in luring you onto Gmail and Facebook where they can spy on you and compromise your privacy in other ways than trying to break unbreakable codes.
What do you use for email, Clayton?