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Author Topic: MegaUpload  (Read 5715 times)

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patito

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #60 on: February 01, 2012, 07:42:16 PM »

I'm having flashbacks to dogstar getting people fired here. Don't be a dogstar, Büge.
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Büge

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #61 on: February 01, 2012, 09:22:49 PM »

You're right. I was just acting childish. Fixed it.
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Thad

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #62 on: February 06, 2012, 07:58:04 AM »

btjunkie shuts down.

Curious where it'll all go from here.  Pirate Bay has made it abundantly clear that it isn't going down without a fight.

If Big Content continues to target torrent trackers, magnets are going to become more common.  If Big Content continues to target torrent search engines, I suspect we'll see more spring up overseas, but I also think pirates don't honestly need dedicated torrent repos; it's easy enough to find a torrent with Google.

Usenet continues to be an easy and convenient source for piracy.  It's not as big a target for Hollywood, but it's seen some big shutdowns in the past couple years too -- sites like newzbin and tvnzb.
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Mongrel

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #63 on: February 06, 2012, 08:05:50 AM »

... what's a magnet? (ICP joke goes here, I guess)

<-- has not bothered to torrent anything in literally years.
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Thad

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #64 on: February 06, 2012, 08:09:17 AM »

Magnet links though are just links, they have no files associated with them just data. The links are an evolving URI standard developed primarily to be used by p2p networks. They differ from URLs, for example, in that they don't hold information on the location of a resource but rather on the content of the file or files to which they link. Technically, magnet links are made up of a series of parameters containing various data in no particular order. In the case of BitTorrent, they hold the hash value of the torrent which is then used to locate copies of the files among the peers. They may also hold file name data or links to trackers used by the torrent. You can check out the entry on Wikipedia for a more detailed technical description.

With magnet links, BitTorrent indexers don't have to store any file at all, just a few snippets of data leaving the individual client apps to do all the heavy lifting. In fact, magnet links can be copy-pasted as plain text by users and shared via email, IM or any other medium.
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Mongrel

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #65 on: February 06, 2012, 08:50:13 AM »

Huh. Well, it figures that sharing information - a basic component of the internet's raw functionality - is pretty robust.
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Thad

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #66 on: February 06, 2012, 08:56:32 AM »

Yeah, and Stross had this to share in a recent SOPA discussion on what will replace DNS if DNS takedowns/blacklists actually become a standard tool:

The smart money is on some kind of distributed peer-to-peer database that dereferences some sort of hierarchical naming convention to return IP addresses, and that isn't called DNS and doesn't run on the same port and that doesn't have a single root that provides a point of control.

Ahem.
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Brentai

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #67 on: February 06, 2012, 10:15:13 AM »

So basically my social backend isn't as fanciful as I thought?
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Thad

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #68 on: February 06, 2012, 10:30:40 AM »

That's what she said.
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Zaratustra

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #69 on: February 06, 2012, 10:33:50 AM »

Yeah, the torrent systems we use now are just the surface of what can be done to decentralize the internet. It just hasn't been cost-efficient to replace DNS with a less centralized alternative until now.

I guess my personal position on the issue is a bit complicated. I don't care about piracy, but I do care about the piracy industry - all the crime groups making money off bootleg DVDs and douchebags like Kim Dotcom. The problem is that piracy inevitably begets a piracy industry. I don't know how to solve this.

Thad

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #70 on: February 06, 2012, 10:55:36 AM »

That's a really excellent summary and one that I think most people would agree with.

I DO think it's possible, and reasonable, to go after the Kim Dotcoms of the world -- they're doing it right now.

But there are two problems: one, the next Kim Dotcom can just set up shop in a country that won't be so friendly to US takedown efforts, and two, the next Kim Dotcom might be smart enough not to leave an E-Mail trail decisively proving that he knew about pirated content and didn't take it down.

SOPA's backers had the right instinct in going after the money and trying to cut off the revenue sources for piracy sites.  But of course virtually everything about the actual IMPLEMENTATION proposed by SOPA was dead fucking wrong.

There's also the nontrivial problem that, as far as the TV networks are concerned, there's no difference between MegaUpload and YouTube.  And actually carving out a legal distinction is tricky too -- it's reasonable to assume that YouTube has a higher percentage of legal content than MU did, but I'm not sure there are any reliable statistics on the subject.  And aside from that, there's the perceived reputability of Google, and, again, the fact that they don't have a massive trail of E-Mails compromising their safe harbor protection.

I'm not entirely opposed to prosecution.  But I think it needs to be framed as a never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole in which it's probably a good idea to be very selective about which moles to whack.
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Mongrel

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #71 on: February 06, 2012, 11:22:21 AM »

Yeah, that's exactly the thing. A fat german kid who started out as a script kiddie may flaunt it, but some Kazakh mafioso will probably quietly snicker his way to the bank.

Also, I think future Kim Dotcoms have now figured out that having ANY servers in a US jurisdiction is a bad idea.
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Pacobird

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #72 on: February 06, 2012, 03:52:45 PM »

I guess my personal position on the issue is a bit complicated. I don't care about piracy, but I do care about the piracy industry - all the crime groups making money off bootleg DVDs and douchebags like Kim Dotcom. The problem is that piracy inevitably begets a piracy industry. I don't know how to solve this.

It's pretty much identical to the problem with drugs: people smoking marijuana is not a problem, but people funnelling billions of dollars a year to drug cartels definitely is.  Legalization and regulation are probably not the solution.

Forgot where I saw the article, I think reddit, but Gabe Newell stopped being fat long enough to point out that IP piracy (like most black market goods) is primarily a problem of supply and demand rather than spendthriftness.  People don't pirate because they're cheap (well, some do, but they're a minority); they pirate because they have no other way to access the IP (prohibitive cost may be one reason for this). When Steam was set to move into Russia, apparently everybody told Newell he was crazy and the Russians would pirate the fuck out of his merchandise, but now Russia is Steam's second-largest European market after Germany.  Go figure.
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Ziiro

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #73 on: February 06, 2012, 04:07:39 PM »

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Brentai

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #74 on: February 06, 2012, 04:08:52 PM »

Basically just compete against illegal organizations the way you'd compete against legal ones.  It's probably not hard to take advantage of their inherent weaknesses (i.e. suppliers and consumers don't really want to support them usually).
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Mongrel

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #75 on: February 06, 2012, 04:25:41 PM »

I think as much as some people have concerns with Steam's model of operations, they really are a great indicator of how to move forward in future.

- No conventional DRM, i.e. no rootkits, spyware, gimped files or filetypes, restrictions on number or location of installs, etc. etc.
- Resale and gifting of used items allowed
- Accessibility and ease-of-use without most of the worst aspects of Apple's walled garden syndrome
- A fucking brilliant sales plan. Essentially, a big part of future commerce may be based on volume and microtransactions: making items so cheap that consumers just don't question their purchase. Which is huge. But Steam goes one step further. They introduce games at full price so as to psychologically set a higher value for the item. Early adopters, hardcore franchise fans, and Scrooge McDucks will all buy at the new price, but most people won't. Then they have their Steam sales which encourage people to jump on a deal steal. Repeat until oh hey you spent $1000 on game you will never even play. All without cooercion. Coupons also mirror Steam sales, but promote Steam in a social-network-like way, by encouraging relationship/community-building and more Steam signups.

You just make it look like everything you're selling is such a good deal. It's devious, certainly, but in the end compliance is voluntary and legal customers are rewarded rather than punished.
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Zaratustra

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #76 on: February 06, 2012, 05:19:54 PM »

Well, it should be easy to provide better service than file hosting sites.

Thad

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #77 on: February 06, 2012, 06:15:22 PM »

Legalization and regulation are probably not the solution.

I don't see why not.

I've mentioned before that Stross has suggested a system where your Internet subscription fee subsidizes the various content industries, and, in a world where people aren't prosecuted, we then don't have to worry about obscuring what's getting downloaded and can distribute the wealth depending on who's getting the most downloads.

The problem then becomes (1) ensuring that people don't artificially inflate numbers and (2) finding a way to track downloads to unique users without identifying them.

Basically just compete against illegal organizations the way you'd compete against legal ones.  It's probably not hard to take advantage of their inherent weaknesses (i.e. suppliers and consumers don't really want to support them usually).

Yes.  Another thing I've mentioned is that users will, in the end, choose the lowest-cost option, where "cost" isn't simply a financial consideration but also accounts for factors such as convenience and ethics.

And yes, lack of supply or unreasonable price are major barriers.

Essentially, a big part of future commerce may be based on volume and microtransactions: making items so cheap that consumers just don't question their purchase.

And this was a key part of Jobs's marketing genius.  He understood the sheer psychological power of a ninety-nine-cent price point.

Well, it should be easy to provide better service than file hosting sites.

It's fucking trivial, especially with the kind of resources that Big Content has at its disposal.  But they're married to their traditional distribution channels.

An example I keep coming back to is cable TV.  It's not fucking going to last; people resent having to pay for a bunch of stations they don't want just to get the ones they do, and WATCH COMMERCIALS ON TOP OF IT.  The only reason the fucking thing managed to succeed for three or four decades on those terms was that there was no alternative.

And so we get something like Hulu -- it's just what people want, it's a massive success -- and then the networks BACK OFF IT because IT'S TOO SUCCESSFUL and they're worried they'll lose cable TV subscribers over it.

Going back to the Jobs-is-a-genius-for-charging-ninety-nine-cents example, let's not forget that the RIAA fought tooth and nail to get him to raise that rate, which was the single biggest fucking favor anyone did them this century.

And he finally agreed to do it -- in exchange for effectively ending the practice of putting DRM on music.

(He did, of course, wait until his product had a comfortable monopoly.  I'm not saying the dude was acting out of the goodness of his heart.  He had the same mercenary motivations as the RIAA -- he just had a working idea of how best to put those motivations to work in the new century.)
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Thad

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #78 on: February 10, 2012, 12:39:06 PM »

Speaking of magnet links, Pirate Bay is saying that once it switches over to them entirely, the entire site will be 90MB.

Good fucking luck shutting that down.
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Thad

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Re: MegaUpload
« Reply #79 on: July 06, 2012, 07:14:50 AM »

Dotcom says Biden was personally responsible for the shutdown and raid.

Dotcom is hardly a reliable or unbiased source, but on the other hand it's perfectly plausible; Biden was well-established as a Big Content tool by the mid-1990's.

TorrentFreak says that Dodd (who is of course Biden's former Senate ally and now head of the MPAA) met with Biden several times just prior to the takedown.  Which doesn't NECESSARILY mean the two were linked; it could have been about SOPA or ACTA or TPP or any of the other overbearing copyright laws Dodd is trying to ram into domestic or international law.

But I'm willing to bet the subject came up.
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