LokiTorrent data fears revived
p2pnet.net News:- Claims by an unidentified Slyck informant that the MPAA won’t be able to do much with information gleaned from LokiTorrent data should be taken with a huge pinch of salt.
That’s the opinion of a source who states unequivocally, “Lokitorrent had its own tracker that recorded Lokitorrent user-names and log-in times. The site kept logs of which users downloaded which torrents.
“Even a monkey (putting this well within the reach of the MPAA/RIAA) could correlate the IP address of the person who logged in on a account to someone who used the tracker.
“*NO* static IP address needed.”
The Big Seven movie studios’ MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) was able to use America’s legal system to get a court order which allowed it to close down the LokiTorrent BT site.
It also used the document to coerce LokiTorrent admin Edward Webber into handing over logs and server data related to his, “illegal BitTorrent activities, which will provide a roadmap to others who have used LokiTorrent to engage in illegal activities,” as the studios put it.
‘Paul’ said, in effect, Not to Worry – not too much, anyway.
But our source says Worry! because the MPAA will have access to:
- Download/Upload Ratios – How much a user has downloaded compared to what they uploaded.
- Seeders — Anyone who, after finishing a download, ’seeded’ for other people.
“Lokitorrent did correlate information from the tracker with the logged in users,” she says. “No static IP address needed, lots of information for the MPAA.
“Lokitorrent was designed to be a system that has lots of logs, and to reward users who share. But you can’t reward users that share without effective logging combined with tracker data. QED.
“Ask anyone who knows about Bittorrent what information could be gathered with a identifying log-in token and a tracker.
“The irony is that the users that have donated have given their email addresses/contact information to Lokitorrent and allowed the MPAA a heads-up as to their opposition.
“Whom do you think the MPAA is going to go for first?
“Those who gave funds to attack them maybe?”
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
=================
See:-
unidentified – Ed Webber, the MPAA, p2pnet, February 13, 2005
coerce – MPAA to get LokiTorrent info, p2pnet, February 11, 2005
February 15th, 2005 at 12:21 am
Since when did lokitorrent have ratios and reawded users based on ratios…I don’t remember this feature of the site. In fact, most torrent weren’t tracked by loki’s tracker…so i dont see how a ratio system would work.
February 15th, 2005 at 1:07 am
I believe that the upload and download rates itself werent in the site logs but in the tracker logs, and since they only got the site logs they dont have any of that stuff…I belive the Slyck article.
February 15th, 2005 at 2:14 am
y’all know that ed’s taken the money and run… doncha?
LOL
February 15th, 2005 at 2:33 am
Tracker logs would indeed identify initial seeders and people doing lots of uploading, and Lokitorrent was tracking some torrents, but it’s common practice to /dev/null tracker logs and considering the amount of load those trackers had I wouldn’t be surprised if they were never saved for analysis.
February 15th, 2005 at 2:48 am
It really is impossible to keep logs for any appreciable amount of time. They become so large that you have no choice but to purge them.
As for rewarding Torrent uploaders…When did Loki Torrent have this? EVEN if they did, all they had to do keep a tick mark next to a user name. The more tick marks the higher your supposed reward. This proves nothing.
So unless this source is an MPAA lawyer who is telling the truth, most LokiTorrent users have little to worry about.
February 15th, 2005 at 5:51 am
My isp shut off my dsl and called me.
They said i was sharing a commercial file.
The kids were downloading from loki.
I had to shut off ALL sharing before they would reconnect.
Somebody gave mpaa something…they found me.
February 15th, 2005 at 6:25 am
They can’t sue all users, so they use fear.
Pathetic really.
Being “busted” by your ISP, if that is even true,
would be because of massive upload bandwidth being used.
It’s not exactly subtle.
Either you pay your ISP for good upload or you don’t do it.
Nothing to do with Loki.
But the paranoia that is omnipresent nowadays lives in the RIAA and MPAA that smell their undoing as people who used to “matter” and had autority and control. Just like the bourgeois they don’t let go easily of their imaginary privileges.
Money is but an ominous sign of decay, not quite the motivator.
February 15th, 2005 at 10:33 am
Funny WINZIP has good compress ratio for plain text. I don’t know what UNIX or whatever Lokitorrent ran but I reckon they’ve got somthing thats as good or better. How much would fit on a tape or a 40+g hard disc after torrents and websscripts are stored? Torrents aint big. Lokitorrent didnt host actual files just torrents torrents aint big.
February 15th, 2005 at 10:53 am
This writer never really studied how lokitorrents works i think. theres no ratio based system used there. The tracker dun save any log info – XBTT tracker will use temporary memory and once the tracker is been shutdown, it will be gone. Do ur self a favour, pls go and analyse how this trackers works 1st before posting another stupid rumour.
February 15th, 2005 at 10:58 am
How did they work out seeder to leecher ratios?
Magic?
February 15th, 2005 at 11:01 am
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:0DsCQl8Qsm8J:www.sedo.com/search/details.php4%3Fdomain%3Dlokitorrent.com%26language%3Dus+Lokitorrent+Sedo&hl=en
No, no logs at all there…
February 15th, 2005 at 9:20 pm
So is it only folk who downloaded films that are at risk? What of the thousands of people downloading apps and ebooks etc etc
February 15th, 2005 at 9:28 pm
They dont need to keep a detailed listing. Just perhaps a number of torrents you uploaded, not necessarily WHAT torrents you uploaded. This tells the MPAA nothing. The “source” for this article was smoking crack before they talked to P2Pnet…
February 16th, 2005 at 3:05 am
And this article posted here by P2P net is also propoganda being spread by them. I can’t believe they even posted this crap. This guy actually thinks they will go after someone because they donated? What planet does he live on? There absolutely NOTHING illegal with donating, and it implies NOTHING except your support of someone in legal trouble. COMMON SENSE would tell you that, but I guess the author can’t see it.
File sharing networks are NOT all copyrighted stuff, much of it is freely legal tradable files. Something the author of this article fails to also see. Which is exactly how the RIAA/MPAA thinks that all file sharing is illegal.
Also, COMMON SENSE tells you they would not log everything (filenames) you download. No person with a sane mind would do that considering the number of people connected. It also would serve no purpose.
February 16th, 2005 at 9:26 am
Not magic … simple addition to keep the total and a hash to ensure no repeat counts.
Very basic stuff … you obviously know nothing at all about programming.
February 16th, 2005 at 9:37 am
Seeder to leecher ratios? OK, each torrent has a number of seeds and a number of peers. This information is easily gleaned from the tracker. With this information you can calculate a ratio of seeds to leeches.
This is NOT the same thing as tracking the amount of data uploaded and downloaded by a single user, and working out the seed/leech ratio for a single user. Loki didn’t do this.
February 16th, 2005 at 5:06 pm
ok just a thought here .. i agree that this attack everyone attitude by the mpaa is stupid but we are slandering them for protecting their product thtas like the the people stealing direct tv being mad that dave wants its money or if you made a product and was selling it but dsomeone else is reproducing it and selling it and not paying you this is stupid… i enjoy gettin movies and apps and mp3s but lets be reasonable dont get mad cause wqe are getting caught if you think that the reason you download movies is “they charge unfair prices for movies and use unfair practices” you are full oof it you download cause its free and you can just like everyone else. its ok to think that they suck and want to get them back abit but dont hide your crimes behind some blanket of crap come out and say it I LIKE TO STEAL MOVIES and we always find a better way to do it but come on “reasonable copyright” “they dont sell what we are downloading” gimme a break … they do sell it its just part of their marketing stratigy if you cant wait till they sell it your stealing plain and simple.. and anyone who says other wise is playing a game of samantics or just assinine and as for the same format freakin whiners buy the dvd when it comes out and re-encode it if ya want to be legal but for those of you that are happy with breaking the law like me just dont complain when they shut sites down and make the idol threats about comin after you cause it just isnt fealsble for them to come after individuals (only hosters of large arrays of movies) or for us to complain that they want to get paid for their product
February 16th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Hey Reader’s Write let me just ask you a question. Just an opinion from you; Do you think that Loki was in cahoots from the beginning of the whole super nova situation? In other words correct me if Iâm wrong, but didnât Loki start asking for donations pretty much right after super nova went down? So my main question to you is would it make sense that the MPAA approached Loki used their scare tactics and told him ” Either you cooperate with us or we will sue you for so much money your kids kids will pay for life. So hereâs what well do keep the website up, post torrents as usual and we want you to log everything but continue to ask for donations so it seems that you are on the pirateâs side still. Then well work out the rest later.” Donât you think that the MPAA have the power and resources to pay for the terabytes of hard drives needed to keep the logs of all users? Especially if they used some good scare tactics on Loki and told him after this is all said and done youâll be free of any wrong doing.
February 17th, 2005 at 5:55 am
What? If the MPAA DID setup what u say, then the whole donation thing was fake too… which means they did something ILLEGAL; setting up a fake donation act.
Do you think the MPAA would risk anything for such a small detail?
I dont think so.
February 17th, 2005 at 8:48 am
This is so interesting to see how terrified people are.
I live in Finland, which is in north of Europe. No US law have jurisdiction here. There is nothing what MPAA, RIAA or any other organization could do for me. First of all, it is complately legal to download any music or tv-series or movies from the network even if the source is protected by copyright. This is a fact. Hell, I can even go to the video rental shop to rent a movie, copy it and return it. The law says that everyone has right to make a copy for themselves of the published “work” like DVD.
I’m usually so ammused about legal threats (on the DVD cover or in the beginnig of the movie) about illegal action of copying movie. Well, it is not illegal here and the owner of the copyrights can not expand their right over the law.
How about a trackers? Well, finreactor was closed and that is mainly because we do not have direct laws about trackers, exchanging torrent and so on, so we need precedent from court to see if is it illegal to maintain torrent/tracker sites. My guess is that it wont be illegal.
Our dear neigbour (Sweden), they have highest court order that tracker/torrent site is not illegal. That’s why The Pirate Bay in sweden http://www.thepiratebay.org can do what ever they want, they even published the legal treaths they get from different sources like from Microsoft, Sega and so on. http://www.thepiratebay.org/frame.html
I don’t mean to insult anyone but this MPAA hunt for BitTorrent users is really ridiculous. So is the fear about their propaganda.
February 17th, 2005 at 12:46 pm
Don’t be a lier…..
February 17th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
Don’t be a lier….
February 17th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
The point is…even if they do have the resources to keep logs of everyone who ever downloaded movies or whatever else from Loki…which I’m sure they do…and each movies downloaded by individuals…which I’m sure they don’t…they just don’t have the money…the time…or the requirement to track down individual downloaders. It takes hundreds of thousands of tax-payers dollars to get just one person on the stands. To get a gazillion is jes friggin mad!
They are mainly mad at people hosting torrents on their sites…thats it!…and maybe those ppl who’ve been uploading/downloading massive amounts of stuff…so you just don’t need to worry about shit like this.
At the end of the day…even if you get caught…they can’t be 100% sure if it was you. Hackers often walk away scott free claiming that they had nothing to do with a particular hack-job…but that their system itself was hacked. So all you can say is that you pc was being used as a remote server by unknown hackers…or whatever…
February 22nd, 2005 at 6:27 pm
“The law says that everyone has right to make a copy for themselves of the published “work” like DVD. ”
nah bub , only if you own an original…. thus we’re back at step number 1…
February 25th, 2005 at 5:51 am
February 25th, 2005 at 5:56 am
Bajare otras
February 27th, 2005 at 11:54 am
The ignorance of the law displayed by most people here is amazing. We’re talking about civil law not criminal law. A corporation can threaten anyone with a lawsuit with whatever evidence they have available. The MPAA is busy collecting data on all illegal downloads involving copyrighted movies. All they need to do is monitor the trackers to get your IP address, then snoop the network and decode data packets to see what you’re up/downloading. Once they have a suspect, they contact their ISP and notify them of the activity. They show the IP address, the time and the filename. Many ISPs are concerned about their own exposure and are caving in to the MPAA by providing customer names and addresses. When you get that letter in the mail threatening you with hefty damage claims, your best option may be to settle out of court. If you don’t, they can and will file suit to make examples of people. It’s part of their strategy. So far there haven’t been any cases brought to trial, but don’t count on evading the sharks just because you happen to be a small fish.
February 28th, 2005 at 2:39 pm
March 3rd, 2005 at 2:07 am
From a forensics standpoint…
What would these logs exist as? Would they exist as burned media on a CD-R? A floppy? Printed?
ISP warnings are fear tactics, nothing more. If you were to take these “logs”, we’ll assume they exist as burned copies on a CD-R, you would be laughed out of court. The data isn’t permissible as evidence, as the means by which it was acquired (probably) isn’t forensically sound.
For example, I go to Loki’s server, and on its operating system, while it’s running, copy the log files to a CD-R, and mail it to the MPAA. By common precedent and law, as far as a court is concerned, not only is the CD-R not permissible as evidence; I’ve also destroyed the server from EVER being permissible as evidence within court. In order to do this properly, I would have to not only power down the system (pull the plug, not shutdown); then remove the hard-drive, connect it to a write-blocker, DD copy (or use a forensic tool) to another drive, then I could pull the log files off the drive. This would not only be tedious, expensive — It would also require a paper trail a mile long AND a valid expert witness in court — to hold up. AS you also have to show that the data wasn’t tampered with AND was properly secured (all documented) while stored after the copy.
They manage these “warnings” to users because of fear tactics, and because the majority won’t fight it. They just go “Oh, okay, time to stop downloading copyrighted stuff..” and move along their merry way.
The logfiles that show you connected to the server, accessed data, and transmitted it; are what got you into court. Those logs, high probability, are not permissible due to what I stated above. Therefore, if you challenged them in court — Their grounds for sueing you are based on impermissible evidence, therefore they have no foundation for the case; it would be dismissed and it’s possible you could counter-sue for damages and trauma.
March 3rd, 2005 at 3:59 am
Very well said i agree with the above, its just bullshit scare tactics MPAA can go stick there heads butter.
March 6th, 2005 at 2:32 am
technivally downloading isnt illegal uploading is, so it your download upload ratio is low they prolly wont go after you, and most likely they are going only for the movie downloaders because not only is it a hassle to get other uploaders im pretty sure its illegal, because only the person or persons with the copy right are alowed to sue, since major companys own the copywrites to movies its alot easier for them to sue but say is you downloaded anime or ebooks it would be alot harder for them to get you because its from a single person not a large company
March 7th, 2005 at 9:20 pm
Ok but remember that this is not a criminal trial. It is a civicl trial, now I’m not a lawer but from what ive heard you dont need the evidence to be that damming to go to court in a civil suit right? It would need to be a criminal trial for the evidence to show beyond reasonable doubt right? Correct me if im wrong.
March 22nd, 2005 at 3:31 pm
If You Use It Start Worrying & If You Dont You Dont Have Nothing To Worry About…Think This Way-DONT TRUST ANYBODY!
YOU KNOW THE RISK ASK YOUR SELF IS IT WORTH IT AFTER ALL ITS NOT FREE! LoL WE ALL PAY SOME HOW ?
April 11th, 2005 at 6:47 am
In A Civil Suit the evidence no matter how collected or accurate is permissible as long is it was not illegally obtained. (i.e. stollen). this is how Direct Tv has sued thousands of individuals and by taking information from the servers of web sites that were shut down with a court order. as was the case here a court order was obtained to retreive the logs. and individuals are the new targets and the do not have to prove anything they just have to present a better case than you and there legal teams are far better than most.
April 11th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
I read on another p2p website that this whole issue with Lokitorrent was a scam cooked up by the guy that ran the thing to get people to send money in to him to help fight the MPAA from a legal point of view. He received a shedfull of money then disappeared. Is there any truth to this?
May 8th, 2005 at 3:03 pm
you’re going to jail. –MPAA