What about using anonymous P2P?

[ipernorris]

I was wondering why the anime community don't move on an anonymous p2p: it would be better for our privacy!
There have been plenty of anonymous p2p clients out there for years, but most of them have remained almost a proof of concept and their use didn't spread.
There are several reasons for this, but I think the main problem is that they're very slow (1 kBps is usually a miracle in these clients). Clients like MUTE or ANTS failed miserably and they're not actively developed anymore. A decent bandwidth is offered by TOR, but it cannot be used for p2p, because it's thought to surf the web anonymously.
I used plenty of anonymous clients, but almost all of them are useless for pratical use. I found out that among these clients I2P and Stealthnet are quite useable, they give a decent speed (over 10 kBps in average) right now. With more users speeds should increase. I think the anime community should drop the classic bittorrent distribution method in order to adopt something more modern, which protects the users' privacy better!

[-KarumA-]

why would I want to exchange 300 kbps for 10 D:
for me p2p has a major spamware label hanging on top of it, I'm sure many will agree on that
I don't really see the advantages of it, you degrade your kbps and you have a higher spamware infection chance, if this is about IP addresses they will still trace it some way or the other and not everyone needs to hide their IP
would be a better statement to make: hey why doesn't the anime community move to the Netherlands where our law thinks its okay to download anime if it is for personal viewing use =D

[ipernorris]

Spam has been dealt with since ancient times with filters or user reviews. Not to mention on I2P, for example, there are bittorrent trackers and on bittorrent spam is very low, because as soon as a torrent is revealed to be spam it gets removed. The problem you mention doesn't really exist, if someone configures/uses the proper tools.

[-KarumA-]

I remember back when torrents just started and I was still using Kazaa and later on Bearshare that the program itself was not secure enough which caused dll files and others trojan files to be added without you being aware of it or it would be something added to your download, bad thing about p2p is that if you need a batch of files they have to be .rar or .zip or you have to look for each file seperately, which is also why torrents are still advanced, you don't know what people put in a rar or zip and with p2p there is no way you can check out comments either, like the fake movie torrents there will always be a mass of seeders so without comments you will never know, there may be a blog but I wouldn't want to go to the blog every time I decide I want a file it is just extra work, secondly not every one is up to date with the best virus scanner or anything else if spamware hits you sometimes you wont even notice it, not every one has the right tools and not ever one wants to do a lot of other things before being allowed to download, not when a torrent is much less work, anyone as lazy as I am wouldn't want to install 1-2 extra programs before installing a p2p program.

and besides I still wouldn't trade my 300 kbps torrent minimum for the amount you've mentioned, this I think would be a major turn off for every one here and probably would be the main reason not to do this

your p2p system might work differently from what I've mentioned (pretty sure it does lol I'm probably saying quite idiotic things atm because of my lack of knowledge) but still even the wiki page mentions spam and DoS attacks, but my experiences with p2p systems have left me with a detest for them and again the speed is crap lol

[lubczyk]

A lot of fansub groups now use places like MegaUpload. It's really fast, more anonymous and more secure than Bittorrent. Plus, it's easier since you don't need a bittorrent client or the know-how to setup firewalls/port-forward routers.

[ipernorris]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

I remember back when torrents just started and I was still using Kazaa and later on Bearshare that the program itself was not secure enough which caused dll files and others trojan files to be added without you being aware of it or it would be something added to your download, bad thing about p2p is that if you need a batch of files they have to be .rar or .zip or you have to look for each file seperately, which is also why torrents are still advanced, you don't know what people put in a rar or zip and with p2p there is no way you can check out comments either, like the fake movie torrents there will always be a mass of seeders so without comments you will never know, there may be a blog but I wouldn't want to go to the blog every time I decide I want a file it is just extra work, secondly not every one is up to date with the best virus scanner or anything else if spamware hits you sometimes you wont even notice it, not every one has the right tools and not ever one wants to do a lot of other things before being allowed to download, not when a torrent is much less work, anyone as lazy as I am wouldn't want to install 1-2 extra programs before installing a p2p program.

The problems you're noticing are common to all p2p systems, in fact they aren't problems of the p2p systems strictly... they're related to their content. This is common to the "ordinary" p2p systems as well as anonymous ones.
In fact comments/filters come in helping soemtimes, but not always: when you are in front of a rar with no comments then anything can be stored inside, and this happens evreywhere evreytime.
Anonymous bittorrent doesn't solve these kinds of problems: it only makes sure the world didn't know you downloaded a certain file or you visited some site. Most likely such secrecy seems exaggerated to you for your ordinary Internet activities, but take into account that repression around freedom of speech and freedom of exchange any kind of data is getting higher and higher anywhere in the world. Another front anonymous p2p is useful is in blocking the profiling of your Internet activities by advertising companies.

and besides I still wouldn't trade my 300 kbps torrent minimum for the amount you've mentioned, this I think would be a major turn off for every one here and probably would be the main reason not to do this

I said that's the CURRENT speed of I2P: the more users enter the network, the faster it will become. It's like a torrent file: the more peers there are the faster it is!
Anyway a good enough reason for the common user to switch to an anonymous p2p system can be the safety of not being monitored by organizatios like RIAA and MPAA.

your p2p system might work differently from what I've mentioned (pretty sure it does lol I'm probably saying quite idiotic things atm because of my lack of knowledge) but still even the wiki page mentions spam and DoS attacks, but my experiences with p2p systems have left me with a detest for them and again the speed is crap lol

I2P isn't my p2p system, I'm not part of the official developing team in any way. Just think of it as an anonymous torrent network, on top of with you can use evrey kind of application you use on the normal Internet, like web browser, mail, instant messaging, torrent, gnutella, emule and such: the only difference is that they're totally anonymous, as long as they use I2P!

Originally Posted by lubczyk

A lot of fansub groups now use places like MegaUpload. It's really fast, more anonymous and more secure than Bittorrent. Plus, it's easier since you don't need a bittorrent client or the know-how to setup firewalls/port-forward routers.

MegaUpload is anonymous you say?
People don't really know what being anonymous means it seems: MegaUpload, like any http download, is the least anonymous of all of the downloading method. All of the information about a download is in only one place, making it a piece of cake to identify the uploader/downloader of sensitive data.

[lubczyk]

Originally Posted by ipernorris

The problems you're noticing are common to all p2p systems, in fact they aren't problems of the p2p systems strictly... they're related to their content. This is common to the "ordinary" p2p systems as well as anonymous ones.
In fact comments/filters come in helping soemtimes, but not always: when you are in front of a rar with no comments then anything can be stored inside, and this happens evreywhere evreytime.
Anonymous bittorrent doesn't solve these kinds of problems: it only makes sure the world didn't know you downloaded a certain file or you visited some site. Most likely such secrecy seems exaggerated to you for your ordinary Internet activities, but take into account that repression around freedom of speech and freedom of exchange any kind of data is getting higher and higher anywhere in the world. Another front anonymous p2p is useful is in blocking the profiling of your Internet activities by advertising companies.


I said that's the CURRENT speed of I2P: the more users enter the network, the faster it will become. It's like a torrent file: the more peers there are the faster it is!
Anyway a good enough reason for the common user to switch to an anonymous p2p system can be the safety of not being monitored by organizatios like RIAA and MPAA.


I2P isn't my p2p system, I'm not part of the official developing team in any way. Just think of it as an anonymous torrent network, on top of with you can use evrey kind of application you use on the normal Internet, like web browser, mail, instant messaging, torrent, gnutella, emule and such: the only difference is that they're totally anonymous, as long as they use I2P!


MegaUpload is anonymous you say?
People don't really know what being anonymous means it seems: MegaUpload, like any http download, is the least anonymous of all of the downloading method. All of the information about a download is in only one place, making it a piece of cake to identify the uploader/downloader of sensitive data.

Maybe anonymous isn't the right word. The right term might be that one has an alibi while using it. You could have simply stumbled upon the link and downloaded it like you download something off of free video websites and such.

If you're not the uploader, I don't think that they could take you court over using MegaUpload because it can be used over any regular browser, while clients like emule and bittorrent use their own protocols.

[ipernorris]

Originally Posted by lubczyk

Maybe anonymous isn't the right word. The right term might be that one has an alibi while using it. You could have simply stumbled upon the link and downloaded it like you download something off of free video websites and such.

And do you honestly think a judge would believe something like that?
Not to mention that the law doesn't admit ignorance... so an excuse like that would be shoot down immediately.
Before I wrote something wrong: http downloads are even worse than centralized p2p... an example of centralized p2p was napster, but an http download is even less secure because the provider you're downloading a file from (MegaUpload, RapidShare and such) can see evreything you're doing and knows what file you're downloading, when you finish it and at what percentage of the download you're at. It has all of these information in a nice text file and it can turn it over to the authorities when they would ask for it.
Sure downloading from it is way faster: they're connected to gigabit backbones, so they have plenty of bandwidth, but they have nothing to do with privacy!
I think in p2p world an equation may be done:
more privacy = less bandwidth

or another way to view the issue:
more bandwidth = less privacy.

If you're not the uploader, I don't think that they could take you court over using MegaUpload because it can be used over any regular browser, while clients like emule and bittorrent use their own protocols.

You're making a big mistake here, one of which would make the copyright associations very happy: you're criminalizing p2p as a whole. The various p2p protocols are perfectly legal, in fact they're used to distribute game patches, linux isos and so forth. What is llegal is distributing copyright materials without having the right to do it... please not that in almost all of p2p systems uploader and downloader are the same, because you upload portions of a file you already have while you're downloading other portions you don't have.

[-KarumA-]

Originally Posted by ipernorris

And do you honestly think a judge would believe something like that?
Not to mention that the law doesn't admit ignorance... so an excuse like that would be shoot down immediately.
Before I wrote something wrong: http downloads are even worse than centralized p2p... an example of centralized p2p was napster, but an http download is even less secure because the provider you're downloading a file from (MegaUpload, RapidShare and such) can see evreything you're doing and knows what file you're downloading, when you finish it and at what percentage of the download you're at. It has all of these information in a nice text file and it can turn it over to the authorities when they would ask for it.
Sure downloading from it is way faster: they're connected to gigabit backbones, so they have plenty of bandwidth, but they have nothing to do with privacy!
I think in p2p world an equation may be done:
more privacy = less bandwidth

or another way to view the issue:
more bandwidth = less privacy.


You're making a big mistake here, one of which would make the copyright associations very happy: you're criminalizing p2p as a whole. The various p2p protocols are perfectly legal, in fact they're used to distribute game patches, linux isos and so forth. What is llegal is distributing copyright materials without having the right to do it... please not that in almost all of p2p systems uploader and downloader are the same, because you upload portions of a file you already have while you're downloading other portions you don't have.

hmm under privacy laws the authorities are not capable of simply asking a host for this kind of info, the host will not allow it because it is against the law of privacy for their client, it isn't THAT simple to get that kind of information unless you're downloading CP
besides even your internet provider knows what you are doing, they can get everything from them and even see in their files that you are using an anonymous p2p program, the authorities are not stupid whether it is torrent, p2p or direct download there will always be someone watching you and it isn't the website creator, I think you forget that, Anon p2p may hide what files you are downloading but as soon as a program goes online your internet provider will have it listed and when they read p2p don't expect them to think you're on it just to chat to people or something, they know you are downloading things, most of the times it is through a provider that the authorities gather their evidence and not through a host site like megaupload
on the internet there is no such thing as privacy, you can hide a little info but there will always be a leak and having that isn't always that bad unless you don't want to get caught downloading CP or something, I don't know where you live but not in every country do we get sued for downloading something like straight away unless you REALLY mess up, if that was so then anon p2p would probably be a lot more popular and torrents wouldn't even exist or would be closed down
even if there is less privacy you can still get caught >.< the trade for less bandwidth would hardly make any sense when your provider can still read what you are doing and if authorities can see from them that you've been p2ping they will claim your pc and then privacy is pretty much useless cause they can simply see what you tried to hide

also not every where is downloading illegal, why would I want to switch if in my country it is allowed to download series and movies if it is for personal use, the only thing that is illegal is downloading software, games and uploading for other people but the government doesn't do anything about it anyway unless you start selling DVD's or software on the web or street

besides it isn't as if anon p2p programs are foul proof many studio's are still suing them because they know of copyright infringement, like your provider to collect evidence they need it from and can still get it from a source, how I see it is that your privacy is simply hidden somewhere else but not unobtainable, when it comes to court they will get that info, that or the p2p company will get sued themselves and we all know what happened to piratebay

[ipernorris]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

hmm under privacy laws the authorities are not capable of simply asking a host for this kind of info, the host will not allow it because it is against the law of privacy for their client, it isn't THAT simple to get that kind of information unless you're downloading CP

This depends on the specific countries, anyway the trend is the one of allowing the copyright organizations to have the name of the person of a given ip. The authorities can already obtain it if they want, that's a given.

besides even your internet provider knows what you are doing, they can get everything from them and even see in their files that you are using an anonymous p2p program,

That's absolutely false: the ISP cannot know what their users are doing because anonymous clients encrypt the data they exchange. Anyway from traffic exchange volume they can know you're transferring much data, but they cannot know what this data is and where it is going, because most of data going in and out from a node is encrypted and belongs to others' nodes anyway. In a dictatorial country like China that's more than enough to have the police in your home, but in Western countries evidence is needed in order to send police to citiziens' homes or to sue people.
Anyway even in your own home you can have your privacy, ebcause there are several programs which let you encrypt the entires hard disk, like True Crypt.

the authorities are not stupid whether it is torrent, p2p or direct download there will always be someone watching you and it isn't the website creator, I think you forget that, Anon p2p may hide what files you are downloading but as soon as a program goes online your internet provider will have it listed and when they read p2p don't expect them to think you're on.

If things were this easy anon p2p would be useless. Even if your ISP knows you're exchanging tons of data they cannot know what this data is and where it is going for the reasons I've already explained above. In democratic countries this blocks almost any kind of privacy threat, while in dictactorial ones further measures can be taken in order to not risk one's own life.

it just to chat to people or something, they know you are downloading things, most of the times it is through a provider that the authorities gather their evidence and not through a host site like megaupload
on the internet there is no such thing as privacy,

On the common Internet you're right: there is no such things as privacy.
On anonymous networks like Freenet or I2P there is, that's the reason they're there, after all!

you can hide a little info but there will always be a leak and having that isn't always that bad unless you don't want to get caught downloading CP or something,

I think you don't have the precise idea about how anonymous networks function. They don't hide just "a little info", but they encrypt evreything it comes in and out from your computer and the traffic produced by a node is routed through several others. This effectively blocks the ISP from knowing what you're doing and almost any kind of privacy threat.

I don't know where you live but not in every country do we get sued for downloading something like straight away unless you REALLY mess up, if that was so then anon p2p would probably be a lot more popular and torrents wouldn't even exist or would be closed down

In fact it's just a matter of time before copyright infringment repression, along other freedom of speech violations, will become draconian or because of very tight laws or because of very strict isp policies.

even if there is less privacy you can still get caught >.< the trade for less bandwidth would hardly make any sense when your provider can still read what you are doing and if authorities can see from them that you've been p2ping they will claim your pc and then privacy is pretty much useless cause they can simply see what you tried to hide

Of course there are various degree of anonimity: one must choose the proper one depending on the context he lives in. I think I2P or Stealthnet would be a reasonable compromise between privacy and speed. The more users will join those networks the faster they will become, leaving their privacy protection untouched: if there are tools which let us being more in peace of mind I don't see why we don't use them.

also not every where is downloading illegal, why would I want to switch if in my country it is allowed to download series and movies if it is for personal use, the only thing that is illegal is downloading software, games and uploading for other people but the government doesn't do anything about it anyway unless you start selling DVD's or software on the web or street

Downloading isn't illegal by itself: in evrey place of the world what may be illegal is WHAT you download. Well anyway if you live in a p2p friendly country then it's good for you: please be aware that there are TONS of other people who aren't this lucky. Anyway the major threats don't come from the authorities but from private socities, like the ones who monitors the p2p networks or the advertising ones.

besides it isn't as if anon p2p programs are foul proof many studio's are still suing them because they know of copyright infringement, like your provider to collect evidence they need it from and can still get it from a source, how I see it is that your privacy is simply hidden somewhere else but not unobtainable, when it comes to court they will get that info, that or the p2p company will get sued themselves and we all know what happened to piratebay

This is absolutely false.
The copyright associations are suing bittorrent trackers or centralizied p2p servers in general, because it's far easier then going after evrey user. Anyway they sued thousands of users as well because they all used first or second generation p2p programs (centralized or decentralized, but without anonymous mechanisms). You say that the privacy is hidden somewhere else: this is false as well. In an anonymous networks a user's privacy data is evreywhere and nowhere at the same time.
I think you're quite confused about how anonymous networks function, so I suggest you this I2P tutorial as a good example of how an anonymous network functions.

[-KarumA-]

atm Warner and several other studio's are still in court suing several people using the Anon p2p network because of copyright infringement and Colorado federal court had given permission for their hidden IP addresses and other info to be revealed to them, you may hide your identity but they can still trace you down in fact they managed to trace down that these people were all part of Qwest Communications internet services and they will figure out who these people were

but see here you said your ISP can still see you're getting masses of data, that alone is suspicious for them and if anyone did want to sue you and saw those numbers, not the files, it would be enough to confiscate your computer which would leave this useless anyway

as for freedom of speech, there is freedom of speech on the internet it all depends on what you want to say and where you say it, if there was no freedom of speech then you wouldn't have any Blood and Honor websites existing that promote racism, and most importantly 4chan wouldn't even exist, let alone /b/

besides if people are having no troubles saying what they want to say at this moment why would they want to switch, also the provider that sees me download files doesn't do anything with it unless requested to and even then only under court order will they release that kind of info which is the same that is needed if they want to confiscate your PC because you are downloading masses of to them unknown data, if someone does that it is more suspicious than when people can actually see what you do.
If, by example, I were to tell the police you have CP on your pc and they can only see that you are downloading masses of data then they will surely find a way to confiscate your pc for further investigation

anon p2p could be a solution for countries where the checking are really tough, but the masses will not use it when their rules are overlooked so much
besides privacy being an issue to many people torrent community has already been taking steps to hide ones privacy from the provider with success

[miscs]

'If it ain't broke dont fix it'

An interesting philosophy, which I myself follow. I'm happy with my current P2P client and I have no desire to change.

.....Pretty much all I have to say.

[ipernorris]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

atm Warner and several other studio's are still in court suing several people using the Anon p2p network because of copyright infringement and Colorado federal court had given permission for their hidden IP addresses and other info to be revealed to them, you may hide your identity but they can still trace you down in fact they managed to trace down that these people were all part of Qwest Communications internet services and they will figure out who these people were

You keep talking about something you don't understand well.
Most likely what Warner did was obtaining an injuction from the court which ordered the ISP to reveal the identity of the persons behind some ip addresses. I'm pretty sure of this because it's useless to sue some ip at random, because the traffic generated by those ips are NOT THEIR OWN, they route it for other nodes. Not to mention the data which passes from a certain node is useless, because it's only a part of a downloaded file, for example.
EDIT:
In fact it's like I predicted.

but see here you said your ISP can still see you're getting masses of data, that alone is suspicious for them and if anyone did want to sue you and saw those numbers, not the files, it would be enough to confiscate your computer which would leave this useless anyway

This may be enough in China, not in a democracy: to investigate someone you need reasonable evidence, and an high traffic isn't. There are plenty of legitimate usage which generate high bandwidth usage: video streaming. digital delivery, download of patches and big applications and so forth. And anway I already wrote you can encrypt the disk and even if they take it it would still be useless, so the point you're making is totally irrelevant.

as for freedom of speech, there is freedom of speech on the internet it all depends on what you want to say and where you say it, if there was no freedom of speech then you wouldn't have any Blood and Honor websites existing that promote racism, and most importantly 4chan wouldn't even exist, let alone /b/

Freedom of speech is much wider than racism sites: when it comes to sensitive documents, being them from private corporations or from government agencies, there isn't any on the net. This taking into account democracies, because in dictatorship countries the situation is even worse.

besides if people are having no troubles saying what they want to say at this moment why would they want to switch, also the provider that sees me download files doesn't do anything with it unless requested to and even then only under court order will they release that kind of info which is the same that is needed if they want to confiscate your PC because you are downloading masses of to them unknown data, if someone does that it is more suspicious than when people can actually see what you do.

Ok then a professional graphic designer which exhanges tens of gb of data with his office from home through a vpn (=encrypted connection) is a potential terrorist!
Not to mention that if you don't have something to hide you don't need privacy... well it's a famous phrase said by a certain dude named Hitler...
Anyway there is no freedom of speech on the Internet: sure you can talk about useless daily life things, but if you wat to talk about sensitive topics it can get really dangerous. This lack of comprehension for the current situation, rather defending how much monitored the net is it's the very reason because of people don't care about privacy on the Internet.

If, by example, I were to tell the police you have CP on your pc and they can only see that you are downloading masses of data then they will surely find a way to confiscate your pc for further investigation

Yeah: child porn and terrorism, the two perfect excuses for manipulating the public opinion and making evrey kind of law!
If someone wants to defend his own privacy on the net is a potential pedophile or terrorist, that's a given!
Go asking to the tens of thousands of sued people if they would have used anonymous p2p to avoid to be sued... people simply don't care about problems until they hit them in the face it seems, beause they want to keep things simple.

anon p2p could be a solution for countries where the checking are really tough, but the masses will not use it when their rules are overlooked so much
besides privacy being an issue to many people torrent community has already been taking steps to hide ones privacy from the provider with success

The rules are overlooked so much? LOL you seem to not know what you're talking about, again. The rules are strictly enforced, in US above all: the providers are implementing traffic shapers which greatly slow down p2p protocols making them useless and anyway the future reseves only even stricter rules.

Originally Posted by miscs

'If it ain't broke dont fix it'

An interesting philosophy, which I myself follow. I'm happy with my current P2P client and I have no desire to change.

.....Pretty much all I have to say.

The fact is it's breaking down and soon it will be a suicide to make p2p on the public Internet, because you could be sued and/or filtered and/or remaining without connection.

[-KarumA-]

okay then name one sensitive subject that according to your words is such a hazard that it isn't even allowed to be spoken off that would need not only IP protection
people developing new technology avoid the internet like a plague to begin with, those things are usually not even discussed online or in email
if it comes to work, whenever I have a client who needs a commercial made or docu I never send him samples online, I come by their company and personally discuss what they want and what we have so far


quite frankly I don't see any up sides to what you've told so far, so my privacy is protected from what? from FBI agents that want to read how I'm telling my friend about my day or what I products I am making for a new client or that I have or have not watched porn this week? now if I was in China it would be differently but China isn't the whole world

and still if feds do get suspicious about you downloading or not and they see that you've received a mass of data over the past days/weeks/months they can still confiscate your computer or get a warrant for your house, if for example you use anon p2p but don't have any other protection then seeing what websites you visit will make it a quick guess what all the data is that's coming your way

and don't you even start about what Hitler said and didn't say cause Hitler didn't care about privacy his men would just shoot you in the head for making for making a bad joke, that has nothing to do with this alright

[miscs]

I am fully aware of the possible consequences for my actions, but I continue to use P2P file sharing. It is not out of ignorance that I overlook such consequences, quite the opposite.

ISP's don't have the capacity to monitor and ban everyone who file shares illegally, and in reality, they don't even want to. Such an operation would incur massive costs and most of the time doesn't provide enough evidence to stand in court. Banning large amounts of customers, significantly reduceing a companies revenue and driving up costs. Does that seem like a successful business model to you? No, it doesn't and I can guarantee shareholders wont like it. In fact, I can guarantee most stakeholders won't like it.

The business world is full of corruption, cartels and many other anti-competitive trading tactics. On the surface it will look as if ISP's are combating illegal file sharing, but in reality they doing very little. The only real reason they throttle P2P traffic is to reduce their own costs by saving bandwidth.

Suing all pirates is totally infeasible. The time, money and risk involved in such a strategy means the option is not even on the table. So to say it would be 'suicide' to use P2P on the public internet is naive.

......would you look at that. I did have more to say I'm suprised this debate actually got so heated and interesting.

[ipernorris]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

okay then name one sensitive subject that according to your words is such a hazard that it isn'

I already named some examples, like documents which compromises the management of a big corporation or of a government agency... who publicize these kind of data wants to remain anonymous, because his life and the lifes of his beloved ones may be in danger. Another good reason is to avoid profiling.

quite frankly I don't see any up sides to what you've told so far, so my privacy is protected from what? from FBI agents that want to read how I'm telling my friend about my day or what I products I am making for a new client or that I have or have not watched porn this week? now if I was in China it would be differently but China isn't the whole world

So because you aren't a pedophile or a terrorist you haven't secrets? Don't you have things to be kept private from the rest of the world? Don't you want to surf the web making what you like without someone recording evrey single click you do?
Anyway most people here say "eh the government doesn't implement the copyright laws"... yeah in fact tens of thousands of sued people are nothing!
The copyright laws will become stricter and stricter: now people already risk jail and very expensive fines in a lot of countries, so the situation is getting worse and worse. Most people don't even realize this and keep ignoring the problem, until it will hit their face (and their bank account) very hardly.

and still if feds do get suspicious about you downloading or not and they see that you've received a mass of data over the past days/weeks/months they can still confiscate your computer or get a warrant for your house, if for example you use anon p2p but don't have any other protection then seeing what websites you visit will make it a quick guess what all the data is that's coming your way

We're at a point where exchanging huge loads of data is considered "suspicious" and people accept it like it's normal!
Don't to mention looking into someone surfing habits should need a warrant by itself, and shouldn't be done routinely just to find suspects. In China this can be done, in the rest of the world not, for now, even if people accept it as it was normal!

Originally Posted by miscs

I am fully aware of the possible consequences for my actions, but I continue to use P2P file sharing. It is not out of ignorance that I overlook such consequences, quite the opposite.

Ok this is a very different position from the ones above: if you're aware of what you risk and you take the gamble you're absolutely free to do so.
But let me ask you something: why take a gamble why you can avoid any risk entirely?

ISP's don't have the capacity to monitor and ban everyone who file shares illegally, and in reality, they don't even want to. Such an operation would incur massive costs and most of the time doesn't provide enough evidence to stand in court. Banning large amounts of customers, significantly reduceing a companies revenue and driving up costs. Does that seem like a successful business model to you? No, it doesn't and I can guarantee shareholders wont like it. In fact, I can guarantee most stakeholders won't like it.

I think what you said was true some years ago, when Internet needed a killer application to attract masses, but now that phase has been long passed. Now legal services are operating with millions of users, just think of Youtube or ITunes, not to mention the penetration of emails, im, videoconfering among privates and industries. Internet is foundamental without the need of p2p: on the contrary most ISP see the p2p traffic as an obstacle to the developing of legal services (=more remuneration for them), and tend to filter it. Just take Comcast as a good example of this.

The business world is full of corruption, cartels and many other anti-competitive trading tactics. On the surface it will look as if ISP's are combating illegal file sharing, but in reality they doing very little. The only real reason they throttle P2P traffic is to reduce their own costs by saving bandwidth.

I p2p was still the killer application of Internet, needed to attract more clients thus more money, ISP wouldn't throttle it. The truth is that providers used p2p to form a critical client base, then these clients came in contact with other services and now they're dependent on them and cannot renounce to them. In fact lots of ISP are trying to make cash over these legal services, such as video streams: p2p is not needed anymore, on the contrary it's an obstacle.

Suing all pirates is totally infeasible. The time, money and risk involved in such a strategy means the option is not even on the table. So to say it would be 'suicide' to use P2P on the public internet is naive.

Uhm I wouldn't be sure is totally infeasible to sue more tens or hundreds of thousands of "pirates": the copyright associations have infinite resources. There is a much more pratical way to hit hard without any financial effort from these associations anyway: the HADOPI law which is being adopted by many countries.

[miscs]

I like your way of replying to other comments, so I'm going to borrow it. There are a lot of different stances in this thread, so I will assist you by clarifying mine.

I don't question the capability of anonymous P2P clients. I question the level of risk involved in file sharing and the ability/willingness of ISP's to police the Internet.

Originally Posted by ipernorris

Ok this is a very different position from the ones above: if you're aware of what you risk and you take the gamble you're absolutely free to do so.
But let me ask you something: why take a gamble why you can avoid any risk entirely?

We face risks with serious consequences everyday, but we don't take action to remove/reduce such risks. The drive to work everyday has the chance to kill me, but I take the gamble because its a convenient and fast way to travel. Do you see where this is going? I use my current method of P2P for similar reasons. Removing the risk is an inconvenience and I don't feel, presently, that the risk is larger enough for me to take action.

Originally Posted by ipernorris

I think what you said was true some years ago, when Internet needed a killer application to attract masses, but now that phase has been long passed. Now legal services are operating with millions of users, just think of Youtube or ITunes, not to mention the penetration of emails, im, videoconfering among privates and industries. Internet is foundamental without the need of p2p: on the contrary most ISP see the p2p traffic as an obstacle to the developing of legal services (=more remuneration for them), and tend to filter it. Just take Comcast as a good example of this.

I agree with you entirely. ISP's don't need to use P2P as a marketing tool for their services, but that's not the point I was making. I was referring to the fact that banning all customers who have/have used P2P for piracy would be very damaging. The removal of such people would be crippling to revenue. The scale of the operation, systems required and human resources absorbed would create a massive cost centre in the business. To put it simply, it would be suicidal to enforce the law to its full extent. The legal services are helping to alleviate the pain of piracy, but not preventing it. The pirates want things for free. Many legal services are free. This follows the pirates philosophy of 'Something for nothing.' They pirate and use free legal services, they get the best of both worlds.

Originally Posted by ipernorris

I p2p was still the killer application of Internet, needed to attract more clients thus more money, ISP wouldn't throttle it. The truth is that providers used p2p to form a critical client base, then these clients came in contact with other services and now they're dependent on them and cannot renounce to them. In fact lots of ISP are trying to make cash over these legal services, such as video streams: p2p is not needed anymore, on the contrary it's an obstacle.

I again agree that P2P is no longer needed as a marketing tool for ISP's. The Internet has hundreds of services that benefit both individuals and organisations. I think that ISP's could do just fine without P2P, but blacklisting and suing all users who used P2P for piracy is foolish. If all ISP's, currently trading, banned P2P file sharing it would only provide a gap in the market for new companies that allow it. ISP's, currently, can't afford to remove all the customers who use P2P to illegally share files. The legal services are not yet large enough and the current economic climate are preventing any real action.

Originally Posted by ipernorris

Uhm I wouldn't be sure is totally infeasible to sue more tens or hundreds of thousands of "pirates": the copyright associations have infinite resources. There is a much more pratical way to hit hard without any financial effort from these associations anyway: the HADOPI law which is being adopted by many countries.

It is not totally infeasible to sue more pirates for the purposes of setting an example, but suing all of them is totally infeasible. I disagree that copyright associations have infinite resources, If this was the case surely the number or pirates would be significantly lower.

The law is creating a lot of controversy about privacy and civil rights. Such laws prevent us from having freedom and will be used heavily by opposition parties to gain voters. The public will not allow the government to monitor/dictate their lives. Copyright associations are unethical and socially irresponsible making them much hated by the public.

Piracy has existed for centuries and I can't see it stopping now. The Internet simply provides a new type of piracy, one which we are not entirely sure how to deal with.

[ipernorris]

Originally Posted by miscs

We face risks with serious consequences everyday, but we don't take action to remove/reduce such risks. The drive to work everyday has the chance to kill me, but I take the gamble because its a convenient and fast way to travel. Do you see where this is going? I use my current method of P2P for similar reasons. Removing the risk is an inconvenience and I don't feel, presently, that the risk is larger enough for me to take action.

Following your example, even if you use the car to travel to work, the car has some safety devices such as air bags, abs and such... so you look for ways to reduce the risks caused by an action which don't consist in not doing that action. The same stands for p2p: if you can reduce (eliminate would be a more proper word) the risks why not using it? I mean anonymous p2p clients don't take particular efforts on the users' part, other than learning some very basic notions which takes ten minutes at most.
The speed is the only relevant problem, but the anonymous p2p of today are much better than the programs of the past. In I2P, for example, I can reach 20 KBps with the bittorrent, and that's something very noticeable in such a nanoscopic network. If the peers would be, let's say, 300 thousands insteand of 1500, things would be totally different, most users wouldn't even notice the difference with the normal Internet and it would be even more anonymous. The more the better!

I again agree that P2P is no longer needed as a marketing tool for ISP's. The Internet has hundreds of services that benefit both individuals and organisations. I think that ISP's could do just fine without P2P, but blacklisting and suing all users who used P2P for piracy is foolish. If all ISP's, currently trading, banned P2P file sharing it would only provide a gap in the market for new companies that allow it. ISP's, currently, can't afford to remove all the customers who use P2P to illegally share files. The legal services are not yet large enough and the current economic climate are preventing any real action.

Well these new companies could be born only if the legal framework would allow them to do so: with the HADOPI law, for example, it would be impossible for ANY company to be p2p friendly. Otherwise it would be shut down in a way or in the other by the authorities. If there is no possibility for clients to run to p2p friendly ISPs then the existing ones would consider the possibility of disconnecting users or filtering them much more seriously.
This could really cripple the economy of a family: if one or both the parents work through the net, then if it is shut down because the son downloaded too many mp3s would mean that family will have serious financial problems.

It is not totally infeasible to sue more pirates for the purposes of setting an example, but suing all of them is totally infeasible. I disagree that copyright associations have infinite resources, If this was the case surely the number or pirates would be significantly lower.

There is not only the suing danger. Users may be filtered or disconnected by their own ISPs, without passing though a court: this is much faster and effective.

The law is creating a lot of controversy about privacy and civil rights. Such laws prevent us from having freedom and will be used heavily by opposition parties to gain voters. The public will not allow the government to monitor/dictate their lives. Copyright associations are unethical and socially irresponsible making them much hated by the public.

Majority and opposition are both generously financed by the copyright associaions...
Anyway I don't think these many voters will switch party: reading some posts here on the line "if you don't have something to hide you don't need privacy" says it all.

Piracy has existed for centuries and I can't see it stopping now. The Internet simply provides a new type of piracy, one which we are not entirely sure how to deal with.

Piracy won't be stopped, of course: unstoppable tools are already out there and they're becoming more and more efficient, by evrey day. I2P, Freenet, Stealthnet, Share, Perfect Dark are only some of them...
The copyright infringment witch hunt is funny somewhat: it's like put in the same race a turtle and an atletic champion... the outcome is already known before the beginning!

[-KarumA-]

I'm not ashamed of websites I visit or about what I do on the internet, a log may be recorded of what I do but that doesn't always mean that someone is reading every thing I do daily or monthly and will be responding to it, in order for that to happen they would need a lot more people to fill those jobs
without my ISP making a log I wouldn't have known 2 months ago that I had a porn bot hidden in my usb drivers on my PC even after reformatting the computer, it was my is ISP who even made me aware that I was sending out porn spam to random people, without that I wouldn't have found out about it
and if someone is reading my logs there is still nothing they can do:

In the Netherlands, according to article 16b of the Dutch Auteurswet, you can make a private copy, if you have no commercial interest. Also, according to article 16c of the Dutch Auteurswet, reproduction (for listening etc.) is allowed. Therefore, downloading as such is not illegal in the Netherlands. It is actually the uploading that’s illegal.

and this counts for music and dvd's

[ipernorris]

Originally Posted by -KarumA-

I'm not ashamed of websites I visit or about what I do on the internet, a log may be recorded of what I do but that doesn't always mean that someone is reading every thing I do daily or monthly and will be responding to it, in order for that to happen they would need a lot more people to fill those jobs

Just because you don't go to shameful sites don't mean it's right your surfing habits being logged.

without my ISP making a log I wouldn't have known 2 months ago that I had a porn bot hidden in my usb drivers on my PC even after reformatting the computer, it was my is ISP who even made me aware that I was sending out porn spam to random people, without that I wouldn't have found out about it
and if someone is reading my logs there is still nothing they can do:

You keep being imprecise. Your ISP didn't log all of your online internet activities, but received complaints about spam coming from an ip of its own so they enstabilished who was behind that in order to take action and avoiding the continuation of the spam. They did that for their own interest in order to not go into some antispam list. That's a totally different thing than doing a systematic logging of evreything a user does online.

In the Netherlands, according to article 16b of the Dutch Auteurswet, you can make a private copy, if you have no commercial interest. Also, according to article 16c of the Dutch Auteurswet, reproduction (for listening etc.) is allowed. Therefore, downloading as such is not illegal in the Netherlands. It is actually the uploading that’s illegal.

and this counts for music and dvd's

Ok so just because you in your particular country don't risk anything for downloading it's ok to use megaupload or rapidshare and who cares for the rest of the world?