4 ms·

Free Anonymous BitTorrent Becomes Reality With BitBlinder

47 points by peter123 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago
Apparently the MPAA and RIAA never watched Star Wars: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." (And yes, I know that Star Wars is not the original source of this sentiment.) The most amusing part about all of this is that the MPAA and RIAA "crackdown" and prosecution of file sharers has forced them to develop technology that is nearly impossible to monitor. Terrorists and child pornographers (+) are infinitely grateful. If nobody got sued for downloading albums, this would probably have not been necessary. Ah, corporations and governments... always thinking about society's best interests... (+) Yes, I chose these two so that I could sound like a politician. jrockway for President.
tjmc 17y ago
"Acting as an exit node provides the operator with plausible deniability, since they will have no idea what data is passing through." This is a weak defence at best and a huge risk to whoever acts as an end node. What if someone further up the chain is downloading child pornography? Do you really want to be protecting their IP, relaying their traffic and sending your own IP in the clear?
- azanar 17y ago
  I suspect you would probably make the same argument about being a Tor endpoint. Given that Tor has been available for a while, are there examples of maintainers of Tor end nodes being held accountable for the traffic they pass on behalf of others? This seems bred the same philosophy as holding an ISP accountable for the traffic of its customers, or holding the administrator of 4chan accountable for what is posted on there. It seems tenuous. Maybe I'm missing something. How many jurisdictions are there now where an unknowing facilitator can be held accountable for the criminal acts of those he is facilitating? Either way, I'm not fond of this philosophy of scaring everyone into the clear simply to avoid gruesome labeling.
  - swombat 17y ago
    There was an example of one guy having the police come to his house and seize his computers, before eventually returning them. Needless to say, he was shit-scared that his neighbours would find out that he was suspected of child pornography (though of course he was not guilty). His account was posted here some 6 months ago or so. I think it's a matter of numbers, though. If TOR (or equivalent) was as popular as BT, even the police would realise it is pointless.
    - sdfx 17y ago
      This is the post you are talking about: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=526140 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=526140
    - mhb 17y ago
      What? Like drugs? It doesn't become pointless. It merely becomes a tool which can be selectively enforced against whomever those enforcing the rules don't happen to like.
  - zouhair 17y ago
    My IP have been banned from Wikipedia when I made a Tor node to help, seems someone used Tor to vandalize a lot of articles and my IP got used for access. I had to ask my ISP to change my IP, it was easier this way than asking some admins at Wikipedia, they were not very helpful.
- Devilboy 17y ago
  TOR exit node owners get into trouble for exactly that all over the place. I guess that they won't be able to convict you unless you have something on your PC during the FBI search..
chaosmachine 17y ago
It seems this is just an ratio-enforced version of TOR, with the added downside of having a single point of failure (the ratio tracking company). "it will also be possible to buy ‘upload credit’ to use BitBlinder"
dbul 17y ago
The guys behind this are from the Winter/Spring 2009 AlphaLab batch (as Innomi.net): http://www.alphalab.org/meet_our_companies.aspx http://www.alphalab.org/meet_our_companies.aspx Informative: http://startuppittsburgh.com/2009/05/innominet-interview-about-bitblinder/ http://startuppittsburgh.com/2009/05/innominet-interview-abo...
paul9290 17y ago
Why would anyone want to use this? FOr me it's 2009 and most the things I want digitally are available online legally to enjoy (music, tv shows, some movies). The only reason you would use this is so you can feel totally safe downloading things you would have otherwise had to pay for. Why do you need to feel safe are you worried about getting caught? Maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place! I'm reformed as I stole, downloaded and horded everything via edonkey and bit torrent. Reformed after running my own startup and now having access to most things i want to enjoy freely and legally online to stream.
- roc 17y ago
  That would be a persuasive argument if a more significant quantity of music, tv shows and movies were legally available in digital form and in formats that don't place unacceptable limitations on the purchaser. But that's simply not yet the case. Also: it would help if there was any sort of actual competition in pricing.
- crocowhile 17y ago
  Reformed after running my own startup and now having access to most things i want to enjoy freely and legally online to stream. Is nice to hear you can afford to buy legally everything you like but I think those who endorse P2P and sharing they do that especially because they see it as a way for less wealthy people to access information. I think your opinion is very similar to the one of the discographic industry when they say that every CD you download is a CD that you don't buy.
  - vollmond 17y ago
    I don't think that's what he was saying. I think he's talking about services such as Grooveshark and Hulu. having access to most things i want to enjoy freely and legally online to stream.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

47 points by peter123 17y ago

Apparently the MPAA and RIAA never watched Star Wars: "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." (And yes, I know that Star Wars is not the original source of this sentiment.) The most amusing part about all of this is that the MPAA and RIAA "crackdown" and prosecution of file sharers has forced them to develop technology that is nearly impossible to monitor. Terrorists and child pornographers (+) are infinitely grateful. If nobody got sued for downloading albums, this would probably have not been necessary. Ah, corporations and governments... always thinking about society's best interests... (+) Yes, I chose these two so that I could sound like a politician. jrockway for President.

tjmc 17y ago

"Acting as an exit node provides the operator with plausible deniability, since they will have no idea what data is passing through." This is a weak defence at best and a huge risk to whoever acts as an end node. What if someone further up the chain is downloading child pornography? Do you really want to be protecting their IP, relaying their traffic and sending your own IP in the clear?

azanar 17y ago
I suspect you would probably make the same argument about being a Tor endpoint. Given that Tor has been available for a while, are there examples of maintainers of Tor end nodes being held accountable for the traffic they pass on behalf of others? This seems bred the same philosophy as holding an ISP accountable for the traffic of its customers, or holding the administrator of 4chan accountable for what is posted on there. It seems tenuous. Maybe I'm missing something. How many jurisdictions are there now where an unknowing facilitator can be held accountable for the criminal acts of those he is facilitating? Either way, I'm not fond of this philosophy of scaring everyone into the clear simply to avoid gruesome labeling.
- swombat 17y ago
  There was an example of one guy having the police come to his house and seize his computers, before eventually returning them. Needless to say, he was shit-scared that his neighbours would find out that he was suspected of child pornography (though of course he was not guilty). His account was posted here some 6 months ago or so. I think it's a matter of numbers, though. If TOR (or equivalent) was as popular as BT, even the police would realise it is pointless.
  - sdfx 17y ago
    This is the post you are talking about: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=526140 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=526140
  - mhb 17y ago
    What? Like drugs? It doesn't become pointless. It merely becomes a tool which can be selectively enforced against whomever those enforcing the rules don't happen to like.
- zouhair 17y ago
  My IP have been banned from Wikipedia when I made a Tor node to help, seems someone used Tor to vandalize a lot of articles and my IP got used for access. I had to ask my ISP to change my IP, it was easier this way than asking some admins at Wikipedia, they were not very helpful.
Devilboy 17y ago
TOR exit node owners get into trouble for exactly that all over the place. I guess that they won't be able to convict you unless you have something on your PC during the FBI search..

chaosmachine 17y ago

It seems this is just an ratio-enforced version of TOR, with the added downside of having a single point of failure (the ratio tracking company). "it will also be possible to buy ‘upload credit’ to use BitBlinder"

dbul 17y ago

The guys behind this are from the Winter/Spring 2009 AlphaLab batch (as Innomi.net): http://www.alphalab.org/meet_our_companies.aspx http://www.alphalab.org/meet_our_companies.aspx Informative: http://startuppittsburgh.com/2009/05/innominet-interview-about-bitblinder/ http://startuppittsburgh.com/2009/05/innominet-interview-abo...

paul9290 17y ago

Why would anyone want to use this? FOr me it's 2009 and most the things I want digitally are available online legally to enjoy (music, tv shows, some movies). The only reason you would use this is so you can feel totally safe downloading things you would have otherwise had to pay for. Why do you need to feel safe are you worried about getting caught? Maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place! I'm reformed as I stole, downloaded and horded everything via edonkey and bit torrent. Reformed after running my own startup and now having access to most things i want to enjoy freely and legally online to stream.

roc 17y ago
That would be a persuasive argument if a more significant quantity of music, tv shows and movies were legally available in digital form and in formats that don't place unacceptable limitations on the purchaser. But that's simply not yet the case. Also: it would help if there was any sort of actual competition in pricing.
crocowhile 17y ago
Reformed after running my own startup and now having access to most things i want to enjoy freely and legally online to stream. Is nice to hear you can afford to buy legally everything you like but I think those who endorse P2P and sharing they do that especially because they see it as a way for less wealthy people to access information. I think your opinion is very similar to the one of the discographic industry when they say that every CD you download is a CD that you don't buy.
- vollmond 17y ago
  I don't think that's what he was saying. I think he's talking about services such as Grooveshark and Hulu. having access to most things i want to enjoy freely and legally online to stream.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]