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As crackdown on torrent sites continues around the world, people who are pirating TV shows and movies are having to get a little more creative. Cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, and Kim Dotcom's Mega are some of the popular ones that are being used to distribute copyrighted content, according to DMCA takedown requests reviewed by Gadgets 360.
These Google Drive links, as well as links to those of other cloud storage services, are then shared by people on select subreddits, forums, and Facebook groups. Over the past two weeks, Gadgets 360 located over a dozen Facebook groups where people openly share such files and request more movies and TV shows.
[...] Jon, who didn't share his last name, said people are moving to Google Drive and other services because authorities worldwide continue to crackdown on torrent websites and other file sharing services. In the last two years, KickassTorrents, ExtraTorrent, Shaanig, Yify Torrents and other websites, which together heydays used to garner over 500 million unique visitors (according to web analytics firm SimilarWeb), have all shut down.
Moreover, Internet service providers are increasingly making it difficult to access the few torrent websites that are still in operation, Jon said. "You've got to be part of a private tracker, public torrenting is over," he told Gadgets 360. Private torrent tracking websites usually require users to be invited — which in itself is a difficult process.
There are several publicly accessible torrent websites that continue to exist, but "torrenting" is getting more difficult by day, multiple people told Gadgets 360. Public sites are mired with pop-up windows filled with ads trying to sell them malware, which makes it a poor experience.
Torrents are dying as savvy pirates come to their senses and abandon antiquated torrent tech, uploading their wares to cloud hosting sites like Google Drive instead.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 11 2017, @07:24AM (7 children)
https://torrentfreak.com/no-google-drive-is-definitely-not-the-new-pirate-bay-170910/ [torrentfreak.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday September 11 2017, @03:23PM (5 children)
The problem with torrents that I see is that it depends on people "seeding", which means they have to keep all these files in a certain place on their HD and keep their torrent client up, with every single one of these things listed as a separate entry. Moreover, they can't change any of them: the filenames have to stay the same, they have to keep all the extra parts of it (like .nfo files that pirate groups add), etc.
Honestly, it seems like it'd be better for file-sharers if they moved to using the ED2K system. On that, you just point to some directories where your stuff is, let it index it and generate hashes, and then people can find what they want from there with a text search. Even if you rename a file from "Cool.Movie.[Groupname].10bitX265.WTF.mkv" to "Cool_Movie.mkv", it won't matter because it's indexed by hash and size, so it'll correlate that with other people who have the same file but with a different name, and downloaders can download from all of you simultaneously. And you don't have to maintain each shared item as a separate torrent with its own tracker; you can share any arbitrary file from any folder you point it to, so it's pretty trivial to share hundreds of thousands of separate files if you want.
But, as we see so often in tech, the technically superior solution gets little recognition or use, while the trendy but inferior solution gets all the fame and mindshare.
(Score: 1) by ants_in_pants on Monday September 11 2017, @05:56PM (3 children)
A lot of people(myself included) run VPSes that do all the torrenting for them, then download off the VPS when they want the files. Hell, I had a friend that had all the files he torrented available on a website he ran out of that same VPS.
That's the point. It wouldn't do to let people inject random data into your torrents. And the point of filenames staying the same is it allows people to know the origin and history of the files. I don't want to get a file that says its encoded by CoalGirls but turns out to be shitty quality.
eDonkey has the problem that it relies on central servers, and the extensions by eMule are, at best, a hack. There aren't any advantages over bittorrent that outweigh the higher speed and assurance. Not to mention the fact that I can't find a linux client anywhere.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday September 11 2017, @06:39PM (2 children)
A lot of people(myself included) run VPSes that do all the torrenting for them, then download off the VPS when they want the files. Hell, I had a friend that had all the files he torrented available on a website he ran out of that same VPS.
So to try to not be a leech, you have to sign up for a VPS service? Hmm....
And the point of filenames staying the same is it allows people to know the origin and history of the files.
Oh please. The whole point was that on ED2K, if one person renames their copy of the file to something else, it won't matter because the system will see the size and hash are the same, and recognize it's really the same file. People searching will just find the original filename, because most people aren't going to bother changing it.
It wouldn't do to let people inject random data into your torrents.
What "random data"? ED2K checks file hashes. You can't just add anything; it'll look like a completely different file. Even changing some metadata (ID3 tag, etc.) will change the hash and make it a new file.
There aren't any advantages over bittorrent that outweigh the higher speed and assurance.
Sure there are, I already listed them. People don't need a special VPS service to use them, and can just share stuff right off their HD, so you get more seeders and a larger variety of content (not just what's currently popular). On BitTorrent, you only see stuff that's fairly recent and popular. You probably won't find, for example, a PDF copy of some 15-year-old printer service manual, or a service manual for a 1970s-era oscilloscope. Weird stuff like that is pretty routine on ED2K. There's no speed advantage to torrents; they both do "swarming" (downloading parts from different seeders simultaneously); the problem is just an order or two of magnitude fewer users.
Not to mention the fact that I can't find a linux client anywhere.
You never heard of "amule"? It's been around for ages.
(Score: 1) by ants_in_pants on Monday September 11 2017, @08:42PM (1 child)
There's nothing wrong with being a leech, and it's not a requirement at all for seeding. Having a seedbox is just a luxury, and people with huge seedboxes are what keep lots of old seldom-downloaded torrents alive. I also use my VPS for other things too.
That makes a lot of assumptions. Remember when you'd get the wrong music off napster?
But earlier you were talking about how the ability to remove a file from a download, such as something implanted by the uploader to get their id out there, is such a big net positive. If it's a different package, and I can't know it's still the same content because all I have is the hashes, what assurance do I have that it's really what I'm looking for?
you don't need a special(or general) VPS service to download torrents either. You do, however, need a server to run an ED2k node, unless you decide to specifically run it only with kademlia... in which case the architectural differences from bittorrent are negligible.
you do know that's exactly how bittorrent works, right?
au contraire. You can find some really fringe stuff on private trackers, although it's usually either useful or entertaining.
I have not, actually.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 12 2017, @04:01PM
and can just share stuff right off their HD
you do know that's exactly how bittorrent works, right?
No, it doesn't at all. Do you even use BitTorrent? With BT, if you want to share something, you have to leave it in its unaltered state, in a specific location where it can be shared. If you want to share something new, you have to go to the trouble of creating a new tracker for it and uploading your .torrent file somewhere. If you alter something, it won't be shared automatically. With ED2K, you just point it at directories you want to share, and you're done.
au contraire. You can find some really fringe stuff on private trackers
Ok, then how do you get access to those, since they're, as you said, private? You have to hang out on some communities for a while, be social, etc. Major PITA. With ED2K, you just load up the program and do a search, and it's all there. You don't have to be a card-carrying member of some community to get access.
you don't need a special(or general) VPS service to download torrents either
But you do to share them for very long, unless you don't mind leaving terabytes of stuff on your HD in an unaltered state. I don't like the way torrented stuff has their files named, and I always rename stuff according to my own file-naming standard (which is a whole lot cleaner and easier to read), so it's impossible for me to seed.
If it's a different package, and I can't know it's still the same content because all I have is the hashes, what assurance do I have that it's really what I'm looking for?
WTF? Do you not know how cryptographic hashing works? If it's the same size file, has the same SHA1 (or whatever) hash, and has a somewhat similar filename, then it's almost certainly what you're looking for, unless someone is trying to pollute the system to "combat piracy" (which is also a problem with BT). The odds for finding a SHA1 collision are literally astronomical.
That makes a lot of assumptions. Remember when you'd get the wrong music off napster?
Again, I have no idea what you're talking about. If the file has the same size and hash, it's the same file. File names are not important for positively identifying them once you have the size and hash.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @11:19PM
That said, there is an ed2k network still running inside I2P, complete with the imule client, a modified amule with i2p networking support.
Unfortunately, based on personal searches of it, there is very little worthwhile content there unless more people are willing to seed, or a gateway seeder to clearnet ed2k is implemented to relay files.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 11 2017, @05:03PM
We'll see what the misogynerd narrative does. If Google gets skewered as a company that's helping dread pirates (omg! dread pirates, and not just Roberts!) in the media, take it as a warning. Google's Hail Mary of firing James Damore for daring to hint at an obvious question one may have about the exclusive privileging of cisgenderism and heterosexuality inherent to the misogynerd narrative may not be nearly enough to appease feminists and their 0.01%er masters.
Always remember that when dealing with feminists. They are pathological liars, and they are shills for the Ownership Class. You can jump when they bark and ask how high on the way up, but it is never enough to appease feminism.