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[...] These keyservers are computers which store and index OpenPGP keys over the Internet. This helps users who rely on encrypted email, for example. The servers generally share the keys amongst each other in a pool and uploaded keys generally can't be removed.
The permanent storage of keys generally isn't an issue. However, when the system is used as a stealth resource to store magnet links to pirated content, this resilience is put in a different light.
This is exactly what happened.
A few weeks ago a series of rather odd, but valid, PGP keys were uploaded to SKS keyservers. These keys were not meant to encrypt email though, but as a safe storage for torrent magnet links.
As a result, popular keyservers, including the ones hosted by research university MIT and Surfnet, have transformed into pirate sites.
The magnet links, most of which point to pirated content, were added in the UID field. In examples we've seen, sometimes there were a hundred magnet links added to a single key entry. And with the search functionality of the keyservers, these are easy to find.
What better way to destroy public encryption?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday September 09 2018, @01:55PM (1 child)
If you haven't noticed: searching Google for "latest marvel pre-release torrent full copy" doesn't turn up as many hits as Google could if they just passed it through a simple matching algorithm.
Google, and virtually every other search engine, shapes the data they index and present - the way that Google shapes the data away from presenting Warez, while TPB shapes their data toward it is what distinguishes non-pirate from pirate sites.
Interestingly, Google Translate + Baidu can often turn up sites of questionable copyright compliance that Google alone does not.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 09 2018, @10:11PM
And it all comes down to the "safe harbor" clause of the DMCA that was passed during Clinton.
This clause demands that for a service provider to maintain "safe harbor" status, they have to purge any and all infringing content (or references to same) upon notification.
Thus you have things like "ban first, check later" policies at Youtube, that allows any and all to file a claim on a video and have it taken down (or siphon off the ad revenue).
Yes, supposedly filing a fraudulent claim is treated as perjury. But this has to be proven somehow, and most of the entities have the resources and lawyers to stall their opponents into bankruptcy (never mind that it has to be an official DMCA claim, while Youtube et al open use pr service fast track claims that are outside the law).
The concept of copyright only worked for those sunshine years when making copies involved large, manually operated machinery. Since the introduction of magnetic tape and photocopiers, the concept is anachronistic at best.