SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the how-much-can-you-trust-anyone-online? dept.
Several people have been warning users to avoid The Pirate Bay, due to CloudFlare integration and potential FBI IP bugs. There are even suggestions that the FBI has been involved in the site's somewhat mysterious rebirth.
Nobody knows who really runs The Pirate Bay, but the old moderation team were all removed as part of the relaunch. The Pirate Bay now allows people to 'report' malicious torrents instead of having a moderation team.
Some claim the FBI re-launched The Pirate Bay or had connections to the owners, implanting IP bugs on all torrent’s uploaded for investigation. The Pirate Bay has denied these accusations, claiming CloudFlare is only a temporary measure to help with the influx of traffic on the torrenting site.
CloudFlare is a cloud server provider, but is based in the US. Many privacy advocates claim CloudFlare is not a safe tool, due to the potential warrant-less searches from the FBI and other US agencies. On the topic of working with the FBI, The Pirate Bay has not responded, but TorrentFreak claims the accusations are "complete nonsense" but said that "general security concerns of using a US-based service are legitimate".
What does SoylentNews think? Is it wise to stay away?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by rts008 on Thursday February 12 2015, @02:33PM
"Run away! Run awaaaay!"
Trust a PirateBay site hosted in the USA?
Not a chance!
After all the troubles that the PirateBay have been through due to US pressure, to have it turn up on US soil is stretching creditability too much for me to accept it.
This is one time that I'm going to have to lean in the direction of the paranoid factions.
As long as the PB is hosted in the US(or equivalent minded nations), I'm treating it like it has 'virtual Ebola', and avoiding it like it was plague.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday February 12 2015, @02:45PM
"Trust a PirateBay site hosted in the USA? Not a chance!"
Change that to "Trust a site hosted in the USA?".
US law enforcement and military actions are no longer subject to any sort of rule of law. Especially since 9/11, law enforcement has begun to do whatever it wants: surveillance without a warrant, secret courts, assassination lists, torture... You name it, the US does it. All the while the citizenry is in deep denial that their government could ever act like that.
Avoid US-based organizations wherever possible. Where it's not possible, at least use services hosted outside the US. Just for example, if you use AWS, be sure to choose European hosting.
The Pirate Bay? There is no possible reason to host it in the US. It's clearly a honeypot.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @02:54PM
Err ... where is SoylentNews hosted?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by CirclesInSand on Thursday February 12 2015, @03:45PM
Why would you feel the need to trust SoylentNews? Are you doing something illegal that you expect them to keep secret? Oh. Right. You can't tell me, can you?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @03:59PM
Because I let it send me data to be processed on my computer by my browser. And the data could in principle contain any exploit that I'm not aware of.
Note that you don't have to do anything illegal to become a target. For example, I'd not be surprised if every single nuclear physicist in the world were on the watchlist of the NSA, for the sole reason of being a nuclear physicist.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @05:28PM
Are you doing something illegal that you expect them to keep secret?
You speak as if one has to do something wrong for their actions to about them to be used against them.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday February 12 2015, @05:49PM
Er...well, yes, but I don't need to trust SoylentNews. I store no sensitive data here. I post more-or-less under my real name, on this public forum, so there's really no trust required.
FWIW: I expect that the people are entirely trustworthy, but - as you make clear in a backwards sort of way - the fact that they are located in the US means that anyone would be foolish to store sensitive data here, or to attempt any sort of real anonymity. If the US government wants their data and their records, then it gets them, unless they are willing to risk jail for a principle (and probably even then).
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday February 13 2015, @02:36AM
At least in the U.S., we *know* they're collecting our data.
In other countries, you might not know it's happening.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday February 12 2015, @04:28PM
FWIW, I've been checking the .cr version and the .se (new) version and all the torrents I've tried resolved to the same files. for the files I have been looking for (not apps! just playable media) they have been fine and not bogus at all.
planting ip bugs in movies and music? I kind of doubt it. its been a long time since you could embed executable code in playable movie/music files (right?).
use a VPN to download and stop living in fear.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by francois.barbier on Thursday February 12 2015, @05:09PM
Change that to "Trust a site hosted on earth?"
Thank to the NSA, I don't even trust my own EU country network.
It was in the news last year that Belgacom was in bed with the NSA.
Now, what am I supposed to do?
Farewell, the web of "trust".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @05:48PM
Now, now, comrade Bradley. We here in the good ol' US of A are fine folks without a care in the world ... except for which reality show to watch or which sports team will impress us with their beer commercials. All the rest is taken care of for us by the respectable gentlemen who purchase seats in Congress of the White House.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @06:44PM
supposedly it requires only three chinese characters to "say" what you said but what you said in english is very cool nevertheless ... comrade
: )
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday February 12 2015, @06:39PM
Yes, Americans have been in deep denial, but more and more people on all ends of the ideological spectrum have begun talking about how the only way out is revolution. The BBC just posted a radio interview with Alan Greenspan [bbc.co.uk] wherein he said he thinks the United States is headed for a "political crisis." Alan Greenspan is a famous master of understatement, so I read that as his term for "revolution."
As more people talk about it, there will be people who start working on doing something about it. Thanks to the now universal knowledge of universal NSA/government spying, anyone who would be in that group would be keeping their cards close to their vest. There aren't going to be any Bolsheviks or Sons of Liberty this time, because those are too easily discovered and infiltrated. This one will erupt everywhere in a million directions. When it kicks off, there will be some clever boys who have tracked down all the NSA spooks and bankers and start working on their personal "Most Wanted" lists.
All the PR fluff the Powers-that-Be are pumping into the media now about how "there's robust job growth!!! No, really!!!" and how great the economy is makes me laugh. I file it under, "Don't Piss on My Head and Tell Me It's Raining."
You would think that with chatter mounting the way it is, that somebody in government would be *strongly* recommending they do something to address income inequality and all the other entrenched problems that have been burning down the middle class for 30 years, and do it NOW. But they won't. People in power are all smart, handsome, crafty, deft leaders--everyone around them always tells them so. They're doing everything right, and always do. To all the rest under them and around them, the only thing I could recommend is run, run fast, run far, dig deep. Hide.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @08:23PM
You just made the list.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @09:42PM
Revolution need, even if the whole world comes with.