Posted on 06/03/2005 12:23:40 PM PDT by America_Right
Brave US terrorist hunters end stand off against BitTorrent web site Comment (0) Trackback (1) Published: May 27, 2005 05:20 GMT A massive collection of highly-skilled, dedicated, brave law enforcement officials managed yesterday to shut down a Bittorrent web site alleged to facilitate the illegal trade of the latest Star Wars movie and other content. Yes, it took the FBI and the Homeland Security Department to pull off "Operation D-Elite" - an action directed at BitTorrent hub Elite Torrents. The Feds, working off 10 search warrants, seized control of the bittorrent site's central server in a quick, decisive maneuver and obtained information from the bittorrent site's alleged administrators. More than 17,800 movie titles were shuffled about by 133,000 Elite Torrent members, according to a statement from the US DoJ (Department of Justice). "Our goal is to shut down as much of this illegal operation as quickly as possible to stem the serious financial damage to the victims of this high-tech piracy-the people who labor to produce these copyrighted products," said Acting Assistant Attorney General John Richter. "Today's crackdown sends a clear and unmistakable message to anyone involved in the online theft of copyrighted works that they cannot hide behind new technology."
And later.
"Internet pirates cost U.S. industry hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue every year from the illegal sale of copyrighted goods and new online file-sharing technologies make their job even easier," said Assistant Secretary Michael Garcia. "Through today's landmark enforcement actions, ICE (Customs Enforcement) and the FBI have shut down a group of online criminals who were using legitimate technology to create one-stop shopping for the illegal sharing of movies, games, software and music."
And later.
"The theft of copyrighted material is far from a victimless crime," said Assistant Director Louis Reigel of the FBI. "When thieves steal this data, they are taking jobs away from hard workers in industry, which adversely impacts the U.S. economy. The FBI remains committed to working with our partners in law enforcement at all levels and private industry to identify and take action against those responsible."
The Feds always use almost comical language to describe P2P and BitTorrent sites, portraying them as the work of evil, swollen-brained mad computer scientists. This time we find that Elite Torrent was a "technologically sophisticated P2P network" and not just a bittorrent link hub or bittorrent search engine like you might find in myriad forms on the internet.
One gets the feeling that such language is meant to cover the P2P operations with a very sinister aura in the hopes that this will explain why the Homeland Security department is wasting time making sure George Lucas receives all his cash instead of protecting citizens from actual danger. Not to mention that Silicon Valley churns out far more cash for the US economy than Hollywood, meaning that jobs taken away from Disney might end up at Intel or Microsoft because of a P2P breakthrough. But such foresight would be asking a bit much of bureaucrats, especially ones greased by pigopolist pork.
We digress.
The Feds were especially pleased that visitors to the hijacked Elitetorrents.org would see the message "This Site Has been Permanently Shut Down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement." That message, however, seems to have been quickly replaced by the "Coming Soon" note that is up now. Have the Feds been bested so soon?
"The content selection available on the Elite Torrents network was virtually unlimited and often included illegal copies of copyrighted works before they were available in retail stores or movie theatres," the DoJ said. "For example, the final entry in the Star Wars series, 'Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,' was available for downloading on the network more than six hours before it was first shown in theatres. In the next 24 hours, it was downloaded more than 10,000 times."
Kinda makes tapping phone calls seem more worthwhile, doesn't it?
They were seduced by the dark side...
Wah wah wah - they broke the law, they got caught, they got shut down. Whining "hey, there's more serious criminals out there, leave me alone" is basically crap.
Ok. You lost me, what is this all about in just plain ole english for us publix skool gradjewates.
Along with the gestapo like "Click it or ticket" roadstops all over the eastern seaboard, I feel so safe now!
F-EM!
Bittorrent software and trackers have lots of legitimate uses, and some that are illegitimate. Just like almost every other technology in existence.
Hundreds of billions from illegal sales? That implies at least $200 billion just from sales on top of free downloads.
$200 billon / 300 million people = $667 of illegal sales for every man, woman and child in the coutry. Those numbers sound more inflated than a scared blowfish.
Its not just Americans you know. There are billions of people in the world.
If they just need to exchange brief messages with links, you would think they would just post to Usenet.
I have a feeling you would react differently if they were stealing your property.
Intellectual property piracy has become a major source of funding for international terrorists. What's the problem with enforcing the law here?
The rips are quite a bit better than that these days.
Usenet is the sewer of the Internet, not that I don't swim in it a bit too.
>>One gets the feeling that such language is meant to cover the P2P operations with a very sinister aura ...<<
Yes, and for the same exact reason a private collection of classic hunting rifles becomes an "arsenal" even if police raided the home for some issue totally unrelated to a violent crime.
He who controls the meaning of words, also controls how people think. Only if the press disagrees with the goal of the speaker do they find ways to object to the words he has chosen, often by thowing in the "so-called" warning.
How many people actually know what Usenet is? NONE of my customers has ever known what it is. These are people who want to download free music with Kazaa, and end up ruining their computers with the spyware they get from it.
Anyway, Usenet isn't well known. A very small percentage of Internet users actually knows it exists.
By the way, I love Easynews! Yeah, shameless plug, but they deserve it.
That's why I suggest it. They'd fit right in.
The all-text groups are not actually too bad. There are some very innocuous discussions of crossword puzzles and classical music. But the opera groups are infested with trolls....
But I thought the BitTorrent guys were tech wizards. They could probably even get I2P or Freenet to work and use that.
Usenet can be a pretty brutal place, and is clearly not a place for noobie and those with thin skins. Every group has a troll or two. Treated properly they provide some amusing entertainment value. I always wear my armor and carry a sharp stick.
Its interesting to note the the new Starwars movie cited as the reason they went after EliteTorrents was actually put out on Usenet first and then moved to Torrents.
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