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TorrentBits.org and SuprNova.org Go Dark
Posted by
michael
on Sun Dec 19, 2004 12:49 PM
from the last-one-out-turn-off-the-lights dept.
from the last-one-out-turn-off-the-lights dept.
Numerous people wrote in with similar stories: "Without providing a reason, both of these sites have shut down: SuprNova.org and TorrentBits.org." We mentioned a few days ago that the MPAA was going after Bittorrent sites.
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suprnova t-shirt (Score:5, Funny)
Suprnova Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
As everybody should be able to figure out... (Score:5, Informative)
Greetings everybody, As you have probably noticed, we have often had downtimes. This was because it was so hard to keep this site up! But now we are sorry to inform you all, that SuprNova is closing down for good in the way that we all know it. We do not know if SuprNova is going to return, but it is certainly not going to be hosting any more torrent links. We are very sorry for this, but there was no other way, we have tried everything. Thank you all that helped us, by donating mirrors or something else, by uploading and seeding files, by helping people out on IRC and on forum, by spreading the word about SuprNova.org. It is a sad day for all of us! Please visit SuprNova.org every once in a while to get the latest news on what is happening and if there is anything new to report on. As we wish to maintain the nice comunity that we created, we are keppig forums and irc servers open. Thank you all and Goodbye! sloncek & the rest of the SuprNova Team
Reply from Admin? (Score:5, Informative)
-------
AT LAST!
I've got a chance to reply to some of these rumours and wild speculation!
(YES - this is going to be one of the Puppy's long boring posts,
but if you don't read it all, don't bother replying - NO CRIB NOTES AVAILABLE)
Firstly, I have to say,
I am extremely dissapointed with the response from some of the members of the TB community.
Scare-mongering and spreading rumours is not the most helpful thing to do in a situation like this!
I know everyone is unhappy about it, but don't burn your bridges with insults or by playing the blame game!
Secondly,
I am extremely delighted with the reponse form some of the members of the TB community.
Members like DeeJee, and Warlok, who are trying to keep us all together,
to get the correct information out. There are probably more that I don't know about yet....
and all those working behind the scenes.... Thanks guys
OK lets get down to it.
A few facts:-
- I am extremely sad to report, that I have just found out that, TB, as we know it, is DEAD.
- The full reason why Rb choose to close down is still not yet known
- Rb was "on holiday" when the site went down, and is in no position to put it back up again,
or explain anything, until he gets back
- There was a Ddos attack - After the site went down!
One more fact:-
Nobody, REPEAT, nobody, except Redbeard knows what Redbeard is planning to do.
Keep watching torrentbits.org for a statement.
It's the ONLY place to get the full facts
Re:Reply from Admin? (Score:5, Funny)
-There was a Ddos attack - After the site went down!
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Bye bye SuprNova (Score:5, Interesting)
Now talking in #suprnova.org
Topic is 'SuprNova is from today on DOWN. It will not be returning in any way that we know it now. We are very sorry for this, but it is not possible any other way. Thank you all for all your help! SuprNova crew '
* Set by sloncek on Sun Dec 19 16:08:10
I knew it was serious as sloncek is the owner of SN and doesn't fool about with the topics much (unless its April 1st).
The thing that affects me most is that we at TLMP [tlm-project.org] get a large portion of our traffic for Linux ISO torrents from SuprNova's listings.
Anyway, there are other sites, and much like when SR was taken down a couple of years ago, one of them will likely take the traffic and fill the void. Where there is demand, there is supply.
Anyone have any more information as to why this happened? Is it anything to do with the developement of Exeem? I can't see it being as simple as the MPAA taking legal action, as AFAIK they have little influence in Slovenia where it is hosted, and they have whethered alot of copyright group's actions fine until now....
Trackers or Indexers? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like asking a bartender about the street corners where the girls hang out late at night. If he responsible for how you use the information; ie, if you engage in prostition?
It's a sad, sad day when information is made the scapegoat. If anything, they should be applauded, and kept as a means for getting to the real criminals.
Check out the definition of "conspiracy" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like asking a bartender about the street corners where the girls hang out late at night. If he responsible for how you use the information; ie, if you engage in prostition?
The big point that you are missing (and most people running torrent trackers) is that if you have a reasonable suspicion that the information you are providing to someone is going to be used for criminal purposes then you are treading dangerously close to the definition of "conspiracy".
Let's take your example of the helpful bartender a bit further. You wander into a bar and over several drinks proceed to tell the bartender about your sleazy business partner and how he is cheating you. The bartender tells you that "he knows a guy" who can take care of your problem for a bundle of cash. You take the number he gives you, meet with a contract hit man, and pay him a wad on money so that your business partner meets a rather violent demise.
Is the bartender a participant in your conspiracy to commit murder? According to the law he is. A reasonalbe person would have no problem conecting the dots here and information that was provided had a purpose...
To drag this back in to the real world, you might want to take a look at how the law deals with flea markets and swap meets where counterfeit goods are being sold. The person organizing the swap meet can post as many signs as they want saying that they have no idea what you are selling and are only providing a place for people to put their goods on display, but the law treats that claim like the BS it truly is. The people running the torrent trackers know what is being provided and what their role in the game is, and if they try to claim that they are shocked that people are trading pirated music, software, and videos on these services they will be bitch-slapped by the law.
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Re:Check out the definition of "conspiracy" (Score:5, Insightful)
As escorts are just another name for prostitutes, that would make the yellow pages of every major metropolitan area guilty of conspiracy for solicitation. Yet, these ads continue to run and the yellow pages publishers seem to be completely unmolested by the legal system for their part in it all.
Now, you can't quite download a hooker via bittorrent, but I think the analogy between the call girls in the yellow pages and suprnova is a lot closer than the analogy between the bartender's hitman and suprnova.
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Re:Check out the definition of "conspiracy" (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, to use a probably more accurate analogy... when my friend wanted to shoot spit wads during english class, I lent him a pen to bore out for a spit-tube... and damn! We both totally got busted for detention!!
bittorrent != murder
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Stop Posting Links (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stop Posting Links (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no point in having a web site that no one links to, because no one will ever go there. Furthermore, if people like a particular site, they tend to talk about it, and link to it. That's just the way the net is.
In other words, you're advocating doing something that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to do the other thing you're advocating doing.
So which do you want? Pick one, dammit, and be consistent.
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Re:Stop Posting Links (Score:5, Funny)
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BitTorrent's big weakness (Score:5, Insightful)
DC++ seems to have the same weakness, with the hosts, but as long as host lists are legal, it will remain pretty easy to find new hosts. Gnutella seems pretty safe, but they've managed to pollute the network enough to make it almost unusable.
alas, it is only a matter of time before something comes along that perfects this problem and leaves the MPAA/RIAA with no option but to come up with a new business model. Free music seems to me to be a fine way to advertise a touring artist who is making money off of the shows. Movies may have to resort to product placement, or something.
This time with breaks! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Forget chasing 'pirates'. This will save a lot of expensive legal bills. Cut back drastically on advertising too, as you don't need to whip people up into a frenzy to get them to theatres in the first week.
2. Make film (Citizen Kane: starring Adam Sandler or something).
3. Make a VCD cut and make unlabelled cheapo vcd's. Using the economies of scale, sell these so cheap that the guys selling pirate vcd will buy from you rather than burn their own copies. Your margin is the difference between a bulk pressed cd and a small scale burned copy.
4. Simultaneously sell the film as a download for the same price as you get for the vcd.
5. Make a nicer, longer dvd cut of the film and, again, sell these so cheap that the guys selling pirate dvd will buy from you rather than burn their own copies.
6. Sell the dvd cut of the film online at the same price as the DVD wholesale price.
7. Theatre release of film in lovely THX/35mm
8. Boxed set dvd release with extra everything.
By doing this you make money from the guys currently selling 'pirated copies' of films and money from people who can't be bothered to find a torrent of your film. The money saved on lawyers and advertising would probably pay for setting up the servers.
At stage 3 you are the sole supplier of vcd of your film, it is uneconomic to burn copies so you own the market. People may share your film over the internet but the hassle of finding a torrent and/or running P2P software is competing against the paid download (4) which is priced as low as a blank cdr.
This is simple economics. Cut back on expensive things like lawyers and advertising, then put out bargain bin priced product to soak up the sales to misers and the poor. You can still make bigger margins on the nicely packaged versions to people who want to buy them.
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Re:This time with breaks! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the idea behind cost of production and supply/demand. Hollywood filmmakers will NEVER be able to sell as cheap as pirates for the simple reason the pirates do not pay anything for the material. Making movies is a costly venture, advertising or no advertising, lawyers or no lawyers.
While I do agree Hollywood is approaching this the wrong way, your idea is fundamentally flawed. Besides, this has nothing to do with cost of production--this is simply supply/demand economics. The market will set the price, and right now it has done so very efficiently for DVDs. Hollywood needs to embrace the Internet, not implement artificial methods of stopping Internet piracy--remove the demand for pirated movies, not the supply.
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Closing in advance of raids (Score:5, Interesting)
People have said that these sites are closing voluntarily before they get raided. The site owners seem to have solid information about the raids. I doubt they'd close down without it.
The best community sites kept track of ratios to encourage people to upload. Suprnova didn't, but torrentbits did. Unfortunately, that means that the sites maintained databases of everything users downloaded.
Without those databases, the MPAA would have to join swarms and try to collect as many IPs as possible. With such a database, they could look up everything everyone had downloaded through that site.
So it was a very good thing that the site admins pulled the plug on those sites before the databases could be seized.
It seems likely to me that the old model of the bittorrent community site, which depended on such databases, is dead.
Perhaps some old cypherpunks could come up with a better way to incentivize users to share and participate in the community, without leaving data behind in a database. Maybe something with blind signatures, similar to a digital cash protocol.
But the old model is probably dead.
Settlement? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it is possible that Suprnova and a number of these other sites reached an agreement with the MPAA or whoever was threating to sue them that they just disappear quiety into the night and they can save them self from a lawsuit.
It strikes me as odd that they would not heve mentioned it, but I can easily see the reason for this. If your the MPAA you have two options, either make an example of these sites so people are too scared to fuck with them, or just make them go bye bye. I think the first won't discourage enough people, because the law is on suprnova's side, so a number of people would rise up just to defy the MPAA and take up the cause. However, if the MPAA were to tell suprnova that in order to avoid a lawsuit they need to tell people that the site was just too much work, it prevents them from being martyrs and other people won't be so quick to jump in and fill the vacum left.
What a relief (Score:5, Funny)
I use google anywayz (Score:5, Interesting)
the ultimate torrent search [google.co.uk]
are they going shut down google now ?
nick...
Re:I use google anywayz (Score:5, Interesting)
The race is on, who'll post a reply with the code for this first?
Parent
"notice of infringement" emails have already hit (Score:5, Informative)
Infringement Detail:
Infringing Work: Grudge, The
Filepath: The.Grudge.SCREENER-VideoCD.torrent|CD1
Filename
First Found: 18 Dec 2004 04:21:14 EST (GMT -0500)
Last Found: 18 Dec 2004 04:21:14 EST (GMT -0500)
Filesize: 14,648k
IP Address:
IP Port: 58546
Network: BTPeers
Protocol: BitTorrent
Apparently the RIAA has been sampling the swarms or getting their data from somewhere like that. This torrent was gotten from Suprnova... was that "paper" we saw the other day here on slashdot linked to any data they collected that the RIAA might have dipped into?
MPAA Goes After Human Nature (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the MPAA is acting on behalf of its members and copyright holders, ensuring that intellectual property is not distributed for free. They have the law on their side, and can probably buy or lobby anyone of importance that disagrees with them.
That said, I think the MPAA is fighting a losing battle. People like to share, to spread what little wealth and happiness they have around.
BitTorrent enables a system where people of like interests and hobbies can reward one another as they are connected to the same torrent. And yes, this includes both legitimate and illegitimate uses.
Sharing is part of human nature and any organization that throws its weight around in an attempt to circumvent our instinct to share will ultimately prove to be futile.
The next wave of P2P clients... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:who else? (Score:5, Informative)
This is going to be a huge issue for all the new/small torrents sites - how do they work with the load that millions of new users demand?
BTW: If you have an IRC client, you can join #bt, #bt-gm and #tvtorrents on efnet. #bt and #tvtorrents serves TV show torrents and #bt-gm serves torrents for games and movies.
Since it's IRC it stands a somewhat better chance of surviving.
Parent
Re:who else? (Score:5, Interesting)
The only way these sites will be able to remain online is to host them on servers out of European and American jurisdiction.
I'm a system administrator here in Saint Petersburg, Russia for an ISP that I'm a founding member of (even though I'm not Russian). I've got oodles of bandwidth, and would love to host a popular torrent site (especially because I rely on these torrents to escape from having to watch Russian television).
Is anyone interested in teaming up with me so we can get the torrents back on the web without legal worry?
You can find me here (sale [AT] winlink.ru)
p.s. to all the mods that are going to mod me into oblivian, think of this: the whole idea here is to keep the torrents alive. Isn't that what we all want?
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Re:who else? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:who else? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:who else? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:who else? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Slashdot didn't really cave (Score:5, Informative)
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not anymore... (Score:5, Funny)
good work.
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Re:who else? (Score:5, Interesting)
World's Worst Reliable Delivery Method.
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Re:Damn it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Ouch! Mrtwig.net is down as well. No South Park for slow children this christmas.
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Re:Damn it! (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that everyone's exposed at that point: all the MPAA has to do is connect to the torrent with Azureus and they'll see all the IPs that are currently attached.
It is my life's mission to produce an unbreakable, fast form of BitTorrent: the Copyright Cartel shut off my Internet for a day earlier this week. There's nothing I can do to fix the law (which stated that copyrights were to promote the arts and sciences and should only run for 20 years); it's horribly broken and things that are currently under copyright protection will never leave copyright protection, due to continual extensions. This is abysmal; Disney made much of their money from re-doing old stories that fell into the Public Domain, like Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, etc.; today that would be impossible.
Anybody developing newer versions with encryption and anonymity, feel free to contact me. I have both developer time (C, C++, HTML, Perl, Javascript, etc.) and disposable income, to support creating a new version.
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Re:Damn it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather than threaten him, why don't you sit back for a moment and consider that it's exactly what he's doing?
Convince other Americans that the Public Domain is a Good Thing.
Good advice, but the best way to do this is through demonstration...not rhetoric.
You *can* do something about the law...Run for office if you have to.
"Going through the system" is almost impossible under the current regime. The people who run the system get their paycheck from folks like the MPAA, they have specifically designed 'the system' in such a way that folks like you and me have a snowballs chance in hell of getting anything changed.
What he's doing is real change, not imagined or self-righteous change. It takes courage, and self-belief. Let your government bully you if you prefer, let everyone wave the word 'law' around like it's a word from god, but don't try and convert him for our sake. We need more people like him.
It took Martin Luther King and Malcolm X to make real change then. It takes the same two types of people to make real change now.
"When patience has begotten false estimates of its motives, when wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality." --Thomas Jefferson
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Re:Damn it! (Score:5, Insightful)
In a digital network, you either have a central authority able to control all data flow or you have none. There is no middle ground, I fear. So you either have a "watchful eye", if I might call it that, above you, screening all your traffic. Or you don't.
If you accept a central authority, no problem. But remember, they can check you silently and must do so everytime you say, send or receive anything through the net. They will need to monitor your opinion, your preferences, your private and casual conversations and worse.
What makes this central network authority a prime target for bribery and despotism. Like the police today. Anyone, even law enforcement officers, have their price and/or can fail in their morale. While a police investigation leaves a paper trail, has multiple officers involved and has an electable politician or sheriff behind it, network auditing has not. Criminal investigation usually happens after a crime was committed and affects those related to a crime, but scene network screening has to run regularly and affects everyone. On one hand they need to have proof to convict you, on the other the proof is a set of bytes with no identifying properties.
Short: anti-authoritarian movements can be tracked, silenced and imprisoned more easily if you have a central authority scanning traffic.
The main goal of Freenet is to prevent usurpation of power by the executive branch. Those in power will always reject dissent and sooner or later try to use a subverted law against true freedom of speech.
In my own humble opinion I can say freedom all is a higher goal than protection of few children. Now mod me down, flame me to oblivion, whatever you like. Call me stone-hearted if you like, but if I must choose between truly free speech, truly anonymous and open or prevention of children's suffering, I chose the first.
Dictatorship in one country hurts more children than all molesters can do worldwide. Preventing dictatorship is the best way to help and care for all children. Chasing molesters only helps a few.
And I will not let my emotion for hopeless underage victims overwhelm my rational thoughts. I will not trade "a good thing" for "no bad thing" as this will lead me nowhere. And I will never ever become a tool of population control, spreading memes of fear and scare for a threat that is perceived way out of proportion if you look closely.
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Re:Damn it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Do you think that a "free society" means everybody is safe and happy? No. That's not what a free society is. A free society is one where you can succeed or screw up on your own, where the Man doesn't force you down 'cause there is no Man.
There is no such place as Utopia. Some people will always be fated to suffer, but, in a free society, most people have every chance to make their own destiny. A free society is as close to Utopia as we can get.
What you are arguing, sir, is the fallacy of the excluded middle.
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Re:Damn it! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're conflating two unrelated ideas. If someone drugged me and raped me, they've already broken the law, and ought to be arrested, tried, and put into prison. The photos are a non-issue.
People are allowed to take photographs, even of bad things. Photojournalists are allowed to take photos of people comitting crimes. It's important to not confuse the issue of what the real crime in your example is. The crime is the drugging and the rape, not taking a photo.
A photograph is a record of an event, just like a written story, or even an orally told story. If you're suggesting that photographing crimes is wrong, you're also strongly suggesting that writing about them or even talking about them is wrong. Is that really the position you want to take?
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Try the TV torrent sites. (Score:5, Informative)
btefnet.net
The MPAA and RIAA have little reason to go after them.
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Update: it's not dead (Score:5, Informative)
According to efnet:#tvtorrents, they are just having DNS problems. Hopefully tvtorrents will recover!
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Re:Damn it! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Reason (Score:5, Informative)
A "we know we probably can't nail you properly, but our lawyers can make life tough on you for years to come - so just leave town, and do it tonight" - deal?
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Re:Not only SN and TB (Score:5, Informative)
LokiTorrent is still around, but who knows for how long?
Interestingly, Suprnova posted torrents for Firefox, Thunderbird and other legal software. They helped share the load for legal software developers, regardless of what warez was shared by their users.
All these sites will be sorely missed by many.
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Re:Can't say I'm sad (Score:5, Insightful)
That is all that Suprnova ever did. Now, if its illegal to post a list of files, it must also be illegal to print one in a newspaper, or write one on a piece of paper with a pencil anad photocopy it.
If you go a google search for "index of" apache *.dmg* "port 80" [google.co.uk] you get lots and lots of links to copyrighted software. By your flawed logic, Google "is just plain illegal" because it provides lists of files just as Supernova did.
Printing a list can never be an illegal act. At least not in a free country it cant.
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Re:Can't say I'm sad (Score:5, Interesting)
So, if Suprnova were hosted in the usa, in order to take advantage of the above, they would need to:
1/ Stop allowing the upload of torrents.
2/ Create a system that spiders named folders on each users hard drive where torrents are stored.
3/ Call themeselvs a "search engine".
Then the criteria is met is it not? Suprnova would be simply spidering compters that are on the iinternet, just like Google does, and providing a search interface, and nothing more.
Same functionality, same list of torrents to download, no liability whatsoever.
As for who runs the trackers, this would not be Suprnova's affair, just as it was not while it was running in Slovenia.
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Re:Exeem (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really just a matter of safety (and paranoia): only with opensource clients I can be relatively sure that the client won't rat out on me or install malware of various sorts. Honor among thieves (or pirates
The portability is an added (very nice) bonus.
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Re:Exeem (Score:5, Funny)
The ultimate P2P service would be Freenet 1.x, scheduled to be released sometime after the last atom of hydrogen has been consumed by the last star and the remaining ashes frozen solid.
Beneath the starless sky, on the frozen landfill that was once Earth, a feeble glow suddenly appears. It comes from a long-dead display, which slowly comes to something resembling life. For a while it flickers like a candle in the wind, then stabilizes into a steady glow. The last surviving human is drawn to it, and for a moment he just stares, not sure if he should believe his own eyes - Freenet 1.0 actually found the key he was searching for !.
Then, suddenly, he realizes - the "Index of not-yet-inserted keys" actually found what he was searching for ! Exited, he starts reading, and soon he knows how to reverse entropy. He throws his head back and laughs. And so it begins again...
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Re:Well, uh... (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, I know that wouldn't have anything to do with it, but I still feel bad drawing attention to it the day before it died.
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Re:change the hosting provider (Score:5, Interesting)
Serving up copywritten material is still illegal, but as I understand it, BitTorrent is completely decentralized peer2peer, and the host websites don't actually host any copywritten material, no?
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