Third of Content On Popular BT Portals Are Fake 255
siliconbits writes "A study published by a group of researchers, most of them based in Europe, analysed the publishers of content on two major BitTorrent portals, Pirate Bay and MiniNova, and found out that almost a third of all files on the two sites were fake."
The point.. (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the biggest benefits of torrents is that the fake crap gets weeded out quickly and the real torrents rise to the top with a high number of seeders. So it doesn't matter if its fake because it dies off quicker, than normal as people stop uploading it.
Re:Same ratio as /. (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the Pirate Bay site has "flags" for trusted content and respected uploaders. Does it not?
Not just bittorrent - alt.binaries too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I suggest (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you got a bot on your machine and you don't know it.
I saw an interesting talk on security/malware once. It had some screenshots of one of the top downloads from TPB (a Photoshop keygen or something). There were hundreds of comments saying it was clean, that the uploader was trusted etc. At time of release no virus scanners flagged it. In fact it uploaded all the passwords it could find on your computer to a machine in China and then generated a Photoshop key.
I walked away from that talk with the powerful impression that if you trust crap you get off piracy sites, you're asking to be owned.
Re:I sincerly hope (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have a file with a few thousand seeders, then you can be sure that its real.
Or it's actually malware propagating through BitTorrent. I've seen a number of torrents with tens of thousands of seeders on relatively small files, usually with something like 'SEXSEXSEX' in the titles - those are zombie botnets.
Re:Same ratio as /. (Score:5, Insightful)
They can, of course. But from what I've seen on, say, ISO Hunt, real torrents usually don't have any comments at all, while fake ones get negative comments. So unless the fakers can delete existing comments, they're pretty reliable.
Re:I suggest (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm surprised that it was only a third. I have used a throw away computer isolated from network to mess around with Kazaa, Shareaza, Limewire, TPB, etc. My computer was a diseased smoking husk in about two weeks. I would not trust a music MP3 from those distribution channels, much less a keygen.
That's just it too. You can trust the piracy groups themselves that make the cracks and "publish" their releases, since they are in it for their principles (whether you agree with them or not). You can't trust the public distribution channels. It's ripe for abuse, just like stealing money from the Mob. Who is the Mob going to complain too? Of course in this case it is more like stealing money off a crack addict since they can't hire goons to come after you with a baseball bat.
The solution has always been very private trackers that are invite only. Generally, the only people allowed to upload, or publish a torrent, are known and highly respected members of the private tracker. When those are the only torrents you download you are getting the real releases and in most cases those uploaders are what the couriers use to be. Meaning, they are getting their stuff from private FTP sites that are a few "hops" away from the pirate groups release channels.
Another added benefit of a private tracker is that it makes harder, not impossible, for the RIAA to track the activity. The ISPs can inspect all the packets of course and still see the torrents, but the RIAA can't access the trackers to get a list of all the IP addresses of the peers.
I had been pirating back in the days of 2400 baud modems and BBS boards. What is interesting now, is that I don't pirate at all. Of course, I don't consider getting torrents of commercial free broadcasted TV shows piracy so... some may disagree. However, I have Netflix and a Zune subscription. Everything I do professionally has transitioned into open source. What do I even need to pirate at this point? Some games? Why? I can afford a modded console from Canada and actually purchased all my games and played them from the backups, and later on direct from hard drives.
99% of everything out there is crap and I suspect some people pirate simply because it is one click away and they probably never even use what they download. The biggest thing I tell people is why take the risk when there is no reward at this point? Get Netflix and Zune and just pay the 99c per track when you find something you really really love and want to keep.
As for the people addicted to Windows and Adobe crap, via con dios. My sympathies, and I understand if you can't afford thousands of dollars, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, and yet still want the software.
Re:I suggest (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point isn't it easier to just buy the software?
Re:Not just bittorrent - alt.binaries too (Score:4, Insightful)
The great thing about pirating movies is that you're not subjected to forced commercials, FBI warnings, and other things that the producers decided.
Find movie file, play. Done.
It would be great if disk-based movies were this easy.
Re:Trusted? Uploader LMAO! (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever bought a SONY gadget on the internet?? How do you know it was not fake, inferior junk, knockoff from China? You do not, not unless you buy the product from an original, authorized seller. Deal with it.
Have you ever bought a SONY CD from an original, authorized seller, to discover that it's rootkitted your computer? Have you ever bought a digital picture frame at Target, to discover that the original-equipment virus lurking in it has infected your flash drives?
The fact is, buying original, genuine merchandise from reputable vendors does not in any way protect you from negligent (Target) or criminal (SONY) acts on the part of those in the manufacturing and distribution chain.
There is no honor among corporations, either.
Buying from an original, authorized seller does not protect you.
Deal with it.