warez.metafilter.com

August 27, 2004 6:50 AM

After the FBI raid five pople's homes (and the offices of one ISP) seizing their equipment for operating a "network" sharing the equivalent of 60,000 movies or 10.5 million songs (according to Mr Ashcroft) as part of Operation Digital Gridlock's attempts to crack the "organisation" known as The Underground Network (and perhaps to rail against the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' recent decision backing up the legality of P2P networks) one of those raided - "The Answer Man" - contacts P2Pnet, to give the inside scoop and talk about the distortions created by the media reporting of the case. [Thanks Squeak]
posted by Blue Stone (20 comments total)

The "contacts P2Pnet" link is hosed. I was looking forward to reading it too... Is this what you were wanting?
posted by sciurus at 7:10 AM on August 27, 2004

p2pnet is run by Jon Newton, who is a complete hack. If you don't believe me, just read a few of his 'articles' -- most of the time he just links to some other site, and then quotes the bits that look important.

I just wanted to say that for anyone who might be unfamiliar with p2pnet, though, because it's not really the issue here. The thing is that the linked-to post is by some Anonymous Coward on p2pnet's forums. Why should we believe that it's genuine?
posted by reklaw at 7:16 AM on August 27, 2004

You guys are on a wild goose chase. You're going after the wrong people in this scenario. Instead of the administrators and hub owners, you need to be worrying about the USERS that are sharing 100+ GBs of these files the FBI claimed they downloaded. The hub owner didn't push that file on you. YOU requested it, then DIRECTLY CONNECTED to the other user to download it. The hubs simply provide a meeting place for people with like interests. You can chat, get help, or share files. What you do is up to YOU.

"You guys are on a wild goose chase! I just provide the ships, maps, trade route protection and logistical support for the alcohol bootlegging operation, you need to go after the pub owners and beer drinkers who are selling pints of moonshine for $10, they are the bad guys"

Sure, Elliot Ness was no Ashcroft, but you can't blame either for doing their jobs. Change the law, not the enforcement.
posted by remlapm at 7:30 AM on August 27, 2004

sciurus, yeah, that's a copy of what was posted in the forum.
posted by Blue Stone at 7:43 AM on August 27, 2004

I think the real question here has gone completely unnoticed: Who has time to watch 60,000 movies, and after they've done that, how could they squeeze in 1.5 million songs?

No wonder America is so fat! We simply don't have time to exercise!

These P2P bastards are practically causing heart disease!
posted by ewkpates at 7:55 AM on August 27, 2004

Ok, who are these people who have the time, inclination, and bandwidth to download entire movies? Have these people never heard of Blockbuster?
posted by ilsa at 8:03 AM on August 27, 2004

Each of the five hubs holds enough storage for the equivalent of 60,000 movies or 10.5 million songs, Mr Ashcroft said.

What does it mean to have the equivelent of storage for something? Does that mean they didn't actually have 60,000 movies or 10.5 million songs?

I can store one billion movies and songs on my skin as long as I am okay with the lossy compression.

So do they mean 60K cammed movies? 60K dvd rips? 60k vcds? 10.5 million songs in lossless flac? or 10.5 mp3s ripped at the lowest fidelity possible?

So essentially these evil pirate hubs have really big hard drives. Maybe even 5 250GB drives.

I tremble in fear at the enormous and ungodly size of the hard drives in the hands of the criminal element. Clearly law enforcement will need new powers since we all know their drives are neither large nor hard.

Ok, who are these people who have the time, inclination, and bandwidth to download entire movies? Have these people never heard of Blockbuster?

are you serious?
posted by srboisvert at 8:16 AM on August 27, 2004

I've done it out of curiosity and I've also downloaded TV shows to catch something I've missed. In general I don't see the point I guess, it takes too long to download, I prefer to pay for things if I'm allowed to and you're at the whims of geeks who get off on bragging about how much they've compressed it compared to a dvd. Yeah, divx rules and all but there's a lot of stuff that's been reduced to unwatchable levels just so it'll fit on a CD.
posted by substrate at 8:17 AM on August 27, 2004

What does it mean to have the equivelent of storage for something? Does that mean they didn't actually have 60,000 movies or 10.5 million songs?

It doesn't mean anything. It's a purposely misleading metric designed to make something look like a huge problem when it isn't. It's like the RIAAs measuring tactics. If you have a 16X burner that's like having 16 CDRWs.

Maybe they had some huge quantity of copyrighted stuff on them but from their press release (which is what this really is) you can't tell. If you spend a minute thinking about this you'll realize it - but most people don't.
posted by substrate at 8:23 AM on August 27, 2004

I think what everyone is missing here is the "witch hunt" factor. Ashcroft needed a press conference, and this is how he got it. It seems the only thing these folks are guilty of, indeed, the only thing their suspected of, is passing very large files over the Internet. They aren't selling them. And if they are like any of the file sharers I know, they aren't even reducing anyone's revenue stream. These people wouldn't ever buy the stuff they're downloading.

So Ashcoft needs a bullet point. P2P networks are low hanging fruit. Middle America has been bamboozled into thinking file trading = stealing. It's a done deal.

In ten years, raiding P2P networks will be the seen the same way sodomy laws are today.
posted by y6y6y6 at 8:29 AM on August 27, 2004

The numbers were way overstated and then misinterperted to sound worse if you believe the /. thread (there's a wonderful sub-conversation about "pentabytes"). On top of which, 99% of people on DirectConnect who are sharing 100+ gigs of stuff actually have 50 meg of crap mp3s and a script that makes it look like they have 100gigs so they can get into "better" hubs with all the other assholes like them.
posted by yerfatma at 8:30 AM on August 27, 2004

The article, while of dubious providence, is technically correct -- the hubs do not and cannot store data. Presumably the FBI means that the total connected users of the hub were sharing an equivalent amount of data to n songs or movies, which, while still a misleading metric, is an entirely different misleading metric.

If P2P companies can get off scot-free, they don't have a case against these guys.
posted by mote at 8:40 AM on August 27, 2004

Ok, who are these people who have the time, inclination, and bandwidth to download entire movies? Have these people never heard of Blockbuster?

FWIW, it generally takes less time and energy these days to download a full-length movie than it does to get in the car, browse the aisles, pick a DVD, and then remember to reverse the process a few days later. (Cheaper too, with titles most definitely not available at Blockbuster.) Download a few overnight and you'll have plenty to choose from over the weekend. I'm guessing it's all about planning ahead, as well as priorities.

Me, ever since TiVo entered my life, I cherry-pick a few movies for it to record off HBO and I'm good. I've always got 10-15 to choose from.
posted by Fofer at 8:45 AM on August 27, 2004

60,000 movies seems ludicrously high.

The average DVD-rip'd, XViD-encoded movie (1.5 hour movie, natch) is about the size of a CD. This, naturally, is done on purpose, but it's also about the limit of where the compression artifacts start bugging you. For fast-action movies, (like the Matrix or Saving Private Ryan's first 1/2 hour) they'll need 2 CD's per movie.

But let's assume 1 CD/movie. 700 Mb x 60,000 movies is approximately a shitload. That's 42 Terabytes of data, or 168 x 250 Gb Hard drives.

Now, distributed over lots of different, faceless people, that's believable, and technically that's what we're talking about. But for Asscrack to even alude that some "dudes" have system capabilities like that, and the time to actually rip that much data (or download it) is absurd.

And minus ten points for trying to make The Underground Network sound scary. Dum Dum Duuuuuum!
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:21 AM on August 27, 2004

"It's a scary world we live in if our own government gathers and uses their facts this way."

SAY WHAT???

TIME TO TURN OFF THE COMPUTER AND START PAYING ATTENTION TO REAL LIFE, BEAVIS.
posted by quonsar at 9:29 AM on August 27, 2004

y6 x 3: i'd be happier if it doesn't take 10 years for this shit to go away. but you're right, anyone setting up a p2p share these days is going to be a target, 'specially if they're dumb enough to advertise themselves the way i gather this guy did with his forum. (could be totally off base here on that last bit, but whatever, y'all get the point, right? i didn't want to read through any more of the guy's blather...)

after the demise of napster i went back to pirating my music the old fashioned way - "hey, dude, can i make a copy of that CD?" for some reason ashcroft hasn't yet targeted that master network of piracy that is the blank CD and burner aisle at best buy...
posted by caution live frogs at 10:15 AM on August 27, 2004

for some reason ashcroft hasn't yet targeted that master network of piracy that is the blank CD and burner aisle at best buy...

The Darknet.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 10:43 AM on August 27, 2004

linking to MS Word files pretty much guarantees a low click-through rate.
posted by quonsar at 11:11 AM on August 27, 2004

Speaking of action against p2p... the attorney's from Dreamworks sent a Swedish bit torrent site a C&D, trying to use the DMCA. Pirate Bay's response? "As you may or may not be aware, Sweden is not a state in the United States of America. Sweden is a country in northern Europe."
posted by dejah420 at 11:24 AM on August 27, 2004

Yelling's link via Google HTML, because reading nasty Word is too hard for quonsarman!
posted by billsaysthis at 2:49 PM on August 27, 2004