[tor-relays] BitTorrent complaint

[krishna e bera]

On Tue, 09 Apr 2013 18:04:53 +0200
bartels <bartels at mailme.ath.cx> wrote:

> On closer inspection, I find that bittorrent can run over the tor network, like any other traffic.

It doesnt run both ways because peers cannot be available for incoming
connections, so users will find themselves eventually banned from
servers or with lower transfer speeds for not sharing nicely.  Also Tor
does not (yet) carry UDP traffic.  The possible exception is if the
peers are entirely in onioncat space.  BitTorrenters are really better
off using I2P for anonymous bulk transfers though.

> Personally, I cannot afford complaints and spend time on legal issues; however groundless they may be it is not what I do.

I had the same problem with my ISP - they had no tolerance for the DMCA
complaints and were not willing to just pass them on to me.  So at the
risk of being labelled a BadExit (or at best a non-net-neutral exit) i
blocked all of ThePirateBay's ip addresses from my exit node for a
while.  That reduced DMCA complaints down to about 1 a year, but
because i had clients' sites also running on my server and didnt want
any risks i eventually went non-exit.  It really depends what
jurisdiction you are in.

> It leaves me with a question: how do the Paramount people know that my server carried their stuff?
> Did they download it themselves, or do they have their own bittorrent servers?
> They must be at either end, or am I mistaken?

They have agents who participate in BT swarms (and sometimes poison
them), so they can see the ip addresses of seeders and other
participants.  Some government agencies such as FBI might work with
them to enforce copyrights, so they may also have inside snooping info
from some ISPs that are hosting torrent servers, or from machines which
are those ISPs' gateways.  The US Commerce Department might consider it
a threat to national security if American companies "intellectual
property" is vaguely threatened, so agencies such as NSA or CIA may be
sharing info ad hoc under the table etc (remember ECHELON?).