Do you help keep torrents alive?

Rainmaker · 7 Sep 2011 at 02:26

Energize said:
So that incident where Sony's customers data was stolen could never have happened because they are a big company which are never careless? Right...

Why do you keep changing the issue at hand? What on earth does potentially being hacked have to do with 'proving' you paid for a legit service by credit card, and/or connected to it over SSL by harvesting ISP logs? Even if they were hacked, I wouldn't be worried. The effort (and mass of space) needed to set up logging, where none is required by law and where they advertise there is none, outweighs any remote possibility Astraweb/Giganews/Highwinds care what traffic passes through their servers.

We know they are involved in criminal activity, anyone who has used newsgroups know that. Large corporations are rarely honest with moral credibility in reality.

In as much as Google has supplied probably 99% of torrents downloaded? Yeah.

Energize · 7 Sep 2011 at 02:36

Rainmaker said:
Why do you keep changing the issue at hand? What on earth does potentially being hacked have to do with 'proving' you paid for a legit service by credit card, and/or connected to it over SSL by harvesting ISP logs? Even if they were hacked, I wouldn't be worried. The effort (and mass of space) needed to set up logging, where none is required by law and where they advertise there is none, outweighs any remote possibility Astraweb/Giganews/Highwinds care what traffic passes through their servers.

You were the one who said that they were trustworthy because of their size.

What I'm saying is that I wouldn't be so trusting of company policies given the track record businesses have for being lax with their customer privacy and security.

In as much as Google has supplied probably 99% of torrents downloaded? Yeah.

I wasn't aware google hosted pirated movies and games. Nor purposely did it for profit.

Al Vallario · 7 Sep 2011 at 02:40

Rainmaker · 7 Sep 2011 at 02:41

Energize said:
You were the one who said that they were trustworthy because of their size.

No, you called them criminals and I pointed out they were old, well established and industry-prevalent corporations.

What I'm saying is that I wouldn't be so trusting of company policies given the track record businesses have for being lax with their customer privacy and security.

If they're multi-million (billion?) dollar criminals who've managed to survive for decades, I'd imagine they'd be aware that going to all the trouble of paying for a ton of extra server space, CPU cycles and electricity to log evidence against themselves was a bad idea.

I wasn't aware google hosted pirated movies and games. Nor purporsely did it for profit.

Google makes profit from almost every search (ad-blockers excepted) and certainly hosts a great deal of indexed copyright content ranging from NZB and torrent files (other sites have been closed down because this indexing was held to be illegal), through to images and books. My point was that Usenet is a lawful and useful service and that the companies running them are about as criminal as Google.

We clearly will have to agree to disagree as I have no desire to spend the rest of the night/day arguing such a frankly trivial point. Goodnight.

asim18 · 7 Sep 2011 at 02:54

Energize said:
I almost forgot about this, but yes you are putting a lot of trust in a company involved in criminal activity by assuming that what they are saying is true. For all you know they could be keeping logs, whether out of legal requirement or apathy.

Do you have any idea how massive Usenet providers are? The providers themselves have nothing to do with "criminal activity". They are run by extremely large and trust-able service providers.

Even Virgin Media give usenet access to their customers!

Energize · 7 Sep 2011 at 02:56

asim18 said:
Do you have any idea how massive Usenet providers are? The providers themselves have nothing to do with "criminal activity". They are run by extremely large and trust-able service providers.

The money isn't in the linux distros.

Rainmaker · 7 Sep 2011 at 03:02

Energize said:
The money isn't in the linux distros.

You could say the same thing about ISPs selling 16, 24, 30, 50 and 100+ Mbps connections for substantially more than dial up or 512Kbps services. The money isn't in email and basic web pages.

Oops I was supposed to be staying out of this lol

asim18 · 7 Sep 2011 at 03:05

oh dear..

Energize · 7 Sep 2011 at 03:13

Rainmaker said:
You could say the same thing about ISPs selling 16, 24, 30, 50 and 100+ Mbps connections for substantially more than dial up or 512Kbps services. The money isn't in email and basic web pages.

Oops I was supposed to be staying out of this lol

Not really because one is a service designed and run specifically to cater for illegal activity where the providers make no effort to regulate it, while the other isn't. Also you seem to be confusing bandwidth for transfer limit, because those fast connections allow one to download content rapidly but not necessarily download a lot of it. It is not acceptable to knowingly run a business based on criminal activity.

asim18 · 7 Sep 2011 at 03:18

Energize said:
Not really because one is a service designed and run specifically to cater for illegal activity where the providers make no effort to regulate it, while the other isn't. Also you seem to be confusing bandwidth for transfer limit, because those fast connections allow one to download content rapidly but not necessarily download a lot of it. It is not acceptable to knowingly run a business based on criminal activity.

Oh please stop pulling arguments out of........ err... thin air

Usenet was NOT designed for illegal activity.

Rainmaker · 7 Sep 2011 at 03:21

Energize said:
Not really because one is a service designed and run specifically to cater for illegal activity where the providers make no effort to regulate it, while the other isn't. Also you seem to be confusing bandwidth for transfer limit, because those fast connections allow one to download content rapidly but not necessarily download a lot of it. It is not acceptable to knowingly run a business based on criminal activity.

Nonsense. Usenet is older than the ark and is not designed and run specifically for illegal activity at all. As for confusing bandwidth and transfer limits (WTH?), I regularly pull over 1TB a month on my 100Mbps connection. Try that on dial-up.

Energize · 7 Sep 2011 at 03:24

asim18 said:
Usenet was NOT designed for illegal activity.

Rainmaker said:
Nonsense. Usenet is older than the ark and is not designed and run specifically for illegal activity at all. As for confusing bandwidth and transfer limits (WTH?), I regularly pull over 1TB a month on my 100Mbps connection. Try that on dial-up.

I'm not referring to the architecture, I'm referring to specific premium services.

asim18 · 7 Sep 2011 at 03:46

Energize said:
I'm not referring to the architecture, I'm referring to specific premium services.

There are no "specific premium services" on usenet. Usenet is usenet, simple. Usenet is propagated throughout the world. If I make a post on a usenet server in Timbuktu it'll make it's way to every other usenet server in the world, premium service or otherwise. :confused:

I'm going to leave now because you seem to have no idea about usenet and by continuing here I am breaking the 1st rule of usenet

Energize · 7 Sep 2011 at 03:54

asim18 said:
There are no "specific premium services" on usenet. Usenet is usenet, simple. Usenet is propagated throughout the world. If I make a post on a usenet server in Timbuktu it'll make it's way to every other usenet server in the world, premium service or otherwise.

I'm going to leave now because you seem to have no idea about usenet and by continuing here I am breaking the 1st rule of usenet

It is you who does not understand what I am saying. I'm referring to the premium servers created to facilitate the downloading of illegal content, not the architecture as I have already stated.

asim18 · 7 Sep 2011 at 04:05

Energize said:
I'm referring to the premium servers created to facilitate the downloading of illegal content, not the architecture as I have already stated.

IT IS the architecture. Usenet is the same wherever you go!. There's no such thing as a non-premium server created for completely non-illegal content.

Virgin Media's usenet service has exactly the same illegal stuff you would find on giganews.

I can't believe I keep getting suckered in to reply. Must stop wasting my time. No more.

Energize · 7 Sep 2011 at 04:29

asim18 said:
IT IS the architecture. Usenet is the same wherever you go!. There's no such thing as a non-premium server created for completely non-illegal content.

I'm specifically criticising the businesses based on selling illegal content which is what the premium servers are used for by customers. People don't tend to use them for legal downloads!

wez130 · 7 Sep 2011 at 07:40

I can see what Energize is trying to say, Usenet is just that, exactly, but companies like giganewz, UNS etc are taking advantage of that architecture and selling access to what usenet has. True, VM does have the same illegal stuff on there, but with a MUCH shorter retention of 30 days (used to be 7), whereas giga / UNS is 200 odd days retention now.

On topic, i don't torrent that much tbh, i don't download half as much as i used to, but i'll always check usenet first before i rely on a torrent, and i probably hav close to a 1:1 ratio, purely as i forget to close utorrent after i use it.

SexyGreyFox · 7 Sep 2011 at 07:47

Can I also add that as far as I know the only people who have ever been caught/fined are torrent users because they share.
Every case I've ever read always includes 'sharing' in it.
Perhaps somebody who knows more than me can clarify this.

wez130 · 7 Sep 2011 at 08:47

I believe you are right dmpoole, it's usually those who share that are caught / fined. Maybe it's easier to prove?

Robosapien · 7 Sep 2011 at 08:58