MPAA/RIAA caught setting torrent honey pots

By FlibbyFlobby
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FlibbyFlobby

Posted
Posted

MPAA gets caught laying torrent traps

Author: Brett Thomas

Published: 12th January 2007

It has long been suspected that the MPAA and RIAA might try to frustrate or even punish pirates by using bugged, dodgy, or otherwise false Bit Torrent trackers. However, it wasn't easy to catch the agency "in the act"...however, one slick admin over at btjunkie.com has done just that.

The torrent files are set up as 'honey pots' - they record the IP of the connecting pirate as he or she downloads the pieces of the files (which are bogus, by the way). They're even named smartly - many of the fakes look like real torrent names, including fake cracking groups, formats, etc. And before anyone goes and screams "Entrapment!", the MPAA is hiding behind the fact that it is not a law enforcement agency (despite that it takes the reverse of that stance in the courtroom) and that it's just offering something fakes for people who were going to do anyway, making the act legal.

Under law, it is illegal to "fight fire with fire," so the trackers that propegate the servers are actually links to dead files that will either stall close to completion or just be a mess of scrambled data. To date, nobody has had virus or malware issues with the dodgy sites - just a lot of failed downloads. The amount of servers and quality of the files being thrown out illustrates a very professional job.

The btjunkie admin recognized a pattern in the servers that provide continually deficient downloads, and the guys over at TorrentFreak have started to put up some of the server names. A combined force from both sites is combing through and flagging the files based on their host, as well. All of the hosts come out of the southern California and Las Vegas areas, and are easy to identify by IP ranges.

Just for an example of how much of this is going on, here is a current search from TorrentPortal - all of the files with a red X are fakes.

Bit Tech (Source)

Mentor

*John*

Posted
Posted
Isn't it illegal?

And besides tracking you, what else can they do? Sue you for downloading fake files?

In the UK at least, attempting an illegal act, even though that act is impossible in practice, is still illegal. Examples:

1) There was a guy who went through British Customs with several bags of white powder. He believed them to be cocaine that he had bought abroad. However, he had been scammed, and it was actually talcum powder. Even so, as his intention was to smuggle drugs, he was charged and convicted.

Therefore, if you download a fake file by accident, but its clear that your intention is to download a pirate copy, then you can still be charged.

Grand Master

Julius Caro

Posted
Posted
In the UK at least, attempting an illegal act, even though that act is impossible in practice, is still illegal. Examples:

1) There was a guy who went through British Customs with several bags of white powder. He believed them to be cocaine that he had bought abroad. However, he had been scammed, and it was actually talcum powder. Even so, as his intention was to smuggle drugs, he was charged and convicted.

Therefore, if you download a fake file by accident, but its clear that your intention is to download a pirate copy, then you can still be charged.

Well, that makes some sense. But, let's say the police set him up or something like that. That would be illegal right? That they "induce" you to commit a crime. That has to be illegal! Anyway, with the torrents it is another story. It is not like the riaa is posting files all over the internet screaming "HEY! DOWNLOAD ME!".

You get my point, I guess

Enthusiast

lerum

Posted
Posted
In the UK at least, attempting an illegal act, even though that act is impossible in practice, is still illegal. Examples:

1) There was a guy who went through British Customs with several bags of white powder. He believed them to be cocaine that he had bought abroad. However, he had been scammed, and it was actually talcum powder. Even so, as his intention was to smuggle drugs, he was charged and convicted.

Therefore, if you download a fake file by accident, but its clear that your intention is to download a pirate copy, then you can still be charged.

Surely you could then go and turn this around to say that you weren't trying to download the illegal file rather see if the file was one set by the MPAA?

Mentor

*John*

Posted
Posted
Well, that makes some sense. But, let's say the police set him up or something like that. That would be illegal right? That they "induce" you to commit a crime. That has to be illegal! Anyway, with the torrents it is another story. It is not like the riaa is posting files all over the internet screaming "HEY! DOWNLOAD ME!".

You get my point, I guess

I get your point, but let me explain it this way.

If an undercover police officer approaches you, and asks if you want to buy drugs for example, that wont hold up, as you wernt looking for drugs, you were offered them. However, if you walk up to someone who looks like a drug dealer (but who is actually an undercover police officer) standing by the road and ask them for drugs, you are looking for drugs, they have offered you nothing, so that would hold up.

In the case of online downloading, they arnt sending you e-mails offering you warez, you are searching for them yourself, so the evidence collected this way would definately hold up.

Hope this helps :)

Proficient

Carlos11

Posted
Posted
In the UK at least, attempting an illegal act, even though that act is impossible in practice, is still illegal. Examples:

1) There was a guy who went through British Customs with several bags of white powder. He believed them to be cocaine that he had bought abroad. However, he had been scammed, and it was actually talcum powder. Even so, as his intention was to smuggle drugs, he was charged and convicted.

Therefore, if you download a fake file by accident, but its clear that your intention is to download a pirate copy, then you can still be charged.

In Brazil that would be an "impossible crime" since there wasn't, in fact, an element of the crime.

The crime theory says to analyse first the objective elements then the subjective ones (like intention).

In other words, the person should "do" exacly what the law describe as a crime. "Powder" is not drug so... The "MPAA/RIAA" is not pirated material so... :)

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