Torrentspy Disables Searching For US IPs 277
dr_strang writes "Torrent indexing site Torrentspy.com appears to have disabled torrent searches for IPs that originate in the United States. Instead of a results page, users are directed to this page, which states: 'Torrentspy Acts to Protect Privacy. Sorry, but because you are located in the USA you cannot use the search features of the Torrentspy.com website. Torrentspy's decision to stop accepting US visitors was NOT compelled by any Court but rather an uncertain legal climate in the US regarding user privacy and an apparent tension between US and European Union privacy laws."
tor (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:tor (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't want to try to download the latest Ubuntu DVD via TOR, though; that might be more of a problem. But that's what BitTorrent is for, anyway.
Re:tor (Score:5, Informative)
So, instead of a search taking 1 second it would take 3 seconds. The actual download would be just as fast. (That is, assuming you were willing to download a torrent without TOR before this block, then this block doesn't change your actual download speed.)
Also note that an easier solution is to switch to using a torrent tracker which does not block US users. For instance trackers not in the US (e.g. Pirate Bay) will probably not have any reason to block US users. In fact a tracker like Pirate Bay could mirror all of TorrentSpy's contents. Although this recent development is interesting, it will have little to no impact on the amount of downloading (or the ease of downloading) that goes on.
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en.wikipedia.org
Learn things.
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Re:tor (Score:5, Funny)
So, why would you like to to run upon usenet? Do you plan to start a big flamewar about the Torrentspy blocking or anything?
something tells me you wont be desired there!.
Re:tor (Score:5, Funny)
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The what?? (Score:2)
shrill faction of the American political left
That means nobody then. The USA does not have a political left...
Here at /. I have seen evidence of middle of the range viewpoints, right wing and extreme right wing.
As far as can be seen then, you are saying that Michael Moore belongs to something that does not exist. Is this to say that he is independent and following no guidance beyond his own opinions?
FWIW (Score:2)
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Re:tor (Score:4, Insightful)
Michael Moore is a documentarian. He creates documentaries. His documentaries have a very strong left wing bias. The trick is in recognizing this factor, and judging his films accordingly.
That said, I have to agree with the grandparent poster. The US medical system is scary. The fact that it is possible to have to go into Bankruptcy because of a medical condition scares the fuck out of me. I'm with Moore's relatives. I would not set foot into the US without additional medical insurance. In fact, for the most part, I've been steering clear of the US as much as possible. Ever since that whole right of Habeas Corpus was suspended.
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Silly rabbit. The US government will take you prisoner even if you are in Macedonia [wikipedia.org] and hold you for months without any civil rights!
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Re:tor (Score:4, Funny)
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We do not speak of such things here. For It is heresy, and your irreverance will be dealt with swift and mercilessly.
You shall be stripped of your geek status, forced into the Windows ME support team in a non-english speaking country, and banned from
Let your brethren never forgive you, and may GOD have mercy on your UserID.
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Actually, from what I've seen in the past few years (with few exceptions), the first rule of Usenet is "don't post anything on Usenet any more."
Usenet as an alternative requires improved search (Score:2)
OK, but how do you know? How can anybody know?
Theoretically, Newzbin can help me find binaries, but the search function is pretty basic. If you're looking for something without a known, reasonably rare text string in the file name in a known format, then you'll inevitably wind up with nothing or thousands of hits. Newzbin also refuses to index binaries posted to non-binary groups; I realize that's something that shouldn't happe
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When your chain of nodes includes two multi-megabit nodes and a 15k node, the two multi-megabit nodes don't do y
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I wonder how long it will take the **IAA to realize all they have to do is say they've blocked something, and then over @ slashdot is some genious showing the latest get-a-round...
Some of you know-it-alls couldn't keep a secret in a secret-tight box.
Security Experts??!?
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That is so funny on so many levels.
ok now how do I block my tor node for US? (Score:2)
I just wish the tor network remained for normal surfing anonymously and not warez.
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I'm not saying I don't masturbate. I am saying that it's none of anyone else's business if/when I do.
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'Cause you don't? Downloading Ubuntu is just a rationalization.
Re:Tor:Popularity Games. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm not saying I don't masturbate. I am saying that it's none of anyone else's business if/when I do.
Re:Tor:Popularity Games. (Score:5, Insightful)
Buildings with security guards are rarely robbed or broken into. A naive building owner may say, "you know, there haven't been any break-ins in years - I'm wasting my money paying the security guards to guard this place!" when in fact it was the deterrent of the security guard that prevented the break-in in the first place. Civil liberties (such as privacy safeguards) are a bit like security guards - the fact that you have them means you probably don't need them, but if you get rid of them, you'll want them back in a big hurry.
They aren't the only ones (Score:3, Funny)
Seems I just can't win with searches anywhere today.
The Obvious Reason (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if this can be accessed from the United States through Tor [eff.org].
I also wonder if I have to start worrying about other sites blocking American users simply out of fear & safety from the United States MPAA/RIAA run court system? I used to feel sorry for Chinese people who had to suffer from their government's censorship and now I have to wonder if I'm going to start suffering from other servers censoring me based on my government's actions.
Re:The Obvious Reason (Score:4, Insightful)
That would potentially be fantastic. If we can make Congress understand that excessive copyright and patent regimes put the U.S. at a technological / competitive disadvantage, that's part of the war in getting change.
Of course, Congress might be just as likely to respond in some insane, drunken, counter-productive way as well, which is why I used the word "problematic" above.
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But yes, the way the rul
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Wait, what?
Re:The Obvious Reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Get real. Just because you add the word "freedom" to the start of a sentence doesn't mean you are describing a real freedom. US users are not being blocked because the US is "too free." They are being blocked because US laws meant to protect copyright holders may require logging and disclosure of logs. This is in conflict with privacy policies.
There is a disagreement here about what "rights" are more important (ease of tracking legal violators vs. privacy). To characterize US laws in this instance as being about "freedom" is disingenuous.
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My point was that in the US, individuals are "free" to sue someone if they believe that they were wronged by the defendant. Because the RIAA is free to sue peopl
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I think sug
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Court orders (assuming they have jurisdiction) override any corporate policies.
The really strange thing is the "Torrentspy's decision to stop accepting US visitors was NOT co
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After all, who cares about the Constitutionally protected rights to control distribution?
Obviously we here do, and the ability to ammend the constitution to correct problems was built in for a reason.
The real problem is that Congress (and States' Congresses, most members with aspirations for greater office) are in the pockets of industry and would dare not impose changes to the patents or copyrights that may make their purse-holders angry.
Perhaps if they weren't shills for MAFIAA we'd have a freedom more free. Perhaps we'll never know for sure.
Re:The Obvious Reason (Score:5, Insightful)
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The pretense of this right is to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts not to protect a failed and obsolete business model.
What is your suggestion for promoting science and the useful arts? How do we encourage authors, painters, musicians, etc if they have no protection for their works? You can go on about how most of the money never reaches artists (and you'd be right in many cases), but some money definitely does. Our current copyright law protects works for too long, but other than that what changes would you make?
Re:The Obvious Reason (Score:4, Insightful)
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Someone who makes music or paintings or whatever else just for the money is a craftsman, not an artist.
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However, my point, to emphasize again, was that a statement along the lines of "freedom to sue for losses" (that is a direct quote) is disingenuous. Everyone agrees that freedom is important, but if you ask people to l
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That's a bit of a mischaracterization. The constitution grants congress the right to pass laws granting control of distribution. This doesn't mean that the right to control distribution is itself constitutionally derived. And the implication that everyone who's against indefinite copyright is equally wrong. The entire point of copyright was to encourage
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Know you were joking, but that is the case. In NY and a lot of other places, the government is banning trans fats.
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Huh? You can still get as fat as you like on all the starches, sugars, and saturated fat you like. Trans fats are a manufacturing convenience that is strongly and indisputedly linked to heart disease at a far greater rate than conventional "bad fats." This has been known sinc
Time for wiki-torrent (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Time for wiki-torrent (Score:5, Funny)
Need I remind you how, *ahem*, flexible the US legal system is?
Flexible like a rubber hose, you mean?
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Flexible like the bones in your fingers, too.
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Re:Time for wiki-torrent (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's rea
In other news.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other news.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news.. (Score:5, Funny)
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There's not exactly a shortage.
The real victims... (Score:4, Funny)
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Assuming of course that those artists you like are playing near you (unlikely) at a bar (more unlikely) and have CD release parties (huh?). Stop trying to fit every artist into your business model!!!!
This is a good thing. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:This is a good thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks to a cultural obsession with (fighting) child porn in the US, I would expect just the opposite - No sane American would allow exit connections unless they had high enough 3rd party traffic to claim basically no control over or knowledge of the vast majority of the content (ie, an ISP, and they rarely give anything away).
And if the real feds don't ruin you, Dateline will, regardless of the actual facts. I can just about hear the announcement: "Up next, the newest threat to your children: We put 250 megs of fake child porn on a website, and found we could retrieve it anonymously with a new program for terrorists called Tor. We've hunted down, had fired, and forwarded evidence to the DA about the beast running this smut ring, known perversely as 'Exit Node'.
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Thank you, thank you. I'll be here the whole week.
Good one!
Actually I had come up with "You can't spell Terror without Tor, but couldn't work it in smoothly so skipped it. But I do like yours.
But how will Americans hook up...sexually? (Score:4, Interesting)
In related news, I get a banner add offering to help me "Find my real sex partner in WATERLOO". But how will Americans find their "real sex partners" without this valuable service?
monkey sniff butt (Score:2)
So? (Score:2)
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For the same reason the US fought in Vietnam and Korea, and imposed sanctions on Cuba in the first place (though we seem to have forgotten the "why" of that one, considering that the former Soviet Union collapsed quite a few years ago now).
If you can trick your enemy into attacking a strawman rather than your real vulnerabilities, you pretend to defe
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OK, I'm a member of a special-interest private tracker, but when I can download a file from a public one instead, I use it. Why? Because I don't have to worry about my upload ratios. In fact, downloading from a public tracker, I usually have ratios of 1.1 or so by the time I finish downloading. But with private trackers that have penalties for not uploading enough, I find I normally have to share a
Also blocks AOL in the UK (Score:2, Informative)
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After all, the name is AOL: AMERICA On-Line. What the hell are you using that for in the UK?
If you're dumb enough to use AOL in another country, you deserve all the restrictions and other downsides that the rest of us Americans have to deal with. You're right across a small pond from Holland, the land of freedom. Why the hell would you want to ally yourself with restrictive American corporate interests?
Move along (Score:5, Informative)
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http://torrents.to will list sites to meta-search (Score:2)
Why not? Torrentreactor, btjunkie, fenopy, bushtorrents, meganova ...
If you go to torrents.to, it will search various sites for you. Even if you just visit, you can read their list of sites that they search. So, if you only know of a few sites, and your sites get shut down, now you'll know what other sites to go to.
This is, of course, for the express purpose of identifying torrents that are legal/ethical to download.
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Blame CANADA! (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, isn't this kind of action biting the hand that feeds them? Didn't Napster actually increase sales because it stimulated interested in music? Could MPAA be suffering the same short-sighted vision because their top executives are disenfranchised from the general public?
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I'm glad for that too, even though I'm an American. But I'm curious: what do you think of the current plans by the Bush Administration and your own administration to join Canada, Mexico, and the USA into one big state with a single government? Pretty soon, unless things change drastically, your "country" won't be able to have a different view, because we'll all be in the same country, and you'll be stuck with the MPAA jus
It's easier than proxies (Score:2)
Okay.. (Score:2)
Violated Rights (Score:2)
How many people still use torrentspy? (Score:2, Interesting)
Buhh bye!
btjunkie is good (Score:2)
I've been using Btjunkie.org [btjunkie.org] lately. They have comments and lots of files. Often I would find things there I couldn't find on Torrentspy anyway.
I don't see what the big deal is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Canada also blocked (Score:5, Informative)
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I don't think you can say privacy laws are more or less strict in Europe... rather, the privacy laws in Europe tend to reflect European cultural biases (i.e. innate trust in the government, and innate hostility towards non government institutions).
Re:No surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My first accepted submission in 8 years (Score:5, Funny)
That...that really takes something special.