Why No One Can Stop Torrents
Can Linux show us the bright side of P2P?
More often than not, the media and society in general casts torrent tracking and P2P sharing in a negative light--well, at least the big media companies do. Whether it's the EU trying to take down the Pirate Bay or the RIAA and MPAA bringing everybody under the sun to court, file-sharing is constantly given a bad rap.
Despite its bad rap, P2P has a number of positive qualities, many of which are brought out thanks to Linux. A sea of operating systems based on the open source kernel are online, available for download or are sent to consumers via CD in the mail. However, thanks to P2P, many Linux users can grab the OS of their choice via torrents. How? Meet Linuxtracker. Founded back in 2005 by Mark Angeli, the tracker listing site is free, open source, and a hot destination for Linux distros.
With the motto "we track tux so you don't have to", Linuxtracker has recently celebrated a major milestone. Over the last 12 months, Linuxtracker has distributed over 180 Terabytes worth of Linux-based OS. Starting with Slx, and now covering a myriad of different distros, the site sees better than average seed/leech ratios, and does not require users to register.
“I was getting into the BitTorrent ‘movement’ downloading the shows I missed at night while at work," Angeli said to TorrentFreak. "At this time I was also trying out new Linux distributions on a fairly regular basis and while I had decent download speeds, I wanted to find a better way to download and share Linux. Some of the bigger distributions were beginning to use BitTorrent as a means of distribution, but the smaller ones were having a hard time. I wanted to make it easy for them."
Sure, download a free OS by means of torrents is a far stretch from illegally downloading movies and music, but what's most important here is focus. Any number of arguments can be made about downloading copyrighted material, for and against. However, attacking the technology behind P2P is not the answer.
In other P2P news, a Brazilian anti-piracy groups website was taken hostage by hackers earlier this week. The move was retaliation for the site going after a popular tracker site called Legendas.TV. Hackers invaded the website belonging to the Antipirataria Association Cinema and Música (APCM), and inserted links that led to torrents listed on mininova. On the site, the message "Live for Downloads" was left for all to see. While the Legendas.TV site is already back up, APCM's website is still down for "maintenance."
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Dur, downloading Linux through torrents is extremely old news. Anyone that's downloaded any Ubuntu version near it's release knows this.
OLD!
they should do the same to all who oppose P2P ...... LONG LIVE TORRENTS
lol@APCM
I still prefer getting Linux via HTTP. It's always faster.
Piracy is so hard to fight, I mean the software developers have to do the difficult task of embedding a hash checker into their software to save it. Same with other forms of media. OMG so difficult.
I still prefer getting Linux via HTTP. It's always faster.
What planet are you from? Around those Ubuntu releases HTTP goes to a crawl, yet I could still get 10.4 Mbps with a torrent.
What planet are you from? Around those Ubuntu releases HTTP goes to a crawl, yet I could still get 10.4 Mbps with a torrent.
I get Ubuntu long after the release usually (it's not an OS I use regularly, more to see if things now work on it). The Aussie mirrors are pretty fast too. Torrents are usually no more than 150kB/s, as opposed to 500-800kB/s via HTTP.
I get Ubuntu long after the release usually (it's not an OS I use regularly, more to see if things now work on it). The Aussie mirrors are pretty fast too. Torrents are usually no more than 150kB/s, as opposed to 500-800kB/s via HTTP.
I have to agree here - Australia perhaps suffers somewhere with torrents - one server to download from seems to be faster most of the time.
? Torrents are a waste of time for me - everyone knows torrents are for theft anyway, why dress it up? Linux downloads about the same for me on good old http.
Attacking the p2p programs and torrent sites is totally wrong and against any laws on privacy and freedom we have. It's not the torrent sites and users who leak the movies and games to the internet, it's the people inside those movie studios and theaters, wherever they get those advance copies of them, they make copies of them and distribute them forward.
If they wanna stop piracy, that's where they need to strike, not the innocent users of torrent sites etc. Sure, it's easier to strike at the torrents and call everyone a thief than just increase supervision of their own products and their own people. They're just lazy to admit their mistakes and change the way they do things, so they'd rather restrict our freedoms and privacy.
The title of the article is "Why No One Can Stop Torrents". I fail to see where an answer is offered???
Am I supposed to think that hackers protect torrent trackers? Is that a serious answer? I was expecting a technological/legal reason, but this is lame...
The title of the article is "Why No One Can Stop Torrents". I fail to see where an answer is offered???Am I supposed to think that hackers protect torrent trackers? Is that a serious answer? I was expecting a technological/legal reason, but this is lame...
Tom's has been doing great at making misleading titls as of late.
Some torrent use is actually the result of the fight against piracy. If you're an American living in the far east, you can't buy games online, and they're overpriced for the English versions. So the only way you can effectively get new games is torrents. I buy my movies on Itunes, paying for them when I could get them on torrents. With games, I have no frickin choice.
"jawshoeaw 02/07/2009 9:49 AM
? Torrents are a waste of time for me - everyone knows torrents are for theft anyway, why dress it up? Linux downloads about the same for me on good old http."
That's like saying: crowbars, wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers etc. are for theft because you can brake locks, doors and windows with them?
I still prefer getting Linux via HTTP. It's always faster.
I cant get more than 4-5 mb/s with http, but I get full speed of 10-11 mb/s with torrents.
There is no such thing as "illegally downloading movies and music"
There is such a thing as "making movies and music illegally available for downloading"
Truth is, I'm not a huge Linux guru, more of a MS kinda guy (no comments please
). But it does me good to see stories like that last one from Brazil. It's a good time to love tech right now.
BitTorrent is a bad but popular method for piracy. It's bad because it was never designed for anonymity so the clients tell the whole world what they are downloading. For anonymity you need to use Tor, Freenet, or one of the many other anonymous networks.
Another torrent fan is clapping and cheering!
WHAT THE H--- DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH STOPPING TORRENTS ????
i opened teh article cos it was titled "why no oen can stop torrents"
as a student in game art design i obviously would ahve an invested interest an article that is about stoping/or not stopping torrents ... but i have NO interest in how you can get a million copies of a NON gaming OS off torrents !!
for sahme tom's you keep doign these "hidden" articles on me and i'm taking myself else where for reading.
Attacking the p2p programs and torrent sites is totally wrong and against any laws on privacy and freedom we have. It's not the torrent sites and users who leak the movies and games to the internet, it's the people inside those movie studios and theaters, wherever they get those advance copies of them, they make copies of them and distribute them forward. If they wanna stop piracy, that's where they need to strike, not the innocent users of torrent sites etc. Sure, it's easier to strike at the torrents and call everyone a thief than just increase supervision of their own products and their own people. They're just lazy to admit their mistakes and change the way they do things, so they'd rather restrict our freedoms and privacy.
are you a moron ?? what is innocent , about robbing from some one ??? sure companies got big money but DO you hoenstly think that the rich greedy corperate suits are gonna be the ones getting laid off when they dont meet thier quotas ??? cos if you do then youa re naive my freind. you don't hurt rich corperate guys when you downlaod stuff illeagally, the only people you hurt are the guys and gals workign at the lower payign jobs. EA proved this with 08 poeple robbed them blind over securom so what do they do ..... lay off a bunch of developers and stuff , and i can gurantee you not a single employee making more than 50k a year was affected just the folks making 30 k or less. so tell me how are torrent users so "innocent" ????
There is no such thing as "illegally downloading movies and music"There is such a thing as "making movies and music illegally available for downloading"
this mentallity is whats wrong with this country today
ok you say ther is no thign as "illeaglign downlaoding movies"
there is only making movies and music illegaly available .
ok lets looka thtis from antoerh crime and see how this picture fits
there is no such thing as "illeagaling raping a girl"
ther is just , "illeagaly beign nude in her shower, thus beign avaiable to rape"
you know soemthign doesnt add up in this picture ????
ok lets try with a diffenrt crim maybe it will add up right
ther is no such thing "as buying a stolen car"
there is jsut "illegaling runnign a stolen car chop shop"
hmmm that didnt work lets go for another
there is no such thing as "illeagaling murdering some one"
Ther is just "them illeagaly beign in teh wrong palce at teh wrong time"
d---- , you knwow hat that's three strikes my man you're logicv just doesnt add up. why don't you go get a job and acutally pay ofr soemthign for once ... or do you like putting the under paid workers in an industry out of ajob .... cos i can guarantee you the fat cats at top wont loose adime over illeagal downloading , jsut the guys on teh bottom.
Holy crap DemonHorde, can you please upload the brain cells you just took from me? I think you need to worry about English 101 first before you take any other classes. I find it amazing how people think it’s stealing, it isn't. It’s impossible to steal something that is logical; you can only copy something that is logical. Data copies from disk to disk or computer to computer. It is copyright infringement, not stealing.
In regards to the article, why no one can stop torrents? It is because torrenting is not illegal. It is a form of digital distribution, like copying from disk to disk or computer to computer. It is the act of copying something that is copyrighted that is illegal.
Ban the Internet Protocol, some people download things with it!
Too bad internet is not good as was on the begining, well torrent never was made for transfer files that is ilegally share it, it was for share just big files on some better way than peer 2 peer that exist on that time(even know he always to try make buisness i think he is making now), i think ppl just used bad, the protocol, that is, not matter the way they share ilegal files it as the FTP, XDCC(IRC) or torrent. About the ppl that from Australia get low speed that is not fault of the protocol, is from ur ISP maybe they are traffic shapping ur broadband when u use the protocol of torrent so they cap ur speed, the advantage of using torrent are simple u can get full speed well depend of peer, seed, ratio and speed of sharing the ppl, but that way u save a lot of broadband is not the same a private server like ftp or html sharing always all the time that if lot of ppl downloading files an example will be microsoft they server get down of the a lot of traffic, bad move they will need to share by torrent the beta system hosting ur the file torrent and capping the upload speed, that is the pro or con when u download from html or bittorrent. Cheers
How is the title and the content of this article even remotely the same thing? This is the third time now in the past month where the titles and the content aren't even close to being the same. What the hell...
Why no one can stop torrents....because Tom's will write an article about setting up RAID arrays and name it "How to cook blueberry muffins"
Tom's has been doing great at making misleading titls as of late.
Hey can you give us a few examples?
How is the title and the content of this article even remotely the same thing? This is the third time now in the past month where the titles and the content aren't even close to being the same. What the hell...
Again, can we have samples?
Hey can you give us a few examples?
You know, they've changed them. I just looked back at an article here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/B [...] ,6926.html
If you'll notice the comments, they mention the error, and the correction. I'm not hugely interested in deciphering what titles have changed.
If you'll notice the comments, they mention the error, and the correction. I'm not hugely interested in deciphering what titles have changed.
Thanks!