Tag: IP addresses

File Sharing Is Now Legal… In Portugal

Portugal has a piracy problem. The European country has been the focus of anti-piracy group ACAPOR for some time now. It all came to a head last year when the organization delivered over 2,000 IP addresses of alleged file sharers to the Attorney General’s office. The Attorney General’s office was silent for a year, but they have finally come to a decision.

The Department of Investigation and Penal Action has decided not to take action against the 2,000-plus IP addresses brought to their attention. Even better, the Attorney General ruled that file sharing for personal use isn’t against the law. Here’s the full statement provided courtesy of TorrentFreak:

“From a legal point of view, while taking into account that users are both uploaders and downloaders in these file-sharing networks, we see this conduct as lawful, even when it’s considered that the users continue to share once the download is finished.”

He went on to say that the right to education, culture and freedom of expression shouldn’t be restricted in cases of non-commercial copyright infringement. The very thought of such a statement being uttered out of a public policy maker is astounding as countries around the world continue to demonize file sharers as street peddler bootleggers or even worse.

In another encouraging note, the office also said that an IP address is not a person. Various courts around the world have also come to this conclusion. It’s been proven time and time again that IP addresses are not exactly foolproof when it comes to identifying a person. The RIAA knows this better than anyone else when they sued a dead woman based only on the IP address.

For their part, ACAPOR thinks the Attorney General’s office is just being lazy. The organization says that the “prosecutors just found a way to adopt the law to their interest.” They claim that the Attorney General’s office just didn’t want to send 2,000 letters or hear 2,000 cases.

Either way, it shows that Portugal is once again being one of the most progressive nations on Earth. In 2000, the country decriminalized all personal drug use. The change in law led to a decrease in drug related violence and crime while leading to a decrease in recreational drug use among teenagers. The decriminalization of file sharing for personal use may just have similar effects, but only if content providers make it easy for Portugese citizens to access the content legally and easily.

September 27, 2012
You Don’t Have to Secure Your Wi-Fi to Help Prevent Piracy, According to Judge

In a ruling that should make internet freedom activists very happy and many copyright holders very sad, a California Judge has set a precedent that protects internet subscribers from lawsuits based on “negligence.”

The decision comes out of the case AF Holdings vs. Josh Hatfield and John Doe. In that case, adult video company AF Holdings sued Hatfield for failing to secure his internet connection, which allowed John Doe to illegally download their videos through the open Wi-Fi connection. Because of Hatfield’s “negligence,” he must be held liable for the piracy according to AF Holdings.

Hatfield filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that there’s no way AF Holdings could say that he had an obligation to secure his Wi-Fi in order to protect the company from piracy. Judge Phyllis Hamilton sided with Hatfield.

“AF Holdings argues that it seeks to hold Hatfield liable for ‘negligent maintenance of his residential network,’ which it asserts allowed a third-party to commit large-scale infringement of AF Holdings’ copyrighted works. Specifically, AF Holdings alleges in the complaint that Hatfield owed it a duty to secure his Internet connection to prevent infringement of AF Holdings’ copyrighted works. Thus, the entirety of this claim involves the allegation that Hatfield failed to take certain steps – in other words, allegations of non-feasance (as opposed to misfeasance),” reads the court documents.

Hamilton explained that the only way Hatfield would have to take steps to help protect AF Holdings’ property is if a “special relationship” existed between the two.

“AF Holdings has not articulated any basis for imposing on Hatfield a legal duty to prevent the infringement of AF Holdings’ copyrighted works, and the court is aware of none. Hatfield is not alleged to have any special relationship with AF Holdings that would give rise to a duty to protect AF Holdings’ copyrights, and is also not alleged to have engaged in any misfeasance by which he created a risk of peril.

Hatfield had no duty to AF Holdings to secure his Internet connection in order to protect AF Holdings’ materials from infringement,” wrote Judge Hamilton.

This is a devastating blow to copyright holders’ tactic of claiming “negligence” when someone fails to secure their internet connection, thus allowing another person to use it to torrent content. The entire “negligence” tactic was created to circumvent previous rulings that stated that IP addresses do not equal people.

Most copyright lawsuits stem from companies discovering an “offending” IP address and then later attaching it to an actual person. But common sense tells us that the one paying for the interent service is not always the one using the service. It’s really hard to prove that a single person (even if their name is on the bill) was the one who pirated materials. In the past, Judges have sided with defendants and said that using IP addresses is not an accurate method of identifying users.

Now, there is precedent for both the “IP addresses aren’t people” argument and the fact that internet users aren’t liable for everything that happens using their service.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the “negligence” strategy runs into a couple of roadblocks even if it results in an initial valid claim:

The “negligence” strategy had three fatal flaws, according to the court. First, an Internet subscriber like Mr. Hatfield has no legal duty to police his Internet connection to protect copyright owners like AF Holdings. Second, even if AF had a valid “negligence” claim against Mr. Hatfield under state personal injury law, federal copyright law would override it. This is called preemption. And finally, even if copyright law didn’t trump a negligence claim, Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act probably would.

Although this is unlikely to stop the flurry of copyright cases stemming from BitTorrent we’ve seen lately, it does give defendants a case to cite as precedent if they find themselves in a similar pickle. It’s nice to see a Judge use common sense in an arena where common sense is sometimes hard to find.

Af Holdings Hatfield

[via TorrentFreak]

September 13, 2012
Comcast Defends Its Subscribers Against Copyright Trolls

People have a lot of bad things to say about ISPs, but we should give them credit when they do something pro-consumer. Remember when Verizon refused to comply with a subpoena that sought the identities behind IP addresses? That was pretty awesome and pro-consumer. Another major ISP has joined Verizon in protecting consumers’ identities.

TorrentFreak reports that Comcast has requested that the court quash the subpoenas being used in an Illinois District Court. The subpoenas, like others before it, are demanding that Comcast identify the people behind the IP addresses that have been found downloading content over BitTorrent. The reasoning behind the quash respect is sound which Comcast’s lawyers lay out in easy to understand terms.

They argue that the subpoenas are “overbroad and exceed the boundaries of fair discovery.” As for the other argument, let’s have Comcast speak for themselves:

Third, plaintiffs should not be allowed to profit from unfair litigation tactics whereby they use the offices of the Court as an inexpensive means to gain Doe defendants’ personal information and coerce “settlements” from them. It is evident in these cases – and the multitude of cases filed by plaintiffs and other pornographers represented by their counsel – that plaintiffs have no interest in actually litigating their claims against the Doe defendants, but simply seek to use the Court and its subpoena powers to obtain sufficient information to shake down the Doe defendants. The Federal Rules require the Court to deny discovery “to protect a party or personfrom annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense.” This case requires such relief.

Interestingly enough, AF Holdings accuses the defendants of participating in a BitTorrent “swarm.” The idea here is that everybody who downloaded a movie from AF Holdings did so together with the intention of turning around and seeding it as soon as they had finished downloading it. It seems that pornography studios don’t understand the Internet and how BitTorrent works, but Comcast apparently does.

The plaintiffs allege in their complaints that the Doe defendants “took concerted action” and “were collectively engaged in the conspiracy even if they were not engaged in the swarm contemporaneously.” However, courts have found that “[m]uch of the BitTorrent protocol operates invisibly to the user after downloading a file, subsequent uploading takes place automatically if the user fails to close the program.” Simply alleging the use of BitTorrent technology … does not comport with the requirements under Rule 20(a) for permissive joinder.”

If accepted by the court, it would help shape the definition of what kind of BitTorrent activity is actually considering piracy. A lot of people don’t find the act of downloading content illegally over BitTorrent to actually be piracy, but the act of uploading the content to share is. The problem comes from the fact that many BitTorrent clients automatically set the user to share the content over BitTorrent upon finishing the download.

In short, this case is absolutely fascinating. Unlike Verizon who just refused the subpoena, Comcast is making a great argument for the rights of their subscribers and BitTorrent users everywhere. We’ll keep watching the case to see what verdict the judge returns. Either way, it’s encouraging to see ISPs fighting for consumer rights. Now if they could just get rid of data caps.

Comcast Reply

June 13, 2012
IPv6 Goes Live Today: The Future Of The Internet Is Here

After years of preparation and teasing, IPv6 finally goes live today. IPv4 will now begin it’s long slow death march across the wasteland of the Internet. In reality, it’s a little more complicated than that. IPv6 and IPv4 will live in harmony for many years to come, but this newest iteration is something worth celebrating.

IPv6 is the response to a problem that’s been in the making ever since the Internbet began – its exponential growth. In the beginning, there were only a few thousand IPs floating around and all was good. More and more people began to connect to the Internet in more ways than ever before. The 4.3 billion IP addresses afforded by IPv4 were no longer enough. IPv6 has been in the works since the early 90s to address the problem that we now face today.

With the launch of IPv6, a crisis has been averted. So how many addresses does IPv6 support? One would think maybe a few more billion addresses because the Internet isn’t really that big, right? Well, the Internet is a constantly evolving network with more and more addresses coming online all the time. This is why IPv6 has been granted the capacity to hold 340 undecillion addresses. I could list in arabic numerals how large that number is, but I don’t think you want to see 36 zeroes.

There’s obviously enough room for all the IPv4 addresses currently in use as well any new IP addresses that will be assigned as we march forward towards progress. Of course, you may be wondering if the introduction of IPv4 is going to force you off the Internet until you switch over to IPv6. Worry not as we’re all in this together and IPv4 will still work alongside IPv6 for years to come.

Just because IPv4 still works doesn’t mean that you should just ignore IPv6. PCWorld caught up with Tri Nguyen at ZyXEL and he explained that IPv6 offers a host of improvements over IPv4 that should have many people wanting to make the switch. The biggest reason being security. IPv6 packets are encrypted thus making it harder to actually breach a network that’s on IPv6.

Unfortunately, more secure just signals a challenge to those that launch attacks on Web sites. It was reported back in February that the number of DDoS attacks were beginning to rise on networks using IPv6. It proved that even the increased security of IPv6 could not stop all of the attacks, but security groups saw it as a perfect excuse to begin studying attacks on IPv6 addresses to develop new safeguards for the future.

Barring cyber attacks, you’re probably liking the sound of this IPv6 thing. So what does a strapping young net savvy individual have to do to prepare for the switch? Absolutely nothing. You heard that right, folks. ISPs, Web companies and equipment manufacturers are doing all the hard work for us. They will be overseeing the switch to IPv6 so that you don’t have to.

While everybody is going to have to switch over to IPv6 sooner or later, a number of companies are already switching over starting today. In our report yesterday, big players like AT&T and Google were listed among those that are fully embracing IPv6. Google has been especially proactive in regards to the switch by having Vint Cerf talk up the need for IPv6. You can see Cerf talking about IPv6 in the video below:

As you can see, IPv6 is not threatening in the least bit. In fact, it’s the best thing to happen to the Internet since, well, the Internet. The best part about it is that we don’t have to worry about it. IPv6 will be moved to new areas as needed. The only thing that people should be aware of is that any device or computer they buy should have support for IPv6. Considering that my laptop from 2004 has IPv6, the average consumer should be good.

It’s an exciting time of growth and innovation for the Internet. IPv6 is just the newest expansion that will increase the speed and security of the Internet. It’s these kind of innovations that make the Internet something to be protected from those who would rather limit it to protect their own interests, like the UN.

June 6, 2012
The Pirate Bay Fighting Censorship One IP Address At A Time

Remember when The Pirate Bay was blocked in the UK on the grounds that it enabled copyright on a massive scale? That may have been only the most recent attempt at censoring the site, but various other European countries have also ruled in favor of blocking access to everybody’s favorite torrent tracker. It’s totally fine though because The Pirate Bay is constantly working to keep access open to all.

Keeping that access open is one of the reasons behind The Pirate Bay seeing a huge influx of users the day after the UK ruled that the site was to blocked. Even after ISPs all over the country started to block access, people still got around using proxies and other means. It’s a useless battle, but the copyright industry keeps on trying.

Unfortunately, the only downside to these tactics is that everybody doesn’t know how to use a proxy. For those people, The Pirate Bay has come up with a solution – a new IP. By just typing the IP address in your browser, users can access The Pirate Bay. The courts are only having the original IP address blocked so any new subsequent IP addresses will be available for all.

It wouldn’t be long before the copyright industry got wind of this workaround and went after the new IP address. TorrentFreak is reporting that is already the case as everybody’s non-favorite Dutch anti-piracy group, BREIN, told local ISPs to shut off access to the new IP address. The ISPs refused so BREIN went to the court again to get another blocking order and were successful in getting the new IP blocked.

The funny thing is that The Pirate Bay claims to have hundreds of IP addresses. Speaking to TorrentFreak, an insider replied to BREIN’s actions by saying, “Let me get the next IP address lined up.” If The Pirate Bay does indeed have hundreds of IPs just waiting to be used, the anti-piracy groups are just waging a war of attrition that they can not win. Sooner or later, the anti-piracy groups are just going to give up because they’re the ones who have to go to court while wasting time and money. The Pirate Bay just has to turn on another IP address for next to nothing.

All of this just goes to show you how out of touch the media industries are. They could be spending their money on alternative ways to market their goods to people and compete with piracy on a level that actually wins them consumer loyalty and sales. Unfortunately, these groups are too caught up in fighting piracy and punishing legitimate consumers to realize that their actions are the cause of piracy in the first place.

If this war of attrition between The Pirate Bay and BREIN does play out, it should be highly entertaining. We’ll keep you updated on any and all developments.

May 29, 2012
The State Of The Internet [InfoGraphic]

Every quarter, Akamai takes a look at global internet connection speeds, attack traffic, network connectivity and more. They take the data from the latest State of the Internet reportand visualized it in infographic form.

The info obtained from this quarters report is fairly interesting actually. The United States lead the way with the most new IP addresses, even though China had the highest overall percentage change. The unique addresses gained in the top 10 countries actually represents 67% of the overall IP addresses gained!

The other big thing they test is global average connection speed. They checked the top 100 and found that the Asia Pacific region held the highest number of spots. The United States and Canada came in second with 24 of them. Over all the internet connection speed is up 19% over this time last year.

They also had the information for the highest average connection speed. They produced the results for the top 10 highest average speeds with the percentage change. South Korea leads the way with their Zerg rush of a 17.5 Mbps which is a 28% increase over last year. The United States has the 10th highest on this list at 5.8 Mbps with an average growth.

The United States definitely has the technology to make their internet the fastest in the world, the problem has always been infrastructure. All of these other countries on the speed list are smaller than Texas. So you can imagine how much money we’d have to spend to get ourselves up to their level.

May 9, 2012
Preparedness In a Post-SOPA World

Hopefully, the Louis Pasteur quote subtitling this article motivates you enough to prepare yourself for a post-SOPA world, one where the Internet, as we know it, is rendered into a smoldering ruin that’s overtly governed by the copyright gatekeepers. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but then again, being prepared for a potentially real future could make the transition to a SOPA-controlled Interent much easier to navigate.

Mozilla, or at least some programmers who develop Firefox extensions, is already well on its way to remaining viable in a post-SOPA world, with at least two extensions designed to combat the preventive actions SOPA allows. Over at Pastie.org, someone has compiled a list IP addresses, creating the “SOPA Emergency IP list,” which features exactly what it says: IP addresses of useful/favorite sites that may or may not be hard to find if SOPA becomes law.

While the list has to the potential to be very helpful, the disclaimer which accompanies it takes it from “useful,” to “mandatory,” complete with a choice selection of NSFW language. There’s also a set of directions explaining how to implement IP addresses in lieu of top-level domains:

So if these ass-fucks in DC decide to ruin the internet, here’s how to access your favorite sites in the event of a DNS takedown:

tumblr.com 174.121.194.34
wikipedia.org 208.80.152.201

# News
bbc.co.uk 212.58.241.131
aljazeera.com 198.78.201.252

# Social media
reddit.com 72.247.244.88
imgur.com 173.231.140.219
google.com 74.125.157.99
youtube.com 74.125.65.91
yahoo.com 98.137.149.56
hotmail.com 65.55.72.135
bing.com 65.55.175.254
digg.com 64.191.203.30
theonion.com 97.107.137.164
hush.com 65.39.178.43
gamespot.com 216.239.113.172
ign.com 69.10.25.46
cracked.com 98.124.248.77
sidereel.com 144.198.29.112
github.com 207.97.227.239

# Torrent sites
thepiratebay.org 194.71.107.15
mininova.com 80.94.76.5
btjunkie.com 93.158.65.211
demonoid.com 62.149.24.66
demonoid.me 62.149.24.67

# Social networking
facebook.com 69.171.224.11
twitter.com 199.59.149.230
tumblr.com 174.121.194.34
livejournal.com 209.200.154.225
dreamwidth.org 69.174.244.50

# Live Streaming Content
stickam.com 67.201.54.151
blogtv.com 84.22.170.149
justin.tv 199.9.249.21
chatroulette.com 184.173.141.231
omegle.com 97.107.132.144
own3d.tv 208.94.146.80
megavideo.com 174.140.154.32

# Television
gorillavid.com 178.17.165.74
videoweed.com 91.220.176.248
novamov.com 91.220.176.248
tvlinks.com 208.223.219.206
1channel.com 208.87.33.151

# Shopping
amazon.com 72.21.211.176
newegg.com 216.52.208.187
frys.com 209.31.22.39

# File Sharing
mediafire.com 205.196.120.13
megaupload.com 174.140.154.20
fileshare.com 208.87.33.151
multiupload.com 95.211.149.7
uploading.com 195.191.207.40
warez-bb.org 31.7.57.13
hotfile.com 199.7.177.218
gamespy.com 69.10.25.46
what.cd 67.21.232.223
warez.ag 178.162.238.136
putlocker.com 89.238.130.247
uploaded.to 95.211.143.200
dropbox.com 199.47.217.179
pastebin.com 69.65.13.216

Here’s a tip for the do-it-yourself crowd: Go to your computer’s Start menu, and either go to “run” or just search for “cmd.” Open it up, and type in “ping [website address],”

Once you have the IP for a website, all you really need to do is enter it like you would a normal URL and hit enter/press go. Typing in “208.85.240.231” should bring you to the front page of AO3, for example, just as typing “174.121.194.34/dashboard” should bring you straight to your Tumblr dashboard. Since we’re obviously bracing for the worst case scenario which would involve you not being able to access the internet regularly, you should, save this list.

Expect to see a whole lot more of these kinds of lists and other tools developed to circumvent SOPA/PIPA, especially if either becomes law.

Lead image courtesy of Rasul Maksyutov.

January 3, 2012