Re:Copyright enforcement and the Internet: we just haven't t...
by danso on Wednesday February 15, 2012 @04:06PM
(#3596044)
When I saw the title of this piece, I immediately thought it referred to the companies' lackluster ability to patrol torrent sites.
I haven't torrented in many years (no, really...I didn't see the need for it after I got a real job and after the advent of usable streaming services) but isn't it still the case that the majority of users expose their IPs when downloading/uploading? That is, most people aren't using some kind of Tor solution?
I may not have a very tech-savvy group of friends...but the few people who have said they torrent are almost always unaware of how public their downloading is (and yes, these would be the same people who would be vulnerable to Firesheeping and other such hacks) and are shocked when I tell them of the risk they're at.
But in reality, it seems like a very small minority of easily-findable torrenters face any kind of action. And yes, I'm accounting for the infamous RIAA/MPAA lawsuits in which hundreds or thousands of people are named. That's still -- AFAIK -- a very small percentage of domestic torrenters.
Which leads me to believe that the RIAA/MPAA's enforcement capabilities involve an intern using some craptastic proprietary program to copy-and-paste IP numbers and hand-enter them into a database, which is then used to hand-send out cease-and-desist letters, and all of this happens very sporadically (and with little effort/ability to verify accuracy, apparently).
I haven't torrented in many years (no, really...I didn't see the need for it after I got a real job and after the advent of usable streaming services) but isn't it still the case that the majority of users expose their IPs when downloading/uploading? That is, most people aren't using some kind of Tor solution?
I may not have a very tech-savvy group of friends...but the few people who have said they torrent are almost always unaware of how public their downloading is (and yes, these would be the same people who would be vulnerable to Firesheeping and other such hacks) and are shocked when I tell them of the risk they're at.
But in reality, it seems like a very small minority of easily-findable torrenters face any kind of action. And yes, I'm accounting for the infamous RIAA/MPAA lawsuits in which hundreds or thousands of people are named. That's still -- AFAIK -- a very small percentage of domestic torrenters.
Which leads me to believe that the RIAA/MPAA's enforcement capabilities involve an intern using some craptastic proprietary program to copy-and-paste IP numbers and hand-enter them into a database, which is then used to hand-send out cease-and-desist letters, and all of this happens very sporadically (and with little effort/ability to verify accuracy, apparently).