Do NOT use TorrentSpy

[psi29a]

From slashdot:

TorrentSpy, one of the world's largest BitTorrent sites, has been ordered by a federal judge to monitor its users. They are asked to keep detailed logs of their activities which must then be handed over to the MPAA. Ira Rothken, TorrentSpy's attorney responded to the news by stating: 'It is likely that TorrentSpy would turn off access to the U.S. before tracking its users. If this order were allowed to stand, it would mean that Web sites can be required by discovery judges to track what their users do even if their privacy policy says otherwise.'"

more information here:
http://torrentfreak.com/torrentspy-orde ... -the-mpaa/

[War Machine]

Funny... recently I wanted to get a torrent from Torrent Spy and couldn't find exactly where the download button was (they moved things around recently), so I got pissed and used a different site. Thanks for the heads-up.

[EnglishJim]

Well, I went ahead to TorrentSpy and was greeted with this message:

Hello Friends of TorrentSpy,

This message is to inform you about recent efforts by the motion picture studios to shut down TorrentSpy. As you may know, in February 2006 the major movie studios and their Washington lobby, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), filed a lawsuit against TorrentSpy and other search engines.

We guess that hiring hackers and turning a blind eye to identity theft is not enough for the movie studios and the MPAA. Now they want to know who you are, what you search for, and what you download. In short, it is the view of the movie studios that websites should not allow anonymous use and your activity on the Internet - anywhere - is their business.

The really scarry thing is that if we lose this court battle, the movie studios will be able to go after any search engine or website and force them to collect data about YOU. It is not an exaggeration to say that losing this fight is a nail in the Internet's coffin.

We have spent the last year challenging their relentless campaign against the 1st Amendment and personal privacy laws Worldwide. We have succeeded in delaying the court order to turn on logs while we appeal it. TorrentSpy will not create logs of what you do on the site without your consent.

While we use Google Analytics for website statistics, TorrentSpy servers have never tracked your IP Address, the searches you make, or how you use the site. We are dedicated to your privacy and we are fighting for your rights!

*sigh* I hate this. TorrentSpy is (was) easily the most dependable torrent site on the web. Still, I hear there are one or two ways around this...

Tor, for one, will protect your anonymity by randomizing your IP address. I think it's open source too, but I'm not sure (not that I could do anything with it).

[psi29a]

TOR (The Onion Router) is basically a proxy server that obfuscates your requests to the Internet so that instead of going through somewhat predictable path, you are really bouncing around one machine to another usually several computers running TOR before getting tothe destination. The TOR service does track you, but only in so far as where data goes and comes from and not anything about originator or destination.

I don't use it, because I don't pirate movies. However, just remember that using TOR will slow down how fast you can download stuff, and more importantly, it relies on people keeping their machines up to act as TOR servers. You will only be as fast as the slowest link in the chain.