The Pirate Bay has ambitious plans to bring end-to-end encryption to all network activity, essentially blacking out a user’s traffic from deep packet inspection gear and other prying eyes. Interesting project, sure, and definitely ambitious, but will it work? We doubt it, at least in the near term, and here’s why.

NewTeeVee has a nice writeup on the proposal by Pirate Bay cofounder Fredrik Neij for a system which he calls IPETEE. The system either replaces or sits atop the basic operating system network stack, encrypting and decrypting all communications that pass through the the computer.

Diffie-Hellman key negotiation is used to generate session keys for the computer on each end of the network connection, though the system is smart enough to revert to standard, unencrypted TCP/IP or UDP should the target computer not support the encryption scheme. (Rudimentary information is on the project’s wiki.)

Apart from the obvious drawback of CPU and bandwidth overhead, such a project could no doubt be completed (eventually) by the Jolly Roger-waving lads of The Pirate Bay, but its hurdles to adoption are legion. For one thing, there’s the practical matter of what benefit it would have.

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If Rodney Dangerfield were to have left this world prior to BitTorrent’s debut, I suspect it might be plausible to assume the man had been reincarnated to consist of code and a mission to peer. Or something less ridiculous sounding, maybe.

BitTorrent is hardly the technical target of governments and copyright-owning corporations and ISPs. But it has played the victim of their data filtration and server disconnection exercises again and again, and to ill effect.

Just this past week a story by TorrentFreak emerged describing Malaysia’s government as playing part to suspensions of BitTorrent trackers hosted within the country’s jurisdiction. BitTorrent truly gets no respect. At least among authorities and big business groups.

You have of course heard these lines repeatedly. To exhaustive degree, I’m sure. Yes, these stories have surfaced far too often for most anybody’s liking. Even some of those doing the shafting aren’t likely to enjoy a number of their actions’ aftereffects. Read more »

Net neutrality has divided the P2P landscape in recent months. There are companies like Pando that align themselves with ISPs, favoring technical solutions over regulation.

There are others like Vuze and Miro that fight for net neutrality. And then there is Bittorrent Inc, flip-flopping in a way that makes (insert your least favorite politician here) look like a straight talker.

Bittorrent president Ashwin Navin repeatedly told the press that his comany doesn’t see any reason for the government to interfere with ISP’s business decisions on the height of the Comcast Bittorrent scandal last year. Here’s what Navin told me during an interview last December:

“Where competitive forces are alive and well, and I believe they are here in the United States, I believe the ISPs will upgrade their networks to accommodate this usage pattern” Read more »

The six individuals who are arrested for allegedly sharing music on the OiNK BitTorrent tracker, are due to report to police at the start of July. The five men and one woman, who are suspected of conspiring to defraud the music industry, will have their bail extended. Unsurprisingly, the police need more time to make their case.

On Friday 23rd May, three people were arrested by police, followed by another three on Wednesday 28th May. All six - five men aged between 19 and 33 and a 28-year-old woman - were arrested in the UK on suspicion of “Conspiracy to Defraud the Music Industry”, and other copyright offenses.

It is alleged that the individuals were users of OiNK who uploaded music to other users in advance of its commercial release date.

Suspects were taken to their local police station for questioning and required to provide DNA samples and fingerprints. Sources close to those arrested confirm that most accusations relate to the uploading of a single album by each suspect but despite the fact that uploading music is not a crime in the UK if done for no profit, somehow this civil issue had been transformed into allegations of serious crime, with police paying close attention to donations the suspects made to the site, presumably in an effort to find some financial motive.

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There have been quite a few attempts to sell Bittorrent-optimized set top boxes and media PCs, ranging from obscure vaporware cleverly marketed products from previously unknown companies to brand-name collaborations based on failed content platforms.

And now there’s the Vuzebox, which is essentially a really well-equipped Home Theater PC that runs Vuze on Linux out of the box. It features an Intel Dual Core 2 GHz processor, 1 GB of Ram, a couple hundred gigs HD space and a bunch of outputs including HDMI, but no Wifi (ouch!). The whole thing costs 600 bucks and apparently is available now.

For the record: The Vuzebox makers are not affiliated with Vuze, which makes this a pretty bad name choice that probably won’t last too long. And the price is a little steep, compared to what you can do with a hacked Apple TV. But hey, you can always try to get a deal: The Vuzebox web order form allows you to submit your “best offer” …

The British government appears to be running out of patience with ISPs as they struggle to come to an agreement with the music industry on P2P music piracy. One ‘top-level’ ISP executive says “The British government just put a gun to our head.” Major UK ISPs are now in “serious” talks with the music industry.

Recently we reported on the agreement between UK ISP Virgin Media and the British Phonographic Industry to start sending out warnings to Virgin’s subscribers who the BPI accuse of uploading copyright music.

Now, according to a Digital Music News report, the British government has started urgently applying pressure to prominent ISPs to find a solution to the ‘problem’ of file-sharing. The pressure includes a threat to bring in new laws, should ISPs and the music industry not come to a solution of their own.

The government previously set a deadline of April 2009 for the parties to reach an agreement but according to sources, pressure is intensifying to deal with the issue sooner. A “top-level executive” gave an indication of the level of pressure stating: “The British government just put a gun to our head.”

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When I first began to use BitTorrent in 2004 there was little question as to which indexing site to use.

Today, Suprnova is long gone and we are left with an array of diverse options.

This is a comparison of today’s ten most used BitTorrent sites according to Alexa.com. Read more »

The MPA(A) has announced that it is demanding $15.4 million from the Pirate Bay in the upcoming court case, to cover the damages they suffered from 4 movies and 13 TV-episodes that were made available via the popular BitTorrent tracker.

The movie titles they are claiming damages for are Harry Potter, Syriana, The Pink Panther and Walk the Line and the 13 episodes of the popular TV-show Prison Break.

MPAA demands 222,50 kronor ($37) for each download. For Harry Potter, 261,50 kronor ($43) and for the first season of Prison Break 416 kronor ($68).

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