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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Mininova has just launched their new bookmarking feature for registered users. One of the benefits of your mininova bookmarks page is that generates a personalized RSS feed which allows you to automatically add bookmarked torrents to your BitTorrent client.

Importing torrents via RSS can be very useful if you’re at work, school, or at a friends place. With this new feature from mininova you only have to bookmark the torrent, and it will start downloading automatically when your BitTorrent client is running at home.

Here is how it works. First of all, you’ll have to be a registered user at Mininova to use the bookmarking feature. Then, when you come across a torrent you would like to download, simply click on the “Add to bookmarks” button. The torrent will then be added to your personal bookmarks page, which has its own RSS feed.

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BitTorrent’s popularity is growing every day. Despite the lawsuits that some of the larger torrent sites are involved in, they continue to grow traffic wise. Let’s take a look at how Google ranks the top torrent sites.

It is hard to make a definite list of the most popular BitTorrent sites. Over the years we’ve made quite a few lists, and reported some of the latest trends.

Most lists we published were based on Alexa’s ranking, mainly because it was pretty much the only traffic source that was available. Recently, however, Google started to rank websites as well, including a traffic estimate.

So, let’s see how well Google does, and how their traffic estimation and ranking compares to actual traffic data and Alexa’s ranking respectively.

One of the interesting features of Google’s site comparison is that it gives an estimation of the daily traffic when you’re logged in on a Google account. The data used for the traffic statistics comes from Google analytics, consumer panels, and other third-party market research.

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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 »

Reports are coming in that the government in Malaysia has ordered the immediate suspension of all BitTorrent trackers hosted in the country. In a shock move, the government - citing the ‘Copyright Act 1987′ has ordered hosts to suspend servers that host BitTorrent sites, pending an investigation. Many sites are currently offline.

+When BitTorrent sites get into legal trouble or other pressures force a move to a new location, the speculation begins on the safest place to go.

For instance, would a site bail out of the Netherlands and move to Canada? Is Canada too dangerous now, and would a move to Sweden be more appropriate? What about moving to Ukraine-based hosting like Demonoid or further afield - China or Russia maybe? Inevitably, discussions usually involve ideas of moving sites east, to countries like Malaysia.

Fairly high-tech countries like this seem an attractive proposition, particularly given their government’s track-record in failing to do much about piracy.

Given this background, BitTorrent tracker admins with their sites hosted in Malaysia were confronted by a very unpleasant surprise today.

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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 »

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” …

This weeks “Most pirated TV-episodes” chart lists four shows that were leaked before the official air date: ‘Stargate Atlantis’, ‘True Blood’, ‘Life on Mars’ and ‘Do Not Disturb’. It’s PREAIR season.

This week, seven shows leaked on BitTorrent, before they actually aired on TV. Four of those made it into the top 10 of most downloaded TV-shows. Preair leaks are not uncommon, in fact, it is suggested that some shows are leaked on purpose.

The data of the weekly download chart, collected by TorrentFreak, is gathered from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation weighed in this week on the Jammie Thomas file-swapping case, where the judge has asked for public comment on whether just making a file available for download on a P2P network should count as copyright infringement. In its filing, the EFF goes for the jugular and shows that the RIAA’s entire approach is wrong.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation weighed in this week on the Jammie Thomas file-swapping case, where the judge has asked for public comment on whether just making a file available for download on a P2P network should count as copyright infringement. In its filing (PDF), the EFF goes for the jugular, seeking to show that the RIAA’s entire approach to file-swapping cases is flawed.

Not only does the Copyright Act not grant a “making available” right, the EFF said, but trade groups also shouldn’t be allowed to claim that an actual distribution took place based solely on downloads from their own investigators.

Together, this two-part theory would effectively eviscerate the RIAA’s current legal campaign by making it nearly impossible for copyright holders to show that infringing distributions to the public have taken place over P2P networks.

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In an response to the new wiretapping law that was introduced in Sweden this week, The Pirate Bay will ask international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden, to protect their customers. In addition, the BitTorrent tracker will add SSL encryption to their site, and roll out a new VPN service.

Earlier this week, Swedish parliament had voted in favor of a new “wiretapping” law which invades the privacy of its citizens by allowing the government to monitor Internet traffic and phone calls, without the need for court orders.

Before the law was passed, The Pirate Bay crew spoke out against it, and now they are upping the ante. In an initial response they went out putting “wanted posters” up, of politicians who voted in favor of the law. Their next move is to ask international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden, according to Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde.

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