The people who upload torrents

[AndyP]

unless they have some really secure proxy servers setup in multiple countries, a simple call to the ISP will get these guys.
do you really think pros can't catch a few youngsters who upload games? aren't you underestimating them a little? tracing IPs is much simpler than you think, especially against amateurs.

um, no, it isn't... there are literally thousands of anonymous proxies that are based in countries that don't cooperate with US and other "major" powers... tracing an IP is pretty darn hard as long as simple precautions are taken...

The questions are, however:

1. Would torrent protocol work al all through those proxies?

2. Would they be able to handle such traffic?

3. Are they indeed secure enough so law enforcement would be unable to help themselves with IP-adrresses of the users?

 

[cliffordcooley]

Since it's your ISP that's assigning your IP-address to you, what you said is a total nonsense. Looks like you don't know at all what are you talking about.

Yes your ISP knows your IP, but if they knew your IP they wouldn't have a problem. They must first know your IP, before they can trace anything back to your ISP and then to you. If you can break the link back to you/your ISP then there is practically no evidence to support prosecution, outside of your ISP monitoring your activities.

 

[Squid Surprise]

The questions are, however:

1. Would torrent protocol work al all through those proxies?

2. Would they be able to handle such traffic?

3. Are they indeed secure enough so law enforcement would be unable to help themselves with IP-adrresses of the users?

1: Yes
2: Yes
3: Yes

 

[AndyP]

On the morality of software piracy.

I guess, runaway slaves didn't have any morals whatsoever--why, they were stealing themselves from their rightful owners! And unlike software piracy, in that case victims of the theft were most certainly harmed economically. In some more outrageous cases, when a lot of their talking property was stolen, they might be even totally ruined!

But forget about those small-time thieves, however morally repulsive their conduct might be. What about really evil criminals, like that awful Harriet Tubman? That's the one they want to put on a $20 bill, replacing a respected slave owner Andrew Jackson, who, by the way, suffered immensely from the crimes, perpetrated by her ilk. Un-frickin-believable!

Well, to the subject. Many of the commenters here seem to confuse morality with legality. Which are two very different things. Sometimes what is legal is immoral. And sometimes what is moral is illegal. That's really quite simple.

Now, let's indulge ourselves in a little experiment. (Remember 'Blade Runner?') One person can make another person happy--and it won't cost him/her a penny--but isn't doing so. Why? Well, actually it's even worse: that first person is doing everything possible to prevent the second person from becoming happy, just because he/she can. So why indeed? That's what I call immoral. And that's exactly what software publishers are doing to those who can't afford their software but still want to enjoy it.

Sure, software development must be financed SOMEHOW. But that doesn't negate the fact that our current intellectual property laws are highly immoral. After all, somebody had to work on plantations, right? And until we have immoral laws there will be those who break them on the moral grounds. Worse yet, there will be those who profit greatly by doing both illegal AND immoral things. Like developing and selling software to steal software. Or distributing infected software to steal something else.

So, you wanna stop piracy and all problems it causes? Great! But the only way to do it is to change our laws. For example, limiting copyright term to something reasonable and/or putting a cap on profits made. Don't forget, the concept of intellectual property was invented to incentivize its potential creators--so EVERYBODY could enjoy it--not to make some crooks filthy rich. (That's, as a matter of fact, one of the most immoral thing in the world, being filthy rich.)

 

[AndyP]

The questions are, however:

1. Would torrent protocol work al all through those proxies?

2. Would they be able to handle such traffic?

3. Are they indeed secure enough so law enforcement would be unable to help themselves with IP-adrresses of the users?

1: Yes
2: Yes
3: Yes

Any proof would be helpful. Especially for the last "yes," considering law enforcement just broke to a presumably unbreakable iPhone.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Let me be clear... I'm only stating that piracy is quite easy - I'm not advocating that there are any moral reasons to do it.

Piracy, by it's very definition, is stealing - you're not Robin Hood, no one will starve if they don't get a free video game!

Morally, if you are pirating, you are stealing, and that is WRONG.

However, just because something is wrong, doesn't mean lots of people won't do it - especially if it's easy to do!
Look at the music industry - Napster came along and almost ended them.... now they've adapted - you can buy single songs (or albums) online, for a far more reasonable price, and just as conveniently as Napster used to be. Yes, it's still pretty easy to pirate music, but it's no longer vastly easier (previously, your only legal alternative was to go to a store and buy the whole album - singles were only the "hit songs").

Gaming has also adopted change. Thanks to things like Steam, you no longer have to trek to a store and buy a game for $60... you can buy online cheaper - and as many posters have stated, if you're willing to wait a bit, prices come down drastically.

They still have some distance to go though - it's still just about as easy to acquire a game illegally as it is legally... And as long as that's the case, lots of people will understandably take the "free alternative" of piracy. As games get harder to crack, and Steam (and other online distributors) gets more and more prevalent, piracy will likely go down...

As for the moral position of software companies.... YES, their intellectual property is being stolen by pirates... But they calculate that loss into their price structure (just like other companies incorporate theft into their's)... If we look at the industry as a whole, we see that profits have only RISEN in the past decade... So I don't think they have many reasons to complain....

Same goes for movies

 

[AndyP]

Since it's your ISP that's assigning your IP-address to you, what you said is a total nonsense. Looks like you don't know at all what are you talking about.

Yes your ISP knows your IP, but if they knew your IP they wouldn't have a problem. They must first know your IP, before they can trace anything back to your ISP and then to you. If you can break the link back to you/your ISP then there is practically no evidence to support prosecution, outside of your ISP monitoring your activities.

The point was not the exact technicalities law enforcement might use to trace the origin of the initial upload but the fact that that person has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.

As of technical details, as somebody else noted already, one needs a hack-proof proxy somewhere outside of the reach of FBI. What is highly problematic for why anybody would set up such server? Out of the goodness of the hart? To intentionally harm evil imperialist economy? Something else? The truth is, most of those so called free proxies exist solely because they were set up by morons who couldn't secure their machines--and that's how they became free proxies. There is TOR, of course, but would torrent work through it? I don't know. It probably could be used to upload the torrent file itself, but actual download will most likely go directly from the uploader's PC, so just check the first source connected and you got the perpetrator.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Any proof would be helpful. Especially for the last "yes," considering law enforcement just broke to a presumably unbreakable iPhone.

Breaking into an iPhone is completely different... no IP tracing or proxies were involved.... and that was an "obsolete" model - iPhone 5C.... all newer iPhones are not vulnerable to the nand shadowing exploit used...

As for proxy security, if you're using TOR, VPN, etc, we've seen time and time again that law enforcement has no way of tracing you... Check out www.blackhat.com if you'd like to read up on this a bit - obviously specific links would be highly improper to share in here...

And with software piracy, even if you DO get traced back to your real IP, unless you are living in the same country as the copyrighted material was made, you're highly unlikely to be prosecuted... The stuff you hear about in the press is generally someone who has thousands of illegal files on his/her PC and lives in a state that makes it easy for law enforcement to catch them. If you live outside the US, for example, the most you'll see will be an email forwarded to you by your ISP saying something along the lines of:

"It has been brought to our attention that the IP address associated with your account was downloading "movie X/Game X". This may not have been you, but someone using your internet connection. Your private information has not been released to this party..."

 

[Drew Valadez]

Sorry but trying to read why from someone who is under 30-years old as to why it's ok to pirate games is kind of an opinion I don't want to hear about. Get someone in their 40s-50s who has work pirated from them to explain what it is like to have their work or someone who uploads pirated work and I can take the opinion a little more seriously.

There is just something where lack of life experience where a under 30 something year old where the opinion is just not valid in my mind. As a 31 year old, I know that when I was 21 and having someone take credit for my work was "ok" but then as I got older, that really does wear on you see the wrong person being rewarded for something you achieved.

 

[soulsassassin]

There are a few good reasons *not* to pirate games these days, aside from supporting developers.

1. Steam and its amazing sales make buying most games very cheap, if you're willing to wait.

2. Humble Bundle offers insane deals on packages of games. Just go there now and look at the Telltale package, and what you can get for $12. I also just bought Mad Max (a $60 game) when I signed up for a month of Humble Monthly. On May 6, I'll get several more games in that bundle, and I paid $10.80 for all of it.

3. Modern games are much more heavily dependent on patches these days. Pirating games makes you dependent on 'some guy in his basement' for patches, which are sometimes critical to fixing a game. Steam will automatically patch your games with no input from you.

4. Multiplayer - if you're into this, getting a pirated game often means you're left out. Most cracked games don't have mp support.

For me, PC gaming is so cheap that it's not worth the hassle of piracy.

PC gaming is so cheap that it's not worth the hassle of piracy totally agree when you live in a developed country with 3000 dollars or more as a monthly salary , what about the rest of the world third world countries what will you do when you have a 200 dollars monthly salary are you willing to play half of your salary for a game ?

 

[Squid Surprise]

Sorry but trying to read why from someone who is under 30-years old as to why it's ok to pirate games is kind of an opinion I don't want to hear about. Get someone in their 40s-50s who has work pirated from them to explain what it is like to have their work or someone who uploads pirated work and I can take the opinion a little more seriously.

There is just something where lack of life experience where a under 30 something year old where the opinion is just not valid in my mind. As a 31 year old, I know that when I was 21 and having someone take credit for my work was "ok" but then as I got older, that really does wear on you see the wrong person being rewarded for something you achieved.

Are you kidding me? You're going to discriminate by age now? I'm 38, but I really don't think that people who are teenagers or in their early 20s are any more or less moral than "we" are.... Apparently, you've already forgotten what it was like to be "young"... Although you HAVE just validated the stereotype that all of us old fogeys just don't get it...

PC gaming is so cheap that it's not worth the hassle of piracy totally agree when you live in a developed country with 3000 dollars or more as a monthly salary , what about the rest of the world third world countries what will you do when you have a 200 dollars monthly salary are you willing to play half of your salary for a game ?

You might want to have your priorities straight.... if you're in a 3rd world country with very little money, perhaps PC gaming isn't high on your priority list?

And again, piracy ISN'T a hassle - that's why so many people do it... as it becomes harder to do, piracy will naturally decline....

 

[Ranger1st]

Since the gaming companies started lying and mis representing their product and retailers started to deny returns because the product was not as advertised or it would not work on your system or the other 100 reasons.. I've always Torrented first.. fallout 4 was a great example of a hyped out the *** game that was appalling to play, Bug laden and not at all how the paid off reviewers reported it to be.. Back in the 80's with the likes of wing commander and might and magic, you got exactly what you paid for and it was not often their was a bug. When their was a bug CGW or the like would have a nice CD with all sorts of fun crap on it, including patches.. since the late 90's it seems that games are completely void of any relevance to their advertising campaign. It's the doing of the industry as a whole, the lies and deceit to customers that makes most not buy , but try first.

 

[soulsassassin]

Are you kidding me? You're going to discriminate by age now? I'm 38, but I really don't think that people who are teenagers or in their early 20s are any more or less moral than "we" are.... Apparently, you've already forgotten what it was like to be "young"... Although you HAVE just validated the stereotype that all of us old fogeys just don't get it...


You might want to have your priorities straight.... if you're in a 3rd world country with very little money, perhaps PC gaming isn't high on your priority list?

And again, piracy ISN'T a hassle - that's why so many people do it... as it becomes harder to do, piracy will naturally decline....

switching between PC gaming and console gaming wont solve the problem you're still going to pay the full 60$ price for a game , so what do you suggest we put on our top priorities minecraft on mobiles ?
we are all PC enthusiasts and we do what we have to do in order to enjoy our favorite hobby , personally I download torrents because I cant afford to pay the full price if I could I would if you were in my place you will do the same thing

 

[Forebode]

Fixed that for you. It's not just the pirates morality that needs overhauling. A pirates morality will never be changed while the developers morality has a higher level of greed.

I do pirate movies. But for some reason I don't pirate games, eventually they are cheap enough to buy. And unlike movies there are so few that I actually like. I probably wouldn't pirate movies either if it wasn't for the concept of the fat cat taking the thin cats food. If I ever find out game developers get as rich as movie producers/actors, I might start pirating games as well.

First, you modified my quote. so it's not a quote.

I don't understand fighting greed with greed. They are greedy so I'm going to steal it. How about they are greedy, it makes them/company look bad, and I'm not going to support it. Essentially dead to me.

People can't make one argument that pirating is good for developers in getting their games out and popular and then fall back on that they do it to get back at how the devs are being greedy. These are children arguments. Why not just say 'because' when asked why. Why did you do this? -because. At that point the reasons don't matter.

 

[Forebode]

On the morality of software piracy.

I guess, runaway slaves didn't have any morals whatsoever--why, they were stealing themselves from their rightful owners! And unlike software piracy, in that case victims of the theft were most certainly harmed economically. In some more outrageous cases, when a lot of their talking property was stolen, they might be even totally ruined!

But forget about those small-time thieves, however morally repulsive their conduct might be. What about really evil criminals, like that awful Harriet Tubman? That's the one they want to put on a $20 bill, replacing a respected slave owner Andrew Jackson, who, by the way, suffered immensely from the crimes, perpetrated by her ilk. Un-frickin-believable!

Well, to the subject. Many of the commenters here seem to confuse morality with legality. Which are two very different things. Sometimes what is legal is immoral. And sometimes what is moral is illegal. That's really quite simple.

Now, let's indulge ourselves in a little experiment. (Remember 'Blade Runner?') One person can make another person happy--and it won't cost him/her a penny--but isn't doing so. Why? Well, actually it's even worse: that first person is doing everything possible to prevent the second person from becoming happy, just because he/she can. So why indeed? That's what I call immoral. And that's exactly what software publishers are doing to those who can't afford their software but still want to enjoy it.

Sure, software development must be financed SOMEHOW. But that doesn't negate the fact that our current intellectual property laws are highly immoral. After all, somebody had to work on plantations, right? And until we have immoral laws there will be those who break them on the moral grounds. Worse yet, there will be those who profit greatly by doing both illegal AND immoral things. Like developing and selling software to steal software. Or distributing infected software to steal something else.

So, you wanna stop piracy and all problems it causes? Great! But the only way to do it is to change our laws. For example, limiting copyright term to something reasonable and/or putting a cap on profits made. Don't forget, the concept of intellectual property was invented to incentivize its potential creators--so EVERYBODY could enjoy it--not to make some crooks filthy rich. (That's, as a matter of fact, one of the most immoral thing in the world, being filthy rich.)

1. No. software != people. You're not freeing the software. You are inadvertently comparing human life to objects/virtual objects, stop that. Not until there is true AI should this even be a comparison.

2. Yes software costs money, Devs could be using the money to fund past and future projects. Companies are out to make a profit, shocking I know. Wheres the article about people stealing phones that retail sell for $1k? It's not a conspiracy, they aren't out to "prevent" someone that can't afford something from getting it. Why not relate that logic to everything else. I hate Mercedes because I can't afford their cars, therefore they are preventing me on purpose just because they can. If we compared it to car manufacturing, games from companies that make good, longer lasting games should charge more. If we used supply and demand, games should be more expensive the more popular they are. Granted most of it is software, which supply and demand doesn't really work, unless you're looking at maintenance costs.

It's not immoral to sell something, that is not a necessity, for a price you don't agree with. They aren't selling insulin with a 700% markup. Stealing a game wont help your survival.

3. How cheap does a game for pirating to stop? Perhaps geforce NOW is on the right path to help if its purely about cost. Perhaps all games should be funded by something like kickstarter but offer cost reduction if enough backers join in. Example. if 100k people prepay for assassins creed 15, its $60, if 125k people prepay its $55. Based on if they need to keep servers, to harness the load of users, the price might not be as linear in how it drops.

4. Earning cap should be a norm to all companies and people. That would surely help lower prices of games and everything. It's an idea that many people support. Unfortunately the way the establishment works is that the people with the $$ tend to be heard more. Someone/company that makes 1 billion profit might say they donate and pay a lot of taxes, but if there was a cap, it would happen anyway.

 

[Forebode]

Breaking into an iPhone is completely different... no IP tracing or proxies were involved.... and that was an "obsolete" model - iPhone 5C.... all newer iPhones are not vulnerable to the nand shadowing exploit used...

As for proxy security, if you're using TOR, VPN, etc, we've seen time and time again that law enforcement has no way of tracing you... Check out www.blackhat.com if you'd like to read up on this a bit - obviously specific links would be highly improper to share in here...

And with software piracy, even if you DO get traced back to your real IP, unless you are living in the same country as the copyrighted material was made, you're highly unlikely to be prosecuted... The stuff you hear about in the press is generally someone who has thousands of illegal files on his/her PC and lives in a state that makes it easy for law enforcement to catch them. If you live outside the US, for example, the most you'll see will be an email forwarded to you by your ISP saying something along the lines of:

"It has been brought to our attention that the IP address associated with your account was downloading "movie X/Game X". This may not have been you, but someone using your internet connection. Your private information has not been released to this party..."

It's not perfect, users can be tracked at a cost. Due to the cost of time/money it's usage is primarily used in conjunction to finding related subjects related to terrorism/drugs/murder/etc. Agreeing with Squid Surprise, that this cost is instead factored into the price of the software. Tracking you down will collectively cost them more for little gain. They don't want to spend money to have a team that tracks 1 person down to give them a bill of $60 and alert the authorities, it's just not realistic. They would go bankrupt before they found everyone.

The quickest way to find someone is the more improbable way. You have to infect the persons system that does the download, and monitor their activity.

The internet needs an overhaul/upgrade if they want to track people easily. Big Brother would love for it to occur, and it could technically occur in a limited sense, secretly if it could be more automated (ai), but we are a long way off. Routers/switches/packets etc needs to be more powerful/complex. For such an overhaul, everyone would know the second it was approved/authorized, due to networking people that would have to set it up, manufacturers to make the gear, the public for upgrading their hardware..

 

[SirGCal]

I'm so sick of the BS reasons for piracy. It's not good for anyone and it is stealing, period. If you can't afford the game, wait like the rest of us a few weeks/months (tops) to get the game 80% off through a steam/bundle sale.

I have a large collection of digital movies and TV shows, all of which I own. I also have over 600 games in my steam account, none of which I paid more then a few bucks for. Being impatient and getting new games to 'experience' cause you can't afford it is NOT acceptable behavior. Nor is pirating a movie you don't own.

Now a Torrent in itself is not bad. It is what is contained within the torrent that (tends to be) bad. But I have downloaded more then a few totally legit torrents for various items.

 

[Ziffel]

And again, piracy ISN'T a hassle - that's why so many people do it... as it becomes harder to do, piracy will naturally decline....

Just wanted to clarify this - when I earlier called piracy a hassle, I was mostly referring to having to deal with updates, patches, dlc, etc. (I thought I was clear about that in my initial post).

Most if not all games these days are released in a shoddy, unfinished state and need to be patched up. Especially true of most AAA games. With Steam, Origin, etc, you get patches automatically added to your game, with zero hassle or input from you. When pirating it, you are dependent on some 20 year old kid in his mom's basement to serve you not only the patch, but the cracks for it too. You must seek them out, hope they are issued for the game you want to update, and then apply them and re-crack them. Kind of a hassle when you can just pay $5 or $10 for a game and have it all automated. So when I say "games are so cheap, piracy isn't worth the hassle, that's what I mean. Also, cracking games isn't always easy or perfect, they sometimes break things. Lastly, pirated games have the added hassle of NO multiplayer (for most).

For the person who defends piracy because you make $200/mo in a 3rd world country -- many download services offer greatly reduced prices in those regions, and also if you're barely making enough to eat or clothe yourself, how can you afford a gaming PC, internet, etc?

 

[Drew Valadez]

Are you kidding me? You're going to discriminate by age now? I'm 38, but I really don't think that people who are teenagers or in their early 20s are any more or less moral than "we" are....

I am discriminating by experience. One's working habbits and view of work is hugely different once they start working towards their careers.

Apparently, you've already forgotten what it was like to be "young"... Although you HAVE just validated the stereotype that all of us old fogeys just don't get it...

What is it then? They think "young" so I can't judge them for their "young" thinking?

 

[soulsassassin]

Just wanted to clarify this - when I earlier called piracy a hassle, I was mostly referring to having to deal with updates, patches, dlc, etc. (I thought I was clear about that in my initial post).

Most if not all games these days are released in a shoddy, unfinished state and need to be patched up. Especially true of most AAA games. With Steam, Origin, etc, you get patches automatically added to your game, with zero hassle or input from you. When pirating it, you are dependent on some 20 year old kid in his mom's basement to serve you not only the patch, but the cracks for it too. You must seek them out, hope they are issued for the game you want to update, and then apply them and re-crack them. Kind of a hassle when you can just pay $5 or $10 for a game and have it all automated. So when I say "games are so cheap, piracy isn't worth the hassle, that's what I mean. Also, cracking games isn't always easy or perfect, they sometimes break things. Lastly, pirated games have the added hassle of NO multiplayer (for most).

For the person who defends piracy because you make $200/mo in a 3rd world country -- many download services offer greatly reduced prices in those regions, and also if you're barely making enough to eat or clothe yourself, how can you afford a gaming PC, internet, etc?

food , clothes , internet is not a big problem because you're bonded by the local economy and living standards of the region so your salary is equal to that ,on the other hand a 60$ game is not justifiable gaming should be affordable to all people from around the world not a luxury of life ,that's when the torrents comes in

 

[DAOWAce]

“People who are pirating a game .. want to demo it.”

Pretty much me the last few years. It's been absolutely invaluable to not wasting my money. Game demos just up and disappeared and there's been no real way to test games before purchasing anymore.

For example: XCOM2 recently came out and it's plagued with an SLI issue which renders it unplayable for me. I refuse to buy it until it's fixed, even though I fully expect to enjoy the game as I did the first.

While Steam refunds are nice, they're limited to either 14 days or 2 hours, whichever comes first. 2 hours is hardly long enough to sit down and playtest something, and 14 days isn't long enough to wait for patches. It's futile to buy, refund and buy again over and over, and potentially abusive anyway. I'd rather keep the pirated version installed, wait for patches, and if the issue(s) finally get fixed, patch it and test. If it's good, I go buy the game.

While I dislike DRM, that doesn't actually stop me from buying a game (though ironically I've never been interested in any of the games Denuvo protects). I actually prefer if a game has Steamworks, since it's so beneficial to the consumer. My GOG library is a small fraction of my Steam library.

But hey, people will hate piracy regardless of what it's being used for, and companies will continue to hurt consumers with always online content (aka server issues, especially on launch), rampant DLC and intrusive DRM. I don't really see anything changing.

 

[hahahanoobs]

cdkeys.com
You're welcome.

 

[Squid Surprise]

I am discriminating by experience. One's working habbits and view of work is hugely different once they start working towards their careers.



What is it then? They think "young" so I can't judge them for their "young" thinking?

switching between PC gaming and console gaming wont solve the problem you're still going to pay the full 60$ price for a game , so what do you suggest we put on our top priorities minecraft on mobiles ?
we are all PC enthusiasts and we do what we have to do in order to enjoy our favorite hobby , personally I download torrents because I cant afford to pay the full price if I could I would if you were in my place you will do the same thing

I didn't say switch from PC gaming to console gaming.... I said if you're in a 3rd world country, perhaps PC gaming shouldn't be a priority - food and water come to mind as a bit more useful....

 

[Squid Surprise]

I am discriminating by experience. One's working habbits and view of work is hugely different once they start working towards their careers.



What is it then? They think "young" so I can't judge them for their "young" thinking?

Discriminating by experience is still discriminating.... everyone started with NONE at some point - not all of them were "immoral thieves"...
I think you might want to check the real world out and get to know some of these young folks you think are all jerks...

 

[Drew Valadez]

Discriminating by experience is still discriminating.... everyone started with NONE at some point - not all of them were "immoral thieves"...
I think you might want to check the real world out and get to know some of these young folks you think are all jerks...

I don't think they are jerks, I just think they are naive. They haven't made work yet that they considered hard work and valuable which is getting ripped from under them and given to the public while they sit looking at the price tag wondering why so few are buying yet so many own.

I am a hobbyist photographer and I know damn well how I feel when I see my stuff getting taken and then printed and touted as someone else's or just flat out taken with little to not credit at all. I am merely basing my opinion based off of my own experiences. Does it financially hurt a pro photographer to have their work taken and printed without pay? Yes. It is what keeps a photographer in business to creating more work.

Torrents are not creation of the uploaders to give for free to whoever they wish, I don't see why you can't relate the two together. Both are stealing no matter which way you look at it.