Living In The Dark: How BitTorrent Admins Hide From MPAA/RIAA

 By 
Stan Schroeder
 on 

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One of my absolutely favorite fresh blogs on the internet is TorrentFreak. These folks write about issues such as piracy, legality of torrents and freedom of communication on the internet with consistence and authority, and I read them religiously.

Their latest article is a very interesting insight into the daily online activities of an admin of a BitTorrent tracker; the article goes through all the security measures this person has to take to avoid being harassed/caught (whichever is your preference) by the RIAA/MPAA/IFPI and similar organizations.

These security measures involve concealing one's identity, connecting through a secure VPN over a local open wireless network, having someone unrelated register all your domains, paying with disposable credit cards, hosting in an "exotic" country, and the like. Here's a particularly revealing paragraph:

"I never let anyone know anything important about me, no matter how small. Small clues can easily add up to answers when put together like a jigsaw. Let people think they know your real name if you like, it’s functional and no-one really gets hurt. For the survival of the site I believe it’s acceptable for me to lie about my country of origin, my age, marital status and even my sex, but beware, pretending to be a girl will get you LOTS of attention! Look after the small things and everything else looks after itself."

As a side remark, from a technical standpoint, I can find certain holes in this person's security measures. I guess it goes to show that you can never get paranoid enough (;.

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