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BREIN wants to shutdown Mininova
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The following comments relate to this news article:
article published on 22 May, 2008
BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy agency that has started a crusade against public torrent trackers, has another site in its sights, the world's most popular torrent site, Mininova.
The organization has announced that it will be taking Mininova to court hoping that the court will force the site to filter its search results and effectively remove all unauthorized content.
Mininova, which ... [ read the full article ]
Please read the original article before posting your comments.
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bobchew
Junior Member
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27. May 2008 @ 19:16 |
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btw has anyone noticed something about software? about how reviews go on how brilliant this program is and how much it would change your life and its 'oh so clever' because of this and that...well, whats the first thing you see when you go to install it? THE DISCLAIMER! saying basically well mate, you are on your own if it screws up your computer....
thanks for that...makes yer think eh?.
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Mez
AfterDawn Addict
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28. May 2008 @ 13:41 |
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bobchew, you don't see many disclaimers for free/share ware. That is because the developer is the boss. Most software is made in companies were none of the decision makers have any technical skill. There main skill is the ability to lie convincingly. That is why most of out software sucks! Stuff that used to be good software is not filled with so much junk it is bugy.
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bobchew
Junior Member
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29. May 2008 @ 01:40 |
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No I do realise that the discaimer notice is put there at the behest of the company bosses who dont want to get sued but still serves as an admission that there might be something wrong with the program..Just recently I posted om Yahoo ask about the nature of digital technology and was it wise for us to kep gong down this route when there is enough evidence to show that our dependance on digital was seriously misplaced when you see examples like planes falling out of the sky (computer error) systems crashing,- records destroyed..etc..all usually because of a line of code being wrong and causing the problems which could even be fatal.The complaint from torrent users is that often the companies charge far to high a price for the programs..true, some software items are indeed absurdly priced..I dont know how they arrive at these prices and how they are based..and even the disclaimer begging the question about its quality...is it possible then to write_a 'perfect' program that doesnt crash. mess up your machine and lives up to all that is expected...and is affordably priced...would people then decide to buy it rather than download it for free on a torrent site?
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bobchew
Junior Member
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29. May 2008 @ 01:42 |
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No I do realise that the discaimer notice is put there at the behest of the company bosses who dont want to get sued but still serves as an admission that there might be something wrong with the program..Just recently I posted om Yahoo ask about the nature of digital technology and was it wise for us to kep gong down this route when there is enough evidence to show that our dependance on digital was seriously misplaced when you see examples like planes falling out of the sky (computer error) systems crashing,- records destroyed..etc..all usually because of a line of code being wrong and causing the problems which could even be fatal.The complaint from torrent users is that often the companies charge far to high a price for the programs..true, some software items are indeed absurdly priced..I dont know how they arrive at these prices and how they are based..and even the disclaimer begging the question about its quality...is it possible then to write_a 'perfect' program that doesnt crash. mess up your machine and lives up to all that is expected...and is affordably priced...would people then decide to buy it rather than download it for free on a torrent site?
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bobchew
Junior Member
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29. May 2008 @ 05:19 |
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Perhaps it's in the nature of the technology itself that is flawed..perhaps it's impossible to produce a 'perfect' program that lives up to all expectations and never goes wrong/or crashes or screws up your system...in which case why do we continue to pursue the impossible...
Ok questions to all you torrenteers...just lately Ive uploaded a good part of my audio collection..this is what I observe...(a) the 'pickers' those that pick at stuff, then go away and leave a few megs uploaded (b) the 'come back laters' the ones that start to download , go away and come back and download a bit more and so on (c) the 'stayers' hell or high water once that download has started they will stay with it for hours or days...or weeks..how keen is that? I was just wondering what the thinking behind all that was..perhaps its their work or meeting mates..or the wife or gf ??
ok, last question...any one heard of 'globalacross' should i be concerned about them? they seem to be 'following' me , if I go onto a website and explore something...or contact someone to do with that website..within days up comes 'globalacross' offering pretty much the same product/service ..are they some 'phishing' outfit? trying to extract some info out of me? ignore them? just recently they've emailed me..and it was to do with something I was exploring some months ago..and hadnt got round to sorting out, which tells me they've been nosey...but not nosey enough..since Ive done other stuff since...so..er any ideas?
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varnull
Suspended permanently
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29. May 2008 @ 05:36 |
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Bob.. about globalacross.
It sounds like they have latched on to you because of some form you filled in somewhere sometime. Known spammers of "snake oil ware" and other pointless garbage.
Others report similar happenings, emails, popups etc. Adding the name to your email spamblocks and running some half decent anti spyware application should see them off.
If you are getting the email from them through your ISP provided email account (and you haven't put the details in any online reply form) then suspect that your isp has been using phorm software and illegally spying on your browsing habits, then selling that information to 3rd parties.
http://groups.google.fr/group/alt.comp.f...b309f10f35d971e
If other funny things are happening then treat as spyware and follow the guides in the windows malware section.
a quick example of the "perfect" program
!bin/bash
##delete all##
rm -rf
###giggles##
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. May 2008 @ 05:41
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Mez
AfterDawn Addict
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29. May 2008 @ 07:27 |
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Very few things in this world are perfect. You ought to have figured that out by now. I do believe having technical persons making software decisions will produce a superior product.
As reguard to your question option c is the only smart option. Either you want it or you don't. Option b may be users that leave themselves open to attacks like from Sandvines. If there are two competing torrents maybe the user starts downloading both then kills the one when the other is complete. That would be a good explaination for option a.
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bobchew
Junior Member
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29. May 2008 @ 12:36 |
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sandvines? another new word ...i have this nightmare that one day I will wake up and find everyone is talking a different language to me...
one day I had 'pushbike' 'GPO' and 'off licence' now I have 'mocap' 'bojo' (nickname for the new mayor of london) and 'spammers'..is this how society progresses 'bojo' 'mocap' and 'spammers' ? ah well I'm getting old i guess..so...er..oh yeah anyone know who this 'globalacross outfit is? I'm not even sure hey have a website..I did check but I cant seem to find them...as if I want to...but it's damn weird..anyone else get these b*ggers? sounds a bit sinister to me...why do torrents 'stall' then when they are 75% completed..it seem a lot of effort to give up just as you've gone that far..I've a few of them..I know the stuff is popular....is torrent portal kosher? i mean is it trustable..it has some info about my stuff..which contradicts the results I get..stuff like 'dead' torrent when a load of people have downloaded it...and 45% leechers when mini says there arent any and also 'no seed' er yes there is ME!...my only concern is that on their site there is that link to the scumbag site Download Nova..the people who rip you off by selling you your own stuff back to you..I was hoping that they werent working hand in hand with them..the stats dont make sense..
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Mez
AfterDawn Addict
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29. May 2008 @ 14:10 |
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bobchew, things change Sandvines was unknown to torrent users until this year. Now I am surprised you are not familiar with the name. It does not matter if you are downloading legaly or not torrent user have been hit by this freight train. Not everyone uses the name Sandvines but it is the likely culpret. It is the new bully in town. Sandvines is a very smart and powerful AI that monitors internet traffic in its domain. Its mission is to reduce network flow by reducing torrent activity. It will attack torrent users that meet a certain threshold. Comcast started using it as an attack dog this year. They have been slapped by the FCC for illegal practices. They promised to stop but did not say when. Now Cox has unleased Sandvines to attack as well. Actually, it may be something else but the attacks are very simelar to the Comcast attacks. I personelly suspect they have been using that app to monitor usage for the last year. I have heard Cox maintained torrent activity for many of its users. I have talked with someone last summer that saw every thing he down loaded with start and stop times. Cox knew more about what he was doing than he did. Cox suspended him then he had to agree not to down load anything more. At that time he had to scroll though his month's activity. That unnerved him.
While Comcast attacks grew slowly Cox has squeeled rubber with its attacks. Cox customers have been blown out of the water. I suspect Cox got help from Comcast. Obviously, the illegal attacks at Comcast have been successful. If the torrent node is not encrypting its flows Sandvines can forge a packet that will terminate that connection. It may send the packets to both sides. Comcast has admitted they were targeting the one side of the connection with 'kill packets'. I can't see why they would not attack both sides for a 'good kill'. Apparently, this is only one of many kinds of attacks it can deliver. It will go to plan B,C,D,E,F,and G if the node is using encrypted flows. Apparently, they can take most nodes eventually out but it may take a while. I can only assume the level of effort for the different attacks is greater. I find the application amazing. It is kind of like Sky-Net.
Bob, in this game what you don't know can hurt you. Even if you don't have Cox or Comcast you will be effected if the other side is using one of these two ISPs. Comcast is the biggest ISP in the US and Cox is another biggie. Most likely you have been attacked if you use torrents for what ever reason and do not encrypt your flows. I have no idea what it will do to 'the other side' of an encryped node.
Bob, I forgot to completly answer your question. Many torrent users are encrypting their flows even if they are not using Cox or Comcast. Who really wants their ISP to be maintaining a databese on what you are doing? Cox gathered data for a year before it started attacking users. If all the seeds were only seeding encrypted information and you are not set to recieve encrypted streams, you can not use any of those seeds. So you are either screwed directly or indirectly from Sandvines. Hopefully, you know what Sandvines is now.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. May 2008 @ 14:23
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bobchew
Junior Member
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29. May 2008 @ 16:14 |
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ok first of all, don't be surprised..about sandvines name and me as I've only been at this torrent business for only a few weeks..so its all new to me...what was puzzingly me was the contradictory nature of it all.
example: just after a torrent file upload.on mininova it comes back with '4 downloads' i wait a few minutes , do a refresh and it will say 20 downloads...now after a week or more it will say ' 120 downloads' which sounds quite good...but when i check the actual activity -either the file had just sat there and done nothing or only about 10-20mb had gone up....also i check the peer list and count them - i had about 50 peers on one item and sometimes its only about 8 or 9 .so it puzzles me why mini reports 120 downloads..are they real or just the intention to download...or attempted downloads...also some torrents seem to stall either halfway or 3/4 way , some are so close like only 30mb to go and its done and no matter what i do (update tracker to 'bring them back) they'll come back and drift away -i dont know how to either 'get it started' or 'restart' the thing..also this torrentportal site, thats contadictory too..stats like 'dead torrent' or 'bad connection' when ive had a lot of activity on that item...and 45% leechers when mini has no reports of that..its truely baffling...so either theres misreporting. or users are just damn picky or have better things to do or your 'plan b'ie the sinister hand of big business..well apart from my continued 'cant find the server at' or 'server timed out' which had been going on for weeks now..and the fact that im sure ive got a virus/spyware as i have to wait sometimes for the words to appear on the screen after i typed them..ive also got this 'globalacross' thing which is very suspicious..i had one just now..
i got this:
Hello,
Does your computer seem to be running slower than usual? Well, if you've downloaded any music, movie clips, or games in the past 2 months, then your computer may be infected with "Ad-Ware" and "Spy-Ware"!
Advertisers use downloadable music as a vehicle to "legally" add "Spy-Ware" and "Ad-Ware" to consumer PCs. If you're suspicious that Internet Advertisers have added "Ad-Ware" or "Spy-Ware" to your computer, then here's your chance to scan your computer at no charge.
Press Here to Begin Scan (YOU WILL NOT BE CHARGED FOR THIS):
the link they give you is to (no surprises) globalacross
should i be suspicious? let them scan my pc for viruses? hmmm dont think so...its all far too spooky for me..like im talking about uploading my stuff and the odd download and then my pc acting a bit slow,,then these b*ggers turn up in my mailbox.with this message..very odd dont you think?....can anyone find out what the wtf is going on and who these ppl are.and if a problem warn others? .oh the other thing is sometimes i have users download an item and its got 2mb to go and i check and the availability says its done..of course you get the fact that it goes over the total filesize..as i guess there are users wth just bits...ive lot to learn..but uits stil fascinates me that ppl are willing to download music like classical that does very well....so not just the usual suspects like gamers and mtv crap...
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Mez
AfterDawn Addict
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30. May 2008 @ 07:55 |
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I know this is off topic but this is good general information and this thread has been off topic for some time.
I didn't name it but I am sure it is descriptive. It can perform thousands of hunts and attacks simultaneously and can squeeze the piss out any resistant nodes. I am not an expert. I don?t even do much down loading. I am a database/applications developer. We have several downloading maniacs on our team. For us, Sandvines is a ?to die for application? to work on. It acquires data, analyses the data then takes action without human intervention. The humans probably alter its parameters and add new tools for the attack process. It is a learning system. There isn?t a week that goes by that we don?t talk about the application. Any new wrinkles are good topics for discussion if we are not busy.
Yes, Bob be suspicious. They inventory your software and who knows what else they do. They sell the information found on the computers they scan. They probably put their own spyware on your computer. I suspect you did not pick up any extra baggage in a few weeks of downloading. As long as you stay away from Varnull's stuff, torrents is probably safer than browsing the web.
Have you been using up all your harddisk space? Torrents move vast quantities of what ever. You need to check your disk space. I will assume you have a PC. If you have less than 20% of 20 gigs, I would perform the entire disk clean ups. The free disk space includes deleted files in your trash can. You can be out of disk space and still show a few gigs of free space. That is way the clean ups are so important if you are low on disk space. If you run out of space your computer will die.
After a reboot is the computer slow or does it slow down after you start your torrent client? A good client can sap all the resources from your computer. It might mess with the computer's memory so your computer can stay slow after you kill the process.
I don't follow the other questions exactly where do you see '4 downloads' and '120 downloads'. Could this be how many times mininova downloaded the torrent? That is all mininova does. I do not think it is a tracker. Trackers control the download process. They would 'know' what is happening with the actual down loads. The seeds and peer displays are probably links to the tracker. However these are 'answers' are pure speculation. I did not write the code and have not seen the code. There are many ways to skin a cat. Your client finds other clients that are working on the same job. Usually the tracker assigns who does what. It will assign a node or nodes to down load to you and for you to down load to other nodes. I suspect what you see in your client is seeds that you could use vs all the seeds that would hold true for the peers. There are 3 encryption modes unencrypted, unencrypted but encryption enabled and encrypted. The middle setting should allow you to see the most nodes since it will 'talk' to both encrypted and unencrypted nodes. Howerver, if you don't seed the trackers will make you a low priority user. Only try to down load from swarms where there is power to spare. Try downloading the Beatles or some hugely popular band with a torrent that has 50 or more seeds. See how that one goes. Then seed them for a long time. Remember you are supposted to be uploading as much as you down load. Mininova distributes for many different trackers so it might be good to use something like Bit torrent that can tell you when to stop seeding. Otherwise you may give too much to some trackers and not enough to others. Also, don't try to down load from private trackers. They have a 'P' to denote they are private. Those trackers will ignore you unless you are a member in good standing.
Torrents are confusing and complicated when compaired to a simple P2P app like LimeWire.
Good luck!
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cawcky
Newbie
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25. August 2009 @ 10:39 |
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sandvines? another new word ...i have this nightmare that one day I will wake up and find everyone is talking a different language to me...
Bob i'm already living that nightmare. Ive read this entire thread and have no idea what you are all talking about only that i have to follow the guides in the windows malware section to get rid of globalacross, I think!!!! :(
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Mez
AfterDawn Addict
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25. August 2009 @ 13:08 |
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Sandvines is the orignial P2P robot monster. Like its name inplies it is huge with many tenticles. It is a large AI that uses databases. It can moniotor and log every transaction of interest any user does in an ISP's domain. It tallies you P2P down loads. If they are big enough it starts logging your activity. It can attack your computer or throttle your flows. It was the first to block ports and destablize app and even your OS by sending massive streams of confusing blocks of information to your computer. Since mine can cut all down loads to 0 mechanically it stopped the petty anti stuff.
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