the end of piracy ?

[cpc4eva]

Ballarat computer scientists create weapon against internet pirates

   
• Mitchell Toy

   
• From:Sunday Herald Sun

   
• January 30, 2011 12:00AM

THE international movie industry has a new weapon against internet pirates - a program written by two Ballarat computer scientists.PhD student Robert Layton and researcher Prof Paul Watters, of Ballarat University's Internet Commerce Security Laboratory (ICSL), wrote a program that can track illegal downloads through torrent websites.
The program maps the extent of criminal activity and copyright infringement online.
It uses a tagging technique to track files through networks commonly used by movie and music pirates to transfer large files in fragments from multiple users simultaneously.
The project attracted attention from movie giant Village Roadshow, who offered funding to help curb internet copyright infringement.
"We are able to get an idea of what people are downloading through torrent sites, by scraping data from (the sites) about downloads and search terms," Prof Watters said.

"We have found that while many people download copyright infringing material, only about 100 people in the world upload most of the content."
The ICSL works with the Australian Federal Police to stop online sharing of child pornography and other illegal content.
The lab has found the Christopher Nolan-directed sci-fi hit Inception to be the current favourite for movie pirates, followed by Iron Man 2 and Salt.
"We are able to compile a list of common downloads and common search terms through the torrent sites," Mr Layton said.
The research showed movies made up 40 per cent of illegal downloads, followed by TV shows at 30 per cent. Music makes up 17 per cent of downloads, ahead of pornography at 12 per cent.
Mr Layton, who wrote his first commercial computer program at 19, said the project would expose the world of web piracy, previously uncharted by authorities.

[mr_lou]

So far, all attempts to make life more difficult for pirates, has always only resulted in making life more difficult for everyone else, no matter what area we're talking about.

I buy all my movies and series, and because of that I'm often forced to watch the annoying "Stop piracy" ads / warnings. Sometimes it's possible to skip them, but not always. And even if it's possible to skip them, it's simply annoying that they're there. I really don't feel I deserve being forced to watch that shit when I payed for the product.
Meanwhile, pirates see no such annoying ad / warning.

Software gets annoying license-keys the legal user has to enter, while the pirates just install and run without problems.

And I'm a J2ME developer, a platform that shares insanely annoying security restrictions with Symbian to prevent scammers and virus-creators from making life miserable for the users, but it ended up making life miserable for the developers instead - and that is slowly but surely killing both platforms now.

I think everyone should just stop trying to prevent it, and instead use the money and time on tracking who's doing it and then just deny them internet. Simple solution that works. That'll kill of piracy within a year.
No more than a simple text-warning, like in the good old days, is needed. "If you pirate this movie, you'll be suspended from the internet".

[AMSDOS]

It never ends, merely another campaign stating the obvious. People don't like to hear about common sense and people who do these things know their breaking the law and they continue to do it because they know there's a good chance they might get away with it.

Stating the obvious is what these no-do-gooders want, because it escalates the situation and encourages others to do the same! Campaigns of the sort don't really work, and they seem to bring it out more into the open.

Take people who do practical jokes in public, TV has demonstrated how doing practical jokes in public and injuring others in the public, can encourage others to follow. Road safety is another, they still insist on ramming Road Safety down our throats and yet there are more Hoons, smashing up people's homes and people doing stupid things on the road more than ever. It simply escalates the problem.

Though with the amount of junk we take with us these days when compared to the 80s is just got to be a limit to it.

[sigh]

I can see this being worked around within 2 seconds. Hackers just love these sort of challenges.

[awergh]

I think I'd take that article with a bit of a grain of salt since it seems to be the same people involved in the study that is reported on here
http://torrentfreak.com/incompetent-bittorrent-researchers-strike-again-101211/

At least it sounds like they don't think these are the most popular movies on bittorrent anymore:
Wanted (2008)
Hancock (2008)
Juno (2007)
Step Brothers (2008)
Gladiator (2000)
Toy Story (1995)

[Gryzor]

Everyone who follows blog on security/privacy has read several of these fantastic announcements; they never stand up to critique.

Oh, btw, I just love how they always lump together child pornography with pirated movies

[ukmarkh]

For as long as the media is digital i.e. '1's and '0's they'll never be able to stop piracy. I work in an environment where data protection and encryption is taken very seriously, but if someone was determined... they could find a way.

Security of any kind of data is largely based on trust.

[EgoTrip]

This is ridiculous. The fact that these companies can afford to employ people to develop this system stinks. This is about them maximising their profits. Look at the current profits of these big corporations who are crying like babies about piracy, when they overprice everything they sell, have overpaid prima donnas on their books, etc. Its all about greed and if they didnt rip us all off and made their end product affordable, people would be more willing to pay.


The only people who suffer from piracy are independant companies who rely on sales to put food on the table. I can bet that this system would be offered to them at a price that doesnt offset their losses from piracy, if at all.

[Gryzor]

It's stupid because Torrents have already been anonymized. Good luck placing a "tag" (WTF???) on them so that you compile their traffic - just impossible.

It's a pity, because I watch a few TV series and I'd be actually willing to pay a small fee for them. But, can I? Of course not.

[Executioner]

If the TV stations didn't switch times and even days when they screen shows, I wouldn't keep missing episodes and have to download them. A few have web-based sites where you can watch episodes you miss, but never for more than a couple of weeks... perhaps I need one of those PVRs which tracks the show name on the EPG (if that was ever correct it'd help too).

Never had enough bandwidth to bother downloading a full movie, and up until recently they cost less to rent from the DVD shop than the cost to download them, if you had the patience to wait for the torrent.

[Gryzor]

I have a rather medium 16Mb/s download speed. Haven't visited a video store in years now (ever since I had a crappy 4Mb line). The phone bill is a sunk cost, so it doesn't cost a dime downloading a movie...

Still, I'd pay for some of them - if they'd only let me