Watch out! Direct Connect is not safe from agents!

[Jelsoft]

Be careful which hub you connect to because one of those users on the hub might be an agent.

I suggest you read this post (http://www.holymonkey.com/emuworld/ewmb/viewtopic.php?t=28113). A hub user got nailed by the ESA.



I got a certain letter in the mail today. It contained, among others, the following pages:

Intro (http://members.lycos.co.uk/xorion/intro.GIF)
Page 1 (http://members.lycos.co.uk/xorion/pg1.GIF)
Page 2 (http://members.lycos.co.uk/xorion/pg2.GIF)
Page 3 (http://members.lycos.co.uk/xorion/pg3.GIF)
Page 4 (http://members.lycos.co.uk/xorion/pg4.GIF)
Page 5 (http://members.lycos.co.uk/xorion/pg5.GIF)


So obviously, the ESA has fucked me over. I went back and checked my DC logs, and can confirm that the sneak was on swedenxp.mine.nu and never downloaded a single file or even a sharelist of mine. He must have gotten all the shit from simple search results.

Notice the cited files: N64 roms, with one PSX game. No mention of movies, music, or PC games, which comprise the vast majority of my share. But anyway, I probably won't be on DC for a while, if ever- sorry for all downloading at the time. My mother (who, naturally, flipped out) is ready to execute me if she ever finds my computer on overnight again.

My advice:

1. STAY AWAY FROM THE GIANT HUBS. YOU DONT KNOW WHO THE HELL IS OUT THERE.

2. EVEN ON THE SMALL HUBS, MAKE SURE THEY HAVE A DAMN GOOD ANTI-ANTI-PIRACY BOT.

3. WATCH YOUR FUCKING BACKS.


So what do you all think?

[Wolfie]

He did not specify but I assume he was in a public hub.

[Explicit]

The riaa is after direct connect too?:(

[Winphuk]

Originally posted by Explicit
The riaa is after direct connect too?:(

No, this is a different entity. Software companies have been trolling everywhere.
The difference is that they mostly send cease and desist letters to ISPs rather than fish for your name, and take you straight to court like the RIAA is doing.

[Winphuk]

I'm on Optimum online which is kind of scary.
I read the letter, and I'm glad that they are courteous, and suprisingly no RIAA busts yet *knocking on wood*.
They are in debt and they desperatley need their customers, so they can't afford to be assholes like, Time Warner, or Comcast.

[eivioolla]

DC doesn't support hashing so without downloading the file, all they have is a file name , i.e. absolutely nothing...

Luckily our university hub is blocked from outsiders with several firewalls. :)

[shawners]

i have a problem with trading video games. I see how long it takes to devolope and the mass of money that goes into production, and engineers. So i wont trade video games, or have to wrry too much about the ESA.
So in mean time mp3s are forever=)

[Malicious Intent]

Great time for everyone to get paranoid - just as I apply for entry to the zeropaid hub...

[Evil_Dweller_01]

Heh..I just stick to the zeropaid hub

If we have a nice population with a lot of files shared we can trade all we want...safely

[method]

I thought BayTSP were hitting DC a while back already?!

[Winphuk]

Originally posted by Malicious Intent
Great time for everyone to get paranoid - just as I apply for entry to the zeropaid hub...
This was a public hub, not a private one.

[jonnymnemonic]

Even private DC hubs aren't totally safe. I mean, what kind of vetting procedure do they use: a thorough background investigation of each person? Do they visit your home? Do they go through all the effort the government does when issuing a top secret security clearance? (That costs around a hundred grand per person - I used to have a top secret clearance in the army.) And even THAT isn't secure as anyone can be compromised with enough incentive.

Just depends on how paranoid you are, and how you balance the risk versus the reward, whether you feel safe in any particular situation. But you cannot ever be TOTALLY safe. Even your best friend or your own mother might be compromizeable with enough incentive. (As you can see, I'm damn paranoid. Lol)

[Kyle06]

Originally posted by Winphuk
This was a public hub, not a private one.

NO wronge

the hub is private.....

[Malicious Intent]

I know that zeropaid is a private hub, but cpugenious may be concerned that i'm an agent after this report. And I didn't say that seriously.

[Wolfie]

Originally posted by jonnymnemonic
Even private DC hubs aren't totally safe. I mean, what kind of vetting procedure do they use: a thorough background investigation of each person? Do they visit your home? Do they go through all the effort the government does when issuing a top secret security clearance? (That costs around a hundred grand per person - I used to have a top secret clearance in the army.) And even THAT isn't secure as anyone can be compromised with enough incentive.

Just depends on how paranoid you are, and how you balance the risk versus the reward, whether you feel safe in any particular situation. But you cannot ever be TOTALLY safe. Even your best friend or your own mother might be compromizeable with enough incentive. (As you can see, I'm damn paranoid. Lol)

If you go by that logic (which is to some extent true) waste and private news networks are not also completely safe. The way I look at it, nothing is 100% safe and anonymous on the internet (I know "some" ppl will jump throat about how completly safe thier application is but so be it, lol). To be completely safe you have disconnect your p2p software and go to the store. Otherwise just stick ones that there is less likely chances of getting caught and take your chances. If your are using p2p there always some element of risk, which differs according to what you are using.


NO wronge

the hub is private

Kyle, I thing winphuk meant the hub that the guy who caught by the ESA was public not the zp hub.

[rctempire]

Well i love dc++ and who cares if the RIAA bust my ass due to i use private hubs he he

Well i see the fair discussion but this person was never caught on a Private hub at all probibly a public

[Afn]

Originally posted by shawners
1) i have a problem with trading video games.
2) So in mean time mp3s are forever=)

1) Videogames suck these days, with rare exception, squaresoft for example and EA, most people only own a few games, and unless you have been living under a rock the last 6 years, emulation has made available thousands of games that were all commerically developed and then packaged individually to maximize profit.

2) Just as doom spawned more clones than profit can be made from the games, so does the music industry. Difference music ownweship is tighly controled, where as the game industry is owned by many players, but as we are now seeing very very few profitable players.

Again, with all of the games out there, who has time to play or listen to this stuff. And NEW competes with last year, 2 yearss ago product.

Say goodnite, entertainment business!

[shad_dow]

right , 1) anybody here got real proof of anybody being sued on DC ( cos i aint and ive been around Fileshareing since my days on IRC)

2) since they can not under no cirumtances download or share files them selfs (media force , riaa etc cos they would have to pay the copyright owners to much LOL when its copyright owners paying them lol) then theyhave to use mos+ type tools , if there any in the hubs with a share then there breaking the own bloddy laws and there using fake clients LOL which means the ops in the hubs aint doing there jobs LOL.

3) since they have to use a extrenal search , its easy to change ur files names ...

4) DirectConnect is not centralized like kazza and other Napster service Clones

cos the only shit going via the hub is chat, and file lists , all files are from client 2 client , thats why if u dont tick Disconnect user if they leave the hub in DC++ , any user getting a file from u still can even if therenot in the hub anymore = client 2 client not client 2 hub 2 client .. seem u lot need to use goolge and find a few websites which explaine the DC Protocal ....

5) i like to see Media Force and rest try sueing hub / networks cos they just be turn away by the courts PMFSL

there my 2 Pounds worth :heart

[cjules13]

With all the lawsuits coming out recently, you'd think there'd be a couple disgruntled posts from people who got sued... I would really like to know the details, like are there any other RIAA targets for now other than Kazaa...

I use DC a lot, sometimes public hubs, but ones with high share requirements... wondering if anyone got dinged by the RIAA on those...? It seems like the majority of DC users are in Europe - at least in my favorite hubs....

[Miniver]

holy old thread batman... cjules if they are going to go after anyone it would be on the high share hubs. Why go after someone only sharing 10 gig of music when they can go after someone sharing 100.

[Afn]

the pattern is the riaa wants to get the unversities to make 'paid music service manditory for all college students.'

Get the Unversities to stop filesharing, you get the place were kids go in and adults go out singing the riaa tune.

Pay for it... $15 per download.... la la la ... Not.

That is NOT where technology is going.

[Lehk]

Well, as for sharing Games, I only share older stuff (NES,SNES, Sega Master System) Things that the ESA isn't even that aggressive with on web sites. Anyone here get busted for .smc's or .nes files?

[BloodStraw]

No shit... who said that Direct Connect was safe?

[cjules13]

Nobody said DC was safe, I just haven't heard of anyone getting sued on it is all...

Miniver - yeah your argument makes perfect sense, but in order to get into the high share hubs, you ahve to have 100GB of stuff just to get in... So they are forced to share stuff just to get in, and people will download from them, and if they don't the OP will boot them faster than you can say "get the F out."


In the high share hubs too your share is usually inspected pretty quick to make sure there good stuff in there and not just bogus files....

I wouldn't put anything past them, but I bet they don't want to share stuff to bust people, and I hadn't heard of anyone getting sued on DC, so I was just curious...

[fireforce555]

They are everywhere! Dont believe because you're using a "more exclusive" or "private" type network that they cant get in. If you got in, they could get in. No groups are so tight that they cant be infiltrated. Thats the way they bust alot of child porn groups, they gain the trust of another member and get invited in and do recon. Law enforcement has used this tactic for years, and these private agencies are obviously reading from their playbook. Only a private group that all the people know each other in real life couldnt be infiltrated very easily, since if a new guy shows up, and you dont know him, chances are hes a hired goon.

[cjules13]

Yeah, I understand that... Private only password-protected hubs I still maintain ARE safe... but I was just wondering about the high-share hubs.

Two votes for they will have 100GB of stuff to get in. Any other opinions?

[Miniver]

Only as safe as you keep them. One idiot can destroy a private hub.

[Ken17625]

since they can not under no cirumtances download or share files them selfs (media force , riaa etc cos they would have to pay the copyright owners to much LOL

No they don't. If they're working for the copyright owners, ovbiously the copyright owners would allow them to employ whatever techniques they wanted. Charge them? What are you talking about?

Are you on crack?


since they have to use a extrenal search , its easy to change ur files names ...

Yep, let me rename my movie file to "001.avi".............oh, wait, nobody will know what that is, hence, nobody will download said file, defeating the purpose of P2P.


DirectConnect is not centralized like kazza and other Napster service Clones

That has nothing to do with the current situation. The USERS are being targeted.

[Jelsoft]

Yeah, I understand that... Private only password-protected hubs I still maintain ARE safe... but I was just wondering about the high-share hubs.

Two votes for they will have 100GB of stuff to get in. Any other opinions?

The more private and retricted the hub the less users there are. The less users there are, the less files are shared and made available.

[notbob]

Yeah, I understand that... Private only password-protected hubs I still maintain ARE safe... but I was just wondering about the high-share hubs.

Two votes for they will have 100GB of stuff to get in. Any other opinions?


they would use a client with a fake share--many would get caught by bots and ops, but all you need is 1 to make it through

back when i ran a public hub, glo/mosearch was the method of choice used by the mediaforce bots to find files (LOTR FOTR was what they searced for at that time) they also had a client which was modified that had a built in 17.32 GB fake share

if they had a modded client a year ago, you had better believe they have a much better one right now, and you can also bet they are using social engineering tricks to get into private hubs by making nice with people like me on forums like this one

[cjules13]

The more private and retricted the hub the less users there are. The less users there are, the less files are shared and made available.Well, maybe true in some cases but not all... In some of the big-baller private hubs just 20 dudes with a couple TB each will give you more files than a big public hub with a bunch of noobs with a couple GB each...


if they had a modded client a year ago, you had better believe they have a much better one right now, and you can also bet they are using social engineering tricks to get into private hubs by making nice with people like me on forums like this oneHey good info notbob... I know guys like you wouldn't fall for the social engineering tricks as I don't think I could get much past you... I would think even before any entry into a 100GB+ hub you'd have to go through a rather intense screen and your share would be eyeballed before you could even do any searches... That's how it was for me on a private hub I'm in...

But I suppose anyone could be bought as well - and like you said and others have said, it really only takes one slip-up...

[notbob]

Well, maybe true in some cases but not all... In some of the big-baller private hubs just 20 dudes with a couple TB each will give you more files than a big public hub with a bunch of noobs with a couple GB each...

Hey good info notbob... I know guys like you wouldn't fall for the social engineering tricks as I don't think I could get much past you... I would think even before any entry into a 100GB+ hub you'd have to go through a rather intense screen and your share would be eyeballed before you could even do any searches... That's how it was for me on a private hub I'm in...

But I suppose anyone could be bought as well - and like you said and others have said, it really only takes one slip-up...

1st off, the big hubs 100GB,150GB etc, are often public, and rely heavily on scripts and ops, and are relatively safe because the people that operate them go to great lengths to make them that way (not perfect of course)


entry into most private hubs i know are based on judgement calls based on the share of the individual (is it good stuff? does it match with the clientelle of the hub?) and personal interaction with the candidate

hubs that are based on size alone typically attract people who share a huge pile of junk to make a minimum

i'd rather see someone wiith a small share that i have good conversations with than some jerk with a bunch of stuff

in fact, after a certain point, the files are meaningless anyway, after you are connected enough and can get absolutely anything you want on a whim, so i'd rather at least have a community of users i like

[Chewyfood]

Ever since those programs to fake your share came out I think it has become easier for feds to seek out people. It makes those 100+ GB channels unsafe as well.


While Direct Connect is a great place to get stuff, its really unsafe as a user just because of the sharing requirement. Kazaa and Blubster at least don't force you to share to connect to the network. Most Direct Connects hubs will require one to share a certain amount just to join. Upon joining, in most hubs at least, a bot will download your share list and check to see what you are sharing, checking to see if you are abiding by the hub's sharing rules (e.g. no VOB's, or in other words DVDs, no pornography, no installed programs)...forcing you to share the stuff which can get one into trouble.

[Chewyfood]

right , 1) anybody here got real proof of anybody being sued on DC ( cos i aint and ive been around Fileshareing since my days on IRC)

2) since they can not under no cirumtances download or share files them selfs (media force , riaa etc cos they would have to pay the copyright owners to much LOL when its copyright owners paying them lol) then theyhave to use mos+ type tools , if there any in the hubs with a share then there breaking the own bloddy laws and there using fake clients LOL which means the ops in the hubs aint doing there jobs LOL.

3) since they have to use a extrenal search , its easy to change ur files names ...

4) DirectConnect is not centralized like kazza and other Napster service Clones

cos the only shit going via the hub is chat, and file lists , all files are from client 2 client , thats why if u dont tick Disconnect user if they leave the hub in DC++ , any user getting a file from u still can even if therenot in the hub anymore = client 2 client not client 2 hub 2 client .. seem u lot need to use goolge and find a few websites which explaine the DC Protocal ....

5) i like to see Media Force and rest try sueing hub / networks cos they just be turn away by the courts PMFSL

there my 2 Pounds worth :heart

its somewhat centralized...

Some guy runs Hub Software on his machine, and clients connect to it. If the feds take down that computer with the hub, the whole hub is gone.
All the hubs (or select ones) are queued up by the master DC hub-lister...or some other hub-lister like the one at the site www.hub-list.org.

[rctempire]

its somewhat centralized...

Some guy runs Hub Software on his machine, and clients connect to it. If the feds take down that computer with the hub, the whole hub is gone.
All the hubs (or select ones) are queued up by the master DC hub-lister...or some other hub-lister like the one at the site www.hub-list.org.


This is untrue as someone else can take the redirect over so the hub lives but on another computer. It has been done so i dont know how you mean by the whole hub would be gone.

[tweekster]

why cant they share stuff?

they get permission from the people that hired them?

[rctempire]

why cant they share stuff?

they get permission from the people that hired them?

Who cant share stuff??? Who needs permission to share??