gdp's Comments

TorrentFreak : DRM Jams the Gears of War: Crysis and GTA IV Next?

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 16:37:19 +0000

Your confusing DRM meant to prevent copying with DRM meant to prevent cheating - one could argue that this benefits gamers. This DRM had no effect on whether one could copy teh game or not and the fact that it prevents the game from running is a mistake.

TorrentFreak : DRM Jams the Gears of War: Crysis and GTA IV Next?

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 16:34:55 +0000

Ok - yes, I agree with you in part: yes it's DRM, however it's not DRM that was placed there to intentionally prevent copying - as per the comments Pete made. I am wrong by strict definition and you are right. However, going by that post already made above from the VP, it was there to protect players themselves against cheats - it's hardly a "bad thing" - and not to prevent copying, as evidenced by the fact that people could use the cracked version with this form of DRM still operational. It seems to have been a mistake by somebody, they happen. What company in their right mind would prevent a game being played 15 months after the retail release. They have copies on the shelf still. I think you should update the article and tell people this - because you have written as though this was DRM that was intentionally placed onto the game distribution to screw people around and it seems this was not the case - in fact it is there to enhance gameplay by preventing cheating. You are basically pushing the line that DRM intended to stop people cheating is as "evil" (your wording) as DRM to prevent illicit copying. It smacks of knee-jerk journalism - certainly TF isn't the only party doing this - however a small correction is needed in my opinion.

TorrentFreak : One-Click iPhone App Cracker Released to the Public

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:59:10 +0000

They'll create new protection ... however, if it's this ridiculously easy that one app fits all - what hope have they got I wonder? Expect a FLOOD of iphone apps I guess. Yippee!

TorrentFreak : DRM Jams the Gears of War: Crysis and GTA IV Next?

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:57:25 +0000

And after all the whinging about "It's so bad, I must pirate, they don't deserve my money, I've got an excuse for piracy and it's certainly NOT THAT I just like getting a game for free" (amazing how people come up with these complex justifications when the root cause of piracy is so simple - FREE product) ... it turns out IT WASN"T DRM. ROFLMAO at many people here.

TorrentFreak : DRM Jams the Gears of War: Crysis and GTA IV Next?

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:54:44 +0000

Don't use Windows then. DRM was bought in to combat piracy: it's not like it was put there just to antagonise users.

TorrentFreak : DRM Jams the Gears of War: Crysis and GTA IV Next?

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:52:24 +0000

It would certainly explain why Razor1911 missed it. I doubt some people here will care though... this place is often like a hardcore cult with the propaganda and blatantly ignoring facts. Eg. "I pirate because of DRM" and "I buy music that I really like" (despite evidence to the contrary, it never gets reported here). Still, I have bought it to the attention of the author so we shall see - I may be surprised.

TorrentFreak : Why the IFPI/Eircom Anti-Piracy Deal Sucks

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 06:52:27 +0000

Any Irish people reading here? Would be interesting to hear what the reaction of the mainstream and technical/IT press is to this. Also it would be interesting to hear about what your perception is of public opinion generally regarding this deal.

TorrentFreak : Why the IFPI/Eircom Anti-Piracy Deal Sucks

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 05:55:24 +0000

Agreed with seedbox: also - whilst it's hard/unpredictable to predict the speed of any torrent owing to not knowing speeds/available bandwidth - number of seeds isn't a good predictor of speed. The key figure you can use is the SLR or Seed to Leech ratio: this is obtained by dividing the number of seeds by the number of peers (or leeches). This is still highly unpredicatble but it's been shown that it's the best predictor of overall swarm speed. As a general rule, anything over 1 is good. If you have 500 seeds with 1000 peers, SLR = 500/1000 = 0.5. What this tells you is on average each seed will be uploading to 2 peers usually it's never that neatly organised though obviously. (Add in the fact that not all bandwidth of each client is available due to multiple uploads and that peers who jumped in ahead get preferential treatment due to "tit-for-tat".) If 500 seeds have 250 peers, SLR = 2, on average each seed can devote 2 upload slots to each peer. Number of seeds is actually pretty meaningless: for example at one point I noticed GTA4 @ TPB had 1000 seeds with 75,000 peers. The swarm speed was not very fast as that is a terrible SLR and people waited days on end. 10 seeds with 2 peers, as illogical as it sounds, is, on average, going to be faster than the GTA example - given that they have the same speed connections & same upload settings - as the average of the 1000 seeds of GTA.<span class="idc-clear"></span>

TorrentFreak : Why the IFPI/Eircom Anti-Piracy Deal Sucks

Sun, 1 Feb 2009 05:38:05 +0000

Actually I would say that is partially wrong at least: ISPs - as a general rule - make less money off heavy users. The reasons for this are as follows: (note I'm not an expert however I talk to people who I consider to be and this is the general gist I've gleaned - I may be wrong and/or generalising): ISPs pay a data wholesaler for a certain amount of data at a fixed bandwidth: for example perhaps they pay for 40TB/month OR they pay for bandwidth with unlimited data. Then they make this available for their customers. As data allowances go up, so does the price of the plan the customer pays, - BUT - the price per unit of data that the customer pays drops - until the "lowest" for uncapped plans. So you might have this happening for example: Mom & Pop pays $50 for 80GB/month Heavy User pays $80 for 200GB/month (this is the pricing of my ISP, www.tpg.com.au) They do not advertise the 200GB plan ever ;) So from the ISP perspective: for a $50 plan they can have get $200 for 200GB OR for the heavy user: $80 for 200GB. Then you add in that heavy users are much more likely to be downloading large files in a constant stream: this means that less customers can be using the bandwidth concurrently with the same speed: or, in plain English, the network becomes congested faster. ISP's make more money off casual users - most ISP's have the situation where a minority of users use 80% of network capacity. Many casual users in fact subsidise many fewer heavy users because they are paying (much) more per unit of data. Heavy users are (much) less profitable than casual users in greater numbers. Now, I do agree that (in my estimation which is not from a very unformed point of view) ISPs would baulk at losing a huge swathe of heavy users all at once, however in a slow process where they could replace them with lighter users - it would be more profitable.

TorrentFreak : Why the IFPI/Eircom Anti-Piracy Deal Sucks

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:48:25 +0000

Well, I doubt that people will even be able to sign up with them with the same details...

TorrentFreak : Why the IFPI/Eircom Anti-Piracy Deal Sucks

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:44:19 +0000

It will matter: it is impossible for them to determine what is being transferred to any visible IP connected to their client as well as impossible to determine even if it is files in their clients shared data. If they download they will end up with a complete, recognisable file but they'll have no idea where it came from. They cannot say "the IP's that we logged when the file was downloading" because parts of the file may have already been in the datastore before they began the download. It is impossible for them to say something along the lines of: X IP address was downloading/uploading file with Y hash. The case of WiFi is different: they can say that X IP address was downloading/uploading file with Y hash.

TorrentFreak : Why the IFPI/Eircom Anti-Piracy Deal Sucks

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:17:49 +0000

Umm, apparently you have no idea how Perfect Dark works you silly twat. Perfect Dark bounces traffic through multiple "proxies" (ie. other clients) with multiple layers of encryption. Anti-p2p will have no idea of what anyone else is downloading or where it's going. You uninformed idiot.

TorrentFreak : Why the IFPI/Eircom Anti-Piracy Deal Sucks

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:11:36 +0000

OK, first be aware that using a regular proxy is pointless as far as protecting yourself from other clients (ie.: IFPI and Co. agents) as it only works for traffic to and from the tracker. All clients that connect to you see your real IP address still. Pointless. People with no idea enter proxy addresses into utorrent and believe they are anonymous when a small amount of reading would tell them otherwise. You can download blocklists from bluetack and use them in utorrents security filter or get peerguardian - this is also pretty useless - it's only as good as the list, which the anti-p2p companies also have access to and I fail to see that any reliable method exists to ensure you block all potential harmful addresses. You can use private trackers only or just for new content. Private trackers - generally - are safer because there is less users (less of a target for anti-p2p agencies - why go for them when TPB trackers cover 1/2 the torrents globally) and restrictions on joining. However, the same methods can still be used to harvest IP addresses. Now some options that will protect you: You can pay a small fee and buy a VPN service. This essentially encrypts all traffic, including p2p, and all traffic runs through the VPN server - meaning your ISP cannot tell what traffic you are downloading (other than it's encrypted) and, most important, any body who connects to you only sees the IP address of the VPN. Meaning no body can identify your internet connection. Do not confuse this with "proxies" - you cannot run most (all?) p2p traffic through proxies by design and even if you could it would be deathly slow and liable to be banned fast. Good for Bittorrent VPN list: http://filesharefreak.com/2008/10/18/total-anonym... You can purchase a seedbox service: this is a remote, high speed server that runs a torrent client. You download/upload files on the server, controlling it from home and then FTP files to your home computer. Aside from offering huge upload speeds (MB/s), being always on, offering blazing speed when you download files and being a necessity for some private trackers it also means your home IP is never in the swarm - so IFPI and Co. can detect it but it isn't your home connection. Note that some seedbox providers do not allow them to be used on public trackers to avoid takedown notices and unwamted attention from IFPI and Co. Seedboxes: http://filesharefreak.com/2009/01/19/complete-lis... Or you can sign up for Usenet and/or use direct download links and avoid Bittorrent altogther.

TorrentFreak : US Pirate Party Docks in California

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:06:02 +0000

"for something to have a Wikipedia page, it must at least be notable enough." What are you rambling abut... you do realise that anybody can create and edit Wikipedia pages right. I could go and make a page about hte new pimple on my ass and you'd think that significant would you?

TorrentFreak : US Pirate Party Docks in California

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:04:19 +0000

Right, OK - after you've finished yelling like a 5 year old stop to think that pirated products run on computers and there are examples of mainstream computers not being hacked due to the technical difficulty involved. PS3 for example.

TorrentFreak : US Pirate Party Docks in California

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 04:01:03 +0000

That's a totally unreasonable analogy you just made. You dont have 1 million friends, your making content available to anybody to download. You don't know them, they couldn't give a shit about you and vice-versa. You would not let a total stranger who walked off the street into your house to view a movie. I'm sick of this "because I share with my friends that I know and it's legal then filesharing is legal". It's a ridiculous argument and is only bandied about by people hellbent on justifying what they do to themselves and others who don't want to acknowledge what is really happening. If the pirate party tried to argue a line like this they would be laughed at. Under current legislation you are breaking copyright law by transmitting reproductions. I do it, the differnece between me and you is I don't try to justify it with weak analogies that involve non-existent facts. Like "friends".

TorrentFreak : US Pirate Party Docks in California

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:52:00 +0000

Funny that the article has the line "the ones who go after a new branch of pirates - for stealing their work." Stealing.

TorrentFreak : US Pirate Party Docks in California

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:49:50 +0000

Yes, but the point is this: you can either do nothing but complain in blogs and to friends etc. - which achieves precisely nothing as far as getting legislation changed - or you can start a new political party with the chance that one day you will have some form of political power with which to effect change in legislation.

TorrentFreak : Anti-Piracy Measures Don't Work, Report Shows

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:33:47 +0000

Oh? How are you proposing people do that - you know, considering to that if you download supposed child porn to verify it is indeed child porn you are liable to prosecution unless you have safe harbour protection (which only selected agencies dedicated to hunitng child pron do). freetard is right for once. The RIAA could'nt use this technology to hunt child porn without openi ng themselves up to prosecution.

TorrentFreak : Government Refuses to Revoke Draconian File-Sharing Law

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:10:09 +0000

Well yes you can download off others connections: provided someone near enough to you has Wifi connected to the internet. And there are repercussions potentially to doing that BTW - it is possible for a forensic expert to nail you for doing that. I wouldn't call Reasoned Mind a troll actually.