Monthly Archives: September 2010

Wikipedia Adds BitTorrent Powered Video Streaming

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Streaming capabilities have been added to BitTorrent via the Tribler client, and more recently uTorrent. Thus far the implementation of these technologies into major websites has been lacking. That position changed this week as the Wikimedia Foundation partnered with P2P Next to use BitTorrent-powered streaming for their video content.

Here we like to share the many ways the BitTorrent protocol can be used to distribute data, and that it is more than a way to infringe copyright. Universities and major websites/companies like Facebook and Twitter use BitTorrent to share data between servers, and now a new big Internet player has adopted BitTorrent technology.

Wikipedia (and indeed the whole Wikimedia Foundation) just announced that it has started to use BitTorrent to stream its videos. The foundation is using Swarmplayer from P2P-Next to try and cut down on bandwidth costs.

The Wikimedia Foundation is concerned about bandwidth costs, as video becomes more prevalent on their various project sites (like News, and Quotes and the more famous Wikipedia project). In an announcement this week the foundation stated: “Eventually bandwidth costs could saturate the foundation budget or leave less resources for other projects and programs. For this reason it is important to start exploring and experimenting with future content distribution platforms and partnerships.”

The system set up by Wikipedia uses a combination of webseeds and BitTorrent peers to spread the load. High priority pieces (like the start of the video) are pulled via more traditional HTTP sources, while later in the video where the data is of a lower priority it comes via the BitTorrent protocol. The process is described by P2Pnext in the following diagram;

Image is Loading....Source – P2P Next

“I think it’s important as a technology and something that needs exploring,” Michael Dale, Kaltura Open Media Developer and Wikimedia admin told us. The 6000-or-so videos on the Wikimedia servers are all set to use the technology, as will any new ones that are added.

Currently, Swarmplayer is only available as a plugin for Firefox (3.x, it doesn’t work well with the version 4 betas). An Internet Explorer plug-in will be available within the next day or two and a Chrome plugin is planned as well, we are assured. Not so good news for the Opera and Safari users though, as there is no plugin currently planned for them. However, people are free to create their own as the code is open source. “We’re just counting on one hardcore Opera user to port it to Opera,” Dr Pouwelse of P2P-Next told us.

“This is another step in strengthening Web TV,” Pouwelse continued. “The long-term goal is to offer more choice, provide higher quality and increased reliability compared to traditional TV technology.”

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RIAA Takes Down Music Downloading App Mulve

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Last week an impressive new music downloading application hit the mainstream. Mulve became hugely popular and demand was so great that the site’s servers couldn’t handle the pressure and fell over. Today the site is down again, not through excessive demand, but thanks to the lawyers at the RIAA.

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Last week we reported on a very impressive music downloading application. With a claimed database of 10,000,000 tracks, Mulve can give many torrent sites a good run for their money.

Choice aside, Mulve is particularly fast too. Searches yield results quickly and tracks download at excellent speeds, yet this software is not a traditional P2P app – in fact, there is no uploading required at all. Pulling its data off fast servers in Russia connected to the country’s biggest social networking site, downloading from Mulve is about as ‘safe’ as it gets.

Last week, after generating dozens of headlines and excitement around the Internet’s tech sites, Mulve’s homepage went offline, unable to cope with the demand.

We have learned that the site was getting more than 30,000 visitors a day and they were carrying out around 15000 searches every hour.

The site soon returned but those wanting to use the software today, however, will have problems. It is completely down, not due to excessive demand, but due to the lawyers at the RIAA.

“Just letting you know that Mulve has received a DMCA take down request from the RIAA, so it needed to be taken offline,” a Mulve spokesman told us.

While Mulve hosted no illegal files, it appears that the RIAA discovered that a small element of the site was hosted with US-based Hostgator. Once that element was taken down it was enough to effectively disable the site.

It is understood that Mulve has a new update in the pipeline which will improve the application, but there is currently no news on when the site and application will return. We are assured, however, the downtime is just temporary.

In the meantime, as we wait for news, we can ponder on the meaning behind the word ‘Mulve’.

“It is an abbreviation for Music Love,” the developers told us.

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The Pirate Bay Appeal Starts, Minus One Defendant

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This morning the appeal of The Pirate Bay Four started, but one of the most important cases in the history of file-sharing began with just three defendants. Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm is in a hospital in Cambodia and is unable to travel to Sweden. The trial continued without him and began with a discussion on the history and some technicalities of The Pirate Bay.

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The day started this morning at 09:30 at the Swedish Appeal Court in Stockholm with only three of the four defendants present.

Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom all made their way to the Court, but Gottfrid Svartholm couldn’t travel to Stockholm from his home in Cambodia due to medical reasons, his lawyer said. Gottfrid’s mother says she will go to Cambodia to support him.

Svartholm’s absence caused some confusion at the hearing. His lawyer opted that the case should continue without his client present, while the entertainment industry representatives argued that the earlier District Court verdict should be made permanent.

After asking for some input from Bengt Lindell, Professor of Procedural Law at Uppsala University, the Appeal continued with the three defendants who were present. The Court further decided that the Pirate Bay co-founder Svartholm has to hand over a medical report before October 7.

The Appeal Court then continued with the hearing and announced that it, in line with the District Court, it does not wish to seek a ruling from the European Court.

Fredrik Neij’s lawyer began by demanding that his client be acquitted and that the damages awarded against him be reduced. Peter Althin representing Peter Sunde also requested acquittal for his client, with no damages to pay. Per E Samuelson, counsel for Carl Lundstrom, asked for the same.

Following an explanation of the BitTorrent technology behind the case and how it works in connection with The Pirate Bay, there was discussion surrounding The Pirate Bay’s history.

The site started very small and was run by Gottfrid and Fredrik. In 2004 they had contact with an Israeli company who provided contacts to Carl Lundström, who at the time was president of telecoms company, Rix Telecom.

Prosecutor Håkan Roswall said that when Neij came into contact with Lundstrom the understanding was that the purpose of The Pirate Bay was to allow people to share files. He added that in January 2005 there were discussions to carry out an international launch of the site, an aim which would require more hardware. Rix are said to have provided hardware in the first days of January and more at later dates.

Roswall said that it was decided that a company would be established around The Pirate Bay, with Lundström owning 40% and Gottfrid and Fredrik owning the remaining 60%.

The prosecutor stated that in 2005, Lundström received information about changes in Swedish copyright law that could render The Pirate Bay illegal. He then allegedly contacted his lawyer and was told that the site would become illegal on 1st July that year.

It’s claimed that Lundström contacted Gottfrid and Fredrik and suggested the site’s servers be moved abroad. Options in Russia and Argentina were considered but not taken up. Roswall also said it was of interest that Lundström had made enquiries around that time in respect of setting up a company in Argentina.

Roswall claimed that in 2006, hosting company PRQ signed contracts with Rix Telecom – before this event The Pirate Bay hadn’t paid anything to Rix. The finances of TPB improved and eventually it partnered with an Israeli company to assist with advertising. He says that Carl Lundstrom, Gottfrid and Fredrik received revenue from these ads.

The prosecutor went on to discuss how the investigation was carried out into the site and how the plaintiffs collected evidence. This progressed to how the police handled the raids against the site in 2006 and how they carried out tests with the confiscated computers. Police said they counted 64 different ads on the site at the time.

The appeal will continue this afternoon in Sweden and we’ll add more updates on the first court day as well as some reactions when today’s hearing has finished. If all goes to plan the trial should be completed by 15th October.

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DDoS Takes Down Aussie Anti-Pirates and 8,000 Other Sites

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Following on from other DDoS attacks in recent days, yesterday another wave took down the website of AFACT, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft. This latest assault, carried out in the name of Operation Payback, also had some very serious unintended side-effects. According to AFACT host Negregistry, other sites it hosts were affected too. AFACT said those sites, some belonging to the government, numbered nearly 8,000.

During the last couple of weeks we’ve reported almost daily on the effects and aftershocks of Operation Payback. This action, largely consisting of coordinated DDoS attacks against those chasing down online piracy or seeking to profit from it, has taken in a number of significant targets.

Although the attacks against the MPAA and RIAA websites generated the most headlines thus far due to their profile in the United States, the attack with the most consequences was that against the UK’s ACS:Law, the notorious law firm that with its partners seeks to turn alleged infringements of copyright into a cash business. That business is now in shreds after ACS:Law bungled an attempt to bring its site back online and published its own email database to the public.

Last night, as first reported by Slyck.com, Operation Payback took aim at a new target, AFACT – the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft. Although it took a little while for the site to go down, the attack eventually achieved its aims but now it seems that it also generated some serious unintended side-effects.

According to an announcement by AFACT’s host, Netregistry, “A DDoS attack began to take place at approximately 8:30AM AEST, with a group of hackers attacking the firewall by flooding it with connections attempting to take down all servers.”

Although referring to those charging their Low Orbit Ion Cannons as hackers is something of a stretch, and even though the attacks were eventually dealt with by Netregistry, according to Neil Gane from AFACT nearly 8,000 other websites were also taken down in the attack.

“A lot of these sites are small Australian businesses and Government web sites,” Gane told ITnews. “They have been affected by this senseless act.”

Currently Operation Payback is showing few signs that it is running out of steam. One has to wonder though. Although some will argue that there is a strong need for civil disobedience to draw attention to a cause where perhaps few are listening, things can easily take a different turn.

Although we have no cast iron evidence other than his comments, it’s believed that ACS:Law’s Andrew Crossley called in the police last week after he was harassed at home. He has since used the word ‘criminal’ to describe the actions against his website and few will disagree that taking down 8,000 websites, even temporarily and/or accidentally, is a serious affair. When some of those sites belong to a government, questions start to get asked.

Will Operation Payback continue as promised or will it stop of its own accord? Will it be stopped by force? Is it even possible to stop it by force, any more than it’s possible to stop people sharing files? Time will tell but one thing is certain. If Operation Payback was designed to generate attention, it has done that, in a very, very big way.

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