02-10-2006, 05:55 AM
There are a two big negatives that come with Bittorrent.
The worst one is that you send out any files you take in. This means your IP number is broadcast all over the internet offering to share the pieces of any file you have downloaded. A very well-funded company called BayTSP compiles a huge file of IPs and what each one has done. They don't know the account holder's name, but they don't need to. They gather an incredible amount of detail on some of these IPs without knowing the names. They collect some of it and can buy a lot more. Just knowing your IP, they can get an idea if you own a home, have a family and a steady income – the kind of things that make you a good person to sue. When their clients ask for a list of people to target with lawsuits, they can kick out the best candidates.
I fooled around with Bittorrent for just a month last fall. In December HBO lawyers called my ISP and threatened to sue to get my name. My ISP is a small local outfit and they went bonkers. They called me and told me that they would turn me over if they got called again. I don't need a headache so I laid off.
The other problem with torrents is the speed is slow. Only the most popular ones are usable and even then you will never saturate a fast pipe. They often get hung up on the last few parts of a large file.
Usenet is a little harder to learn, but it is orders of magnitude harder to track users. Plus, any file on the server will come in as fast as the pipe will receive it. A good Newsreader lets you automate most of the process.
The worst one is that you send out any files you take in. This means your IP number is broadcast all over the internet offering to share the pieces of any file you have downloaded. A very well-funded company called BayTSP compiles a huge file of IPs and what each one has done. They don't know the account holder's name, but they don't need to. They gather an incredible amount of detail on some of these IPs without knowing the names. They collect some of it and can buy a lot more. Just knowing your IP, they can get an idea if you own a home, have a family and a steady income – the kind of things that make you a good person to sue. When their clients ask for a list of people to target with lawsuits, they can kick out the best candidates.
I fooled around with Bittorrent for just a month last fall. In December HBO lawyers called my ISP and threatened to sue to get my name. My ISP is a small local outfit and they went bonkers. They called me and told me that they would turn me over if they got called again. I don't need a headache so I laid off.
The other problem with torrents is the speed is slow. Only the most popular ones are usable and even then you will never saturate a fast pipe. They often get hung up on the last few parts of a large file.
Usenet is a little harder to learn, but it is orders of magnitude harder to track users. Plus, any file on the server will come in as fast as the pipe will receive it. A good Newsreader lets you automate most of the process.