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Private BitTorrent Site Raided, Operators Arrested

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

October 23, 2007, 2:06 PM

In what could serve as a chilling warning to operators of other private file sharing networks, UK and Dutch police jointly raided the homes of those running OiNK, an invite-only BitTorrent site that allegedly has been the source of much pirated music.

According to investigators, pre-release music was first uploaded to OiNK and would then spread to other Web sites, blogs and file sharing networks. Because membership required an invitation, OiNK's operators felt secure from legal crackdowns that have recently occurred on other P2P sites and service.

A 24-year-old man was arrested in England Tuesday, while other locations -- including the datacenter where OiNK's servers were located -- were raided in Amsterdam last week. The man's employer and father's house were also searched by police.

"OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online. This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure. This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online," the IFPI, which represents record labels worldwide, said in a statement.

The raids followed a two-year investigation by both the IFPI and British Phonographic Industry (BPI). 60 pre-release albums were leaked through the service so far in 2007.

Those operating OiNK apparently made substantial money from it. The service hosted hundreds of thousands of torrent files, and had millions of users connecting to those torrents, making it one of the largest BitTorrent sites.

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By debonair

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 2:20 PM

more fascist government actions across the globe on behalf of big coorporations. Why don't they go spend money on fighting the REAL criminals instead? well, there's no money in it for them...

Score: 0

By TomA102210

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 7:53 PM

more fascist government actions across the globe on behalf of big coorporations. Why don't they go spend money on fighting the REAL criminals instead? well, there's no money in it for them...
---------------------------------------------
Sounds like the old argument of the speeder who gets caught by the traffic cop for speeding and says the same thing about the "REAL criminals..." When you're caught, you're caught and it doesn't have a thing to do with money.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 11:00 PM

++

Thank you.

Score: 0

By frog1981

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 11:52 AM

Private file sharing is actually the solution as far as sharing large quantities of files with friends privately! Private networks that you create yourself (using http://www.gigatribe.com for example) allow you to swap files with friends without an ISP being able to identify what exactly you're swapping (since exchanges are ENCRYPTED). Connecting with dozens/hundreds of friends is the key, not with millions. Duh!

Score: 0

By Avion Airplane

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 7:21 AM

wow thats scary.......

Score: 0

By ingram091

edited Oct 24, 2007 - 6:02 AM

Like I said. DO NOT LET THEM IN. If you do not know them, do not let them in and they have zero probable cause to justify it... Of course in those countries Probable cause is prob non existent. all they need to is say we suspect it and they get a warrant. Betcha those guys had nothing prior other then suspicion, as the private site I know just do not let the scum in the system. They cross check IPs and email accounts before allowing you access normally...

But first and formost I think the key factor here was the pre release stuff, more then anything else. Someone on the service got it and was back tracked to the private site when it was shared again on another service... So because of the prerelease stuff that was the key factor for their takedown. Don't be so stupid... Doing pre air and pre release things in any service is bound to get them all pissy...

And they were doing it for profit, which has been against the laws since before DMCA every was dreamed up... So yea This particular case was pretty cut and dry on why they were taken down. Private sites are still more secure and safe, as long as they do not have the public attention from similar Pre release things...

Most secured Campus systems are shut down by administration not the law under threats from RIAA MPAA for suspicious packet activity... Not that they can see it. Just the suspect its there in a secured way.

Score: 0

By DJInsomniac

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 11:44 AM

OiNK never made money off what was happening. If anything, it struggled in costs to survive.

Some people donated, but it was never enough monthly to keep the server running, so the owner (OiNK himself) would cover the difference to keep it up.

Saying he raked in the dough off this was just another reason to make people believe it was "right" to take it down.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 2:18 PM

So you argue that he's wrong because you're right with nothing other than that statement to back you up?


Saying he raked in the dough off this was just another reason to make people believe it was "right" to take it down.

Who are you going to believe? A corporation, or a pirate? ;) (Tough one, I know)

Without any proof from either side, it's really not going to help anyone arguing about who's right and who's wrong.

Score: 0

By QQ

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 4:18 AM

It's a loss, but oh well. We've lost audiogalaxy, which was great and made my find numerous bands i didn't know about before, now we lost oink, which was even better. So it's only a matter of time till something yet better will come out ;)

Score: 0

By Adrian79

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 10:19 PM

when suprnova went down it was a very sad day :-( what great memmories....

well, its back to burning phyisical CD's from friends (b4 internet but after cd burners where invented, remember those days?)

Score: 0

By Niro

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 10:41 AM

"well, its back to burning phyisical CD's from friends"

Really? There's only about 300 other places to get music from...

Score: 0

By nemrtvy

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 3:38 AM

Please dont joke and use at least USB stick :)

Score: 0

By Contena

edited Oct 23, 2007 - 6:11 PM

that quote... True (it's called 'the scene', they're on the cutting edge of music promotion even if it means a few thousand people could listen to it -- OMG it's music!) -- then -- FALSE -- it was one of the closest and largest communities on the internet, and the VAST majority of them were asking their friends for recommendations of new and obscure music, as well as hard-to-find material from decades past, in financial situations that don't allow for paying $20 for an hour (or less...) of auditory stimulation (especially if you really like 10% of your friends' recommendations, but find the other 90% painful...) ... and third, passably true: but the contention over who owns the rights to music is what's absurd here -- most of the leaks are done with the artist's approval and encouragement. The bottom line is that if artists can't make their buck doing shows and selling T-shirts, then they got into the wrong business like countless others. Prosecuting people who push the artists to greater heights of performance won't do the art any more justice, it will most likely only seed revolution.

Score: 0

By skapig

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 4:09 PM

Not quite the big deal that the authorities make it out to be, but that's their way of intimidating others. It's doubtful that Oink was the origin of most of the referenced pre-releases.

As with any site of this nature, it was only a matter of time until it got shut down. With increasing membership comes increasing risk. The operators did not seem to take many steps to protect the site and the favoritism they gave to donators definitely doesn't look good.

Guess its users are stuck using one of the many other sites.

Score: 0

By DJInsomniac

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 6:03 PM

You obviously weren't a member of OiNK.

Score: 0

By AntiochMedia

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 3:52 PM

I'm surprised by the jovial manner that people here are responding in. Whether or not one was lucky enough to get an invite to be on Oink or not, I think that we've all benefited at some point from something that hit Oink and trickled down from there.

The IFPI/British Phonographic are doing their jobs, and most bittorrent site operators know the risk by what they are doing. The Pirate Bay has almost turned their activities into a game. It's risky business and I think that this is the biggest crackdown since suprnova.

Score: 0

By duhovnik

posted Oct 25, 2007 - 2:33 AM

When you talk The Pirate Bay, i wonder what will the recording companies do to stop them. Myself, I personally believe that all the recording companies made state and it's enforcement agancies to their hired mercenaries to push through their interests. It's sort of the "oil lobby syndrome" I am sure you know what i am talking about.

Score: 0

By Program86

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 4:52 PM

Its comfort in knowing the "law of hax": The more people try to shutdown or hinder user/hacker activities, the more the community pushes back. Case and point: the iPhone. ATT tried to shut down unlockers and hackers by changing the locking encryption scheme, but no more than 2 weeks later they had broken the baseband protocol again. Long live the hax!

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 7:02 PM

...until the next update.

Score: 0

By Tenoq

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 8:49 PM

Somehow I think Apple/AT&T will give up before the hackers do. Just take a look at the AACS bypasses and how dedicated those hackers are. :)

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 9:15 AM

Somehow I think Apple/AT&T will give up before the hackers do. Just take a look at the AACS bypasses and how dedicated those hackers are. :)

I'm confused... Are you suggesting they need stronger lock-ins/DRM?

Score: 0

By sjc001

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 10:03 AM

No, that copy protection, and other nonsense, are worthless. Case in point Vistas "New" activation scam. It was cracked even before the discovery of the OEM non-activation copies.

With music, and video, as long as you can hear, or see it, you can record it.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 12:45 PM

Sorry, that was tongue-in-cheek.

That's prettty much how the Apple/Microsoft/RIAA/MPAAs see it. All the cracking in the world doesn't mean anything to them other than,

"We need stronger DRM/Lock-in."

So while it may be basically worthless to them, it is a never-ending cycle for the hackers that they will *never* win.

By arguing that the one cannot be stopped (thus forcing the other to up the ante), it is as worthless for the companies to develop it as it is for the hackers/crackers to break it.

The problem is that this little game of theirs is affecting more than just the companies vs. Hackers. It's creating massive problems for consumers, and if you think you can blame it *all* on the corporations, you're dead wrong. :)

Score: 0

By sjc001

edited Oct 24, 2007 - 2:10 PM

They can't be stopped. The Vista crack proved this fact. Locks are only meant to keep out honest people.

If they gave a decent product at a reasonable price to all than they wouldn't have need of this nonsense. Punishing the consumer and blaming the hacker is lame. Its like when the Bush administration uses the threat of terrorists to justify taking away more and more of your rights and freedoms.

They should do what is done up here in Canada and place a tariff on all recordable media that is sent to the artists. Downloading for personal use is not illegal up here.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 24, 2007 - 2:15 PM

roflmao....

Punishing the consumer and blaming the hacker is lame.

I can see blaming the hacker, but punishing the consumer? Who willingly bought a product containing DRM? Jeebus, whatever happened to people taking responsibility for their own purchases?

They should do what is done up here in Canada and place a tariff on all recordable media that is sent to the artists. Downloading for personal use is not illegal up here.

So... Instead of punishing the hackers or the pirates, we should...punish everyone? Wow, there's some nifty logic for ya...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 4:52 PM

Nah, the only one's who "benefited" (read: are now at serious risk of having their IP traced, followed shortly by a settlement request from the RIAA) were the folks who illegally downloaded music.

The rest of us are just fine. :)

The Pirate Bay has almost turned their activities into a game. It's risky business and I think that this is the biggest crackdown since suprnova.

Exactly. But isn't any illegal activity "risky" by nature? Sure, they can all whine about how it shouldn't be illegal (yeah...right), or how the labels are abusing copyright (which is a valid complaint, just used to excuse stupidity on their part), but that doesn't make it any less risky. I'll feel sorry for none of them.

In fact, as below, I will sometimes even laugh at them. :)

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 5:30 PM

"Nah, the only one's who "benefited" (read: are now at serious risk of having their IP traced, followed shortly by a settlement request from the RIAA) were the folks who illegally downloaded music."

They're not at seious risk of having their IP traced at all.

Only if the RIAA have proof of them downloading music illegally will the ISPs hand over the information.

Being a member of a torrent site doesn't automatically make you a pirate.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 7:01 PM

Being a member of a torrent site doesn't automatically make you a pirate.

It used to be that having a file available on a P2P service wasn't enough to make you liable for infringement. ;)

Score: 0

By Tenoq

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 8:50 PM

We're only a couple of steps away from owning an Internet-connected computer = copyright infringement. :p

Score: 0

By Antichrist

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 3:47 PM

Was it their name that attracted the pigs?

Score: 0

By tazandpig

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 3:39 PM

Oink :@)

Sorry. I couldn't help it.

Score: 0

By Program86

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 3:37 PM

The original article also stated that all 180,000+ names and email addresses were also confiscated by police. Good thing most users don't put their real names and addresses!

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 3:37 PM

It's all good; thebox.bz is still alive for all those British people out there.

Score: 0

By skimore

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 2:47 PM

would be interesting if they leaked music to get inside this group..

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 2:46 PM

Does anyone else smell bacon?

Score: 0

By imafurby

posted Oct 23, 2007 - 2:25 PM

That pig is roasted.

Score: 0

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