Homeland Security involved in p2p arrests?

www.elitetorrents.org...
(BEWARE! WEAR YOUR SUNGLASSES)

HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY SHUT DOWN BY
THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION AND
U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT

Why would Immigration and Customs be invovled in copyright laws and/or P2P? Also, they have the Homeland Security logo top right. ET was a website where they distributed games/software/music/movies. It's proper for the FBI to get involved, but no reason for Homeland Security. Any ideas?

Also;

There are a bunch of people saying the MPAA/FBI hacked ET(and others) in order to gain much information as to who's the "ring leader".

a-sdf.blogspot.com...
www.wired.com...

Is this Legal? Pariot Act involved or something?

It's Customs Enforcement policing the international export/import of copyrighted material.

Not too surprising to me they'd be involved.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
It's Customs Enforcement policing the international export/import of copyrighted material.

Also, I wouldn't be too surprised if the FBI gained access to the database to find out who the "ring leader" is because it is a criminal investigation and they are gathering evidence for the case. Whether they gain it electronically or were to serve a warrant to take the entire server (hardware) makes no difference.

Just another example of our government catering to corporate America. They will never stop p2p they know it, I doubt they wanted to waste the man power on it but the mpaa put political pressure to crack down on it. Either bust these guys or we stop funding your elections, or you owe us. Then what do these people that hung out there go on to a new site. Or the old fashion way which is still the best and safest.

I'm really not sure what to say about this. I support p2p but at the same time I also understand why they are getting shut down by the FBI and possibly Customs. But why in the world would there be the DHS logo on the top of the page? That makes little sense unless they were hosting files that threatening national security or some television footage that was being shown over in the Arab areas that wouldn't be legal over here (killings of people at point blank range, bodies getting blown apart, etc and they were possibly US soldiers) All I know is that I'm glad that I didn't even know about the torrent site in question.

Unlike our borders, the internet seems to be a prime focus...perhaps it always was. Best to pay close attention to these corporation-gov alliances that are increasingly being directed toward targetting the little guy. Big brother will always cater to the banquet of elite dynasties & their insatiable appetites while issuing heavy fines as they drag you off the premises. Also be wary of those who want you to dismiss the significance of these alliances, for they are like the creepy neighbor who jots down license plates when you're throwing a party and snickers 'sucker' when the cops show up. The golden age of the web is over as surveillance of individual US netizens becomes the modus operandi.

May 23, 2005 -- Websense, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBSN), the world’s leading provider of employee internet management solutions, today announced that the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has selected Websense® software to enable a broad range of protection for its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division with 40,000 employees.

For broadened protection, the DHS opted to leverage the Websense Security Premium Group™ (PG), which prevents access to malicious websites, phishing and fraud-based websites, and sites infected with harmful spyware such as keyloggers. Security PG complements Websense Enterprise by providing an additional layer of protection against the infiltration of web-based worms and spyware, as well as threats associated with peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and instant messaging (IM).

Websense was recently named to Forbes Magazine’s “Top 25 Technology Companies” list for the second consecutive year and FORTUNE Magazine’s annual list of “America’s Fastest Growing Companies,” ranking number 13 out of the 100 companies listed.

www.noticias.info...

Ack, all caps!

Originally posted by Vinci
Why would Immigration and Customs be invovled in copyright laws

? Why would customs officials be involved in the trade of property between countries, you know, dealing with customs? [/sarcasm]

It's proper for the FBI to get involved, but no reason for Homeland Security.

Why?


[edit on 14-6-2005 by Nygdan]

Customs is now part of DHS to at least publically show its newfound comittment to protecting the borders. But that isn't its only duty, it's real goal is to enforce all import/export laws and make sure all taxes and inspection fees are paid on such goods. If this was a few years ago it'd be the seal of the U.S. Treasury Department on the site, not DHS...doesn't really matter, doesn't signify anything.

Just more evidence that every power you give the government - for temporary safety - will be misused to erode our freedoms!

Whatever side of the copyright issue you fall on, our homeland security taxes going to help enforce corporate profits is simply outrageous!!

Wake Up America!!!

How is it evidence, Truthmagnet? Trading copyrighted material illegally is, well, illegal. Whats the problem here?

Originally posted by TruthMagnet
Just more evidence that every power you give the government - for temporary safety - will be misused to erode our freedoms!

Whatever side of the copyright issue you fall on, our homeland security taxes going to help enforce corporate profits is simply outrageous!!

Wake Up America!!!

LOL WHAT?!

Please explain.

p2p is great for allowed content but unfortunately that is a minute scale of what is traded on them. i can find any movie/software/game on them and that is what they are pissed about.

i clean about 30 machines a week from p2p software that install massive spyware upon installation. so play at ur own risk. the spyware/malware will give ur ip/pc info up to the mpaa and riaa anyway...

The internet is no longer an amusement park. Its a gigantic metropolis and about 3/4 of it is the bad side of town. If u willingly/knowingly take ur computer to the bad side of town trying to get freebies, u get what u deserve.

This situation remains fluid, as the extent of the FBI and U.S. Custom enforcement is unclear. For now, only the administration is looking at criminal charges, however the implied possibility against users remains real.

www.slyck.com...

The domain is even registered to the FBI

www.dnsstuff.com...

Originally posted by neosnightmare
I'm really not sure what to say about this. I support p2p but at the same time I also understand why they are getting shut down by the FBI and possibly Customs. But why in the world would there be the DHS logo on the top of the page? That makes little sense unless they were hosting files that threatening national security or some television footage that was being shown over in the Arab areas that wouldn't be legal over here (killings of people at point blank range, bodies getting blown apart, etc and they were possibly US soldiers) All I know is that I'm glad that I didn't even know about the torrent site in question.

Then why haven't they shut down Ogrish.org and other sites?

(WARNING: DONT GOTO OGRISH.ORG UNLESS YOU WANT TO SEE VERY GORY VIDEOS! You sick sick person.)

Nygdan et. al,

Why can't this be left to the FBI to handle?

Its a missuse of Homeland Securities resources, and it just shows how the organizations are used against their basic charter.

Its just another example of special interest groups (such as the MPAA) wielding immense ifluence over the government.

And its rather pointless in most respects, bittorrent has let the cat out of the bag - unless we get a one world government their will always be countries (and thus websites) where torrents can be lawfully posted.

The only people really being busted are teenagers and grandmothers.

The "hardcore" copyright criminals are laughing all the way to the bank.

When music and movie companies begin to efficiently allow reasonably low cost downloads of their material, 90% of this criminal p2p behavior will go away.

What are you talking about? There has to always be balance, so if they do offer very low priced downloads of movies/games/etc. Then the people WITH really good connections(or lots of patience) have advantage over those who don't?

Also; There is always balance in nature Meaning, if there are those who decide to buy the movies/games for low prices to download, there HAVE to be those who are hacking the site and downloading it other ways, there is no such thing as a secure system. Sure people brag "Oh yeah, my password changed every 3 min". Well, It can't randomly change at all, it has to follow a pattern, whether you're dorothy dim or a comptuer sci. professor. Therefore, someone can easily just observe and find the pattern.

So low prices downloads don't work, my question is, when people get movies weeks before the release, it's because they hacked into the company's computers and downloaded it. If they lose SO much money, why not have those computers somewhere remote? Where they're not connected to any network at all, especially the internet. Then leaves the teenage interns who sneak it out on DVD

Originally posted by S1LV3R4D0
p2p is great for allowed content but unfortunately that is a minute scale of what is traded on them. i can find any movie/software/game on them and that is what they are pissed about.

i clean about 30 machines a week from p2p software that install massive spyware upon installation. so play at ur own risk. the spyware/malware will give ur ip/pc info up to the mpaa and riaa anyway...

The internet is no longer an amusement park. Its a gigantic metropolis and about 3/4 of it is the bad side of town. If u willingly/knowingly take ur computer to the bad side of town trying to get freebies, u get what u deserve.

Not all p2p programs have spyware! Azureus and Winmx are both spyware free

Azerusus (I'm tired of spelling that word correctly) Is torrent based, WinMX is based on it's own database. But yes, they might be spyware free, but many people have fun inserting trojans into programs and such, which is part of the reason I got in trouble gah, take my word, it's all fun and games until you get caught :-P