Military Intelligence Used to Shutdown BitTorrent Site

Military Intelligence Used to Shutdown BitTorrent Site

torrentfreak.com

On Tuesday, police backed up by members of ALPA (Association Against Audiovisual Piracy) moved to close down SnowTigers, making 10 arrests in the Paris and Toulouse areas. According to Zataz, 21 servers were also seized.

France is becoming known as a country engaging in an increasingly aggressive fight against piracy and their enthusiasm seems to have gone through the roof in this case, with an ALPA spokesperson confirming that they had “worked very closely with the military” to locate the staff of the semi-private site.

(visit the link for the full news article)

What the hell is going on in France?

Why is the French military getting involved in busting up a Torrent site?

I find this very disturbing.

WARNING: If you are from France, and you've downloaded a lot of files or donated to SnowTigers, there is a possibility you could be questioned and or prosecuted!

"As rumors persist that SnowTigers invitations were available to buy via various sources for around 30 euros each, while other users simply donated money to the site, Frédéric Delacroix of ALPA was keen to sow the seeds of doubt in their direction. “All people who have paid money [to the site] can now be questioned,” he said.

torrentfreak.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 8-6-2009 by kommunist]

What if, and now this is nothing more than a "what if," the French military found some leaked military or government documents on said torrent server? I personally can't see any other reason for the military to get involved.

In the comments to the article, it's stated that the use of the word "Military" is not quite correct, it's a little more complex than that.

Follow this link and choose the France one, to read more about the force involved

en.wikipedia.org...

It does things as mundane as

"Units for prevention of juvenile delinquency"
"Highway patrols"

through to much more serious actions such as

"counter-terrorism and hostage rescue"

Still sounds a bit crazy though.

EDIT to fix URL

[edit on 8-6-2009 by jimminycricket]