New File-Sharing Technology is Immune to Government Attacks

The battle for internet freedom just got a little more interesting. A new file-sharing software called Tribler is immune to attacks from government or anti-piracy organizations, its creators claim.

“The only way to take it down is to take the internet down” says Dr Pouwelse of Delft University of Technology.

Tribler is a variant on the popular BitTorrent file-sharing software, but is designed specifically to stay online under any circumstances.

“Tribler is designed to keep BitTorrent alive, even when all torrent search engines, indexes and trackers are pulled offline” says file-sharing news site Torrentfreak.

Some file sharing  sites were shaken in the wake of the arrest of Megauploads founder, Kim Dotcom, along with three of his colleagues, who’ve been charged with racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering.

Popular BitTorrent sites BTJunkie and QuickSilverScreen voluntarily shut down while Filesonic and Fileserve users are now being restricted to downloading files they’ve uploaded themselves.

Tribler, though, could be a game changer.

There is no central point to attack. Users with the software share files with each other without a “listing site” hosting the files. The technology has been under test for six years, and has never been offline, even for a second, its Dutch creators told TorrentFreak.

“Our key quest is facilitating unbounded information sharing” Dr. Pouwelse added.

 

Anonymous Launches Largest Attack Ever

In response to the Department of Justice taking down the popular file sharing site Megaupload Anonymous launched #OpMegaupload. On their blog anonops.blogspot.com they announced that the op was their largest attack ever, crippling government and music industry sites including the ones for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America.

The outrage and subsequent protests over the threat that SOPA and PIPA are to the internet have caused some members of Congress as well as some online based companies to change their stances on the controversial Acts, but the raid on Megaupload proved that the feds don’t need SOPA or PIPA in order to impose their will on the internet.

That being the case it appears Anonymous has sent a message loud and clear to the federal government and any entity for that matter that seeks to restrict the freedom of the internet.

 

Anonymous Retaliates Against Feds for Shutting Down Megaupload

Internet freedom fighting group Anonymous, have apparently crashed the Justice Department website in retaliation for prosecutors shutting down the popular file-sharing site, Megaupload.com.

“The government takes down Megaupload? 15 minutes later Anonymous takes down government & record label sites,” the group tweeted.

A Justice Department spokesman did not confirm whether the agency was a victim of a cyberattack, but justice.gov was not loading as of Thursday afternoon.

Anonymous also claimed to have crashed the site of Universal Music, which was also failing to load.

Prosecutors seized Megaupload.com on Thursday and charged seven of its employees with criminal copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit racketeering and other charges.

The crackdown came just one day after a massive online protest against the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP Acts (SOPA/PIPA), both of which would dramatically expand the power of the federal government to shut down websites accused of infringing on copyrights.