TPB plans 'The Music Bay' as music industry surprise: report

The Pirate Bay, despite its legal ups and downs, remains one of the most infamous BitTorrent sites around. Those involved in TPB may be on the cusp on introducing something new, something they say the music industry should fear.

For years, The Pirate Bay has sat on a domain name, http://themusicbay.org. It's done nothing with it, although it originally planned to; right not it just directs users to The Pirate Bay. That may be changing soon, according to TorrentFreak, which spoke to a Pirate Bay insider.

“The music industry can’t even imagine what we’re planning to roll out in the coming months. For years they’ve complained bitterly about piracy, but if they ever had a reason to be scared it is now. It will be a special surprise for IFPI’s 78th birthday, and we’re thinking of organizing a huge festival in Rome where IFPI was founded.”

The active subdomain fear.themusicbay.org currently displays a “comming soon” [sic] title, so it seems that the IFPI, or the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, has something to be concerned with. Its 78th birthday is in April of 2011. It will be interesting to see what comes in that month.

Hackers turn BitTorrent into BotTorrent, to use in DDoS attacks

An earlier report noted a proof-of-concept URL shortener that could be used in DDoS attacks, and a new presentation at the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) Congress in Berlin goes further. The latest hack uses an exploit in trackerless torrents that can turn BitTorrent into a DDoS tool.

DHT, or distributed hash tables, are the technology behind “trackerless torrents.” DHT is used in BitTorrent downloads to eliminate the need for a central tracker. Instead, DHT identifies peers who are downloading the same files.

However, as "Astro," who presented the concept noted, a malicious DHT could direct downloaders to a specific server, forming a DDoS attack, without the participants even knowing they are being used in that manner.

The presentation was called “Lying To The Neighbours.” TorrentFreak called it "BotTorrent," for creating a botnet out of a torrent.

One can see how such a hack could be used to hit the MPAA twice at once. A torrent download of a movie could be offered (1), while at the same time attacking the MPAA's website (2). Of course, the attackers couldn't be prosecuted (at least for the attack) as they would have no knowledge of the attack.

It would be a shame to see this used as ammunition against BitTorrent. Despite the fact it has piracy-related uses, it also has other, valid uses (such as downloading Linux distros).