AfterDawn: News

IsoHunt's trackers now blocked to US users

Due to their ongoing lawsuit from the MPAA, the admins at the popular torrent search engine IsoHunt will be blocking US visitors on their TorrentBox and Podtropolis trackers.

According to an IsoHunt statement,



"As of earlier today, we have disabled access from users in the US to our trackers. This goes for ALL trackers (torrentbox, podtropolis) we run. This is due to the US’s hostility towards P2P technologies, and we feel with our current lawsuit brought by the MPAA, we can no longer ensure your security and privacy in the US. So, if you’re outside the US, you may notice less peers. We encourage you to add other public, unhampered trackers to torrents you post, in addition to Torrentbox and Podtropolis’s trackers."

This is the second time recently that sites have been forced to block access to US users including last month's shut down of TorrentSpy.

The MPAA believes that the only purpose of these trackers and engines is to share unauthorized copyrighted content, but the owner of IsoHunt does not agree. “We process copyright takedown requests daily, and have done so for hundreds of requests in the past, if not thousands. We work with all copyright owners, and even the RIAA email us routinely. The MPAA is the only organization unwilling to cooperate with us.”

Source:
TorrentFreak

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 24 Sep 2007 19:41

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• 32 comments

• WierdName

  Aw, that sucks. Now, if I can't find what I want at my main site or the demonoid backup site, then I have to use a proxy to get on this site...

  24.9.2007 20:10 #1

• Saber9

  weird it still works for me using the search bar plugin in firefox.

  24.9.2007 20:25 #2

• locobrown

  www.proxy.org

  24.9.2007 20:28 #3

• ahiah9

  Working for me, unproxied. Torrentbox too. Torrentspy... not so much. :D

  24.9.2007 20:35 #4

• WierdName

  Hmmmm, now that I tried going there, it works fine for searching and stuff. Didn't try downloading anything though.

  24.9.2007 20:39 #5

• ahiah9

  Downloading is going just fine for me at both places. Didn't get full releases, but got normal speeds on the amount I did grab.

  24.9.2007 20:43 #6

• svtstang

  In all honesty I am surprised ANY public tracker made it this far!! Although I never used nor will ever use a site such as isohunt, it sucks that the US does not realize why sites such as this exist. I can pretty much guarantee if films/music/games were priced at a REASONABLE price point the vast amount of piracy that exists today would disappear. I will not condone piracy, but in my opinion the major publishers are doing all this bs to themselves by offering their work at such a high price point.
  
  Just my 2 cents.

  24.9.2007 20:46 #7

• ahiah9

  I gotta agree with svtstang. I've seen the quality of some downloaded films that are terrible. If people are willing to watch THAT instead of paying the overly high prices... Well, that ought to tell ya something.

  24.9.2007 20:52 #8

• WierdName

  Simply put, who wants to pay $9 just for admission to see a movie when it is only $5 to rent it later? And if you buy it, then it only costs $20 unless it is largely overpriced. On the other hand, how many people that claim they pirate because of high prices would actually go buy the product if it was at a reasonable price?

  24.9.2007 21:40 #9

• nintenut

  The service is working fine for me... All searches, the Torrentbox tracker, isohunt releases, everything...

  24.9.2007 23:02 #10

• nobrainer

  easy answer, as soon as us ip's are blocked use a proxy to make it think you are not in police state america!
  
  http://tor.eff.org/ anonymity online!

  24.9.2007 23:26 #11

• elvisgump

  I can search isoHunt, but the tracker status is "Failure: Unrecognized host (208.73.212.12). Please go to http://www.iPodNova.net to sign-up or login." through uTorrent.
  Right now it looks like Demonoid isn't responding, though it's 3:20am CDT in the US and it may just be maintenance though uTorrent says the tracker is being "actively" refused.

  25.9.2007 00:44 #12

• cousinkix

  If ISO Hunt, Torrent Spy and the others want to be left alone, it's time to adopt the Sergeant Schultz attitude ("I know Nuzzing")instead of providing the ropes for their own hangings. What kind of IDIOTS even keep track of their users' IP adresses if "privacy" is really an issue. Somebody, who makes no attempts to identify who is downloading materials, is also not capable of being a ratfink either.
  
  How ironic that the "old" BearShare P2P network is still operating on the fly even though FreePeers merged with I-Mesh and supposedly went straight. The old clients can be found at www.oldversions.com

  25.9.2007 02:18 #13

• Creddly

  Why do they keep trying?
  
  Pirates will never be stopped.

  25.9.2007 04:13 #14

• Blackwire

  cudnt u jus use an ip scrambler? like my ip address was somewhere in Africa...Z_Z

  25.9.2007 05:56 #15

• sk8flawzz

  i dont think its the websites that have been blocked..but the trackers
  the thing that connects you to other peers on the same torrent..
  right now it seems like demonoid is "down"..grrr

  25.9.2007 06:32 #16

• kikzm33z

  Haha, this is one of my reasons that I love the UK.

  25.9.2007 07:17 #17

• maddog68

  This totally sucks.........Paramount had my ip provider shut my service down till i stopped sharing a particular file over the weekend. It seems they set up a fake torrent on the piratebay so be carefull. They are out to get us.

  25.9.2007 07:18 #18

• hughjars

  Stamp out those fake files, use sites with an established community that comments and warns users if 'the industry' start trying to spread their sh*te around.

  25.9.2007 09:06 #19

• edsrouter

  First IsoHunt, and now Demonoid is completely down.... Rumor has CRIA is to blame.

  26.9.2007 00:10 #20

• JOHNSTARR

  If you guys would apply yourselves there are plenty of private trackers that are better than demonoid and public that are still accepting new users.
  

  XBOX 1.4
  Zenium Gold SP Solderless
  Maxtor 300 GB

  26.9.2007 00:59 #21

• PCB4

  Demonoid is definitely down. I am surprised, I thought the site was in Canada. Certainly, I am in Canada. Anyone know anything more?

  26.9.2007 06:11 #22

• ahjukhir

  I think demonoid is trying to move to some other country cause leaseweb, isp, has been giving BREIN, anti-piracy in netherlands all their tracker/torrent sites that they give service too, like names and addresses of owners. This really sucks,like the only good one left is TPB and they need to refine there search engine and organization cus its too messy.

  26.9.2007 06:26 #23

• creaky

  the best i can find out so far re Demonoid is this - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_jump.cfm/566087/3425228
  

  
  gif created by phantom69, he's a good lad
  Forum Rules - http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2487
  'Verbatim Taiyo Yuden', Verbatim DataLifePlus, vanilla Taiyo Yuden & RICOHJPNR03 are the ONLY media allowed near my Burners/standalone players.

  26.9.2007 07:13 #24

• simpsim1

  Originally posted by nobrainer: easy answer, as soon as us ip's are blocked use a proxy to make it think you are not in police state america!
  
  http://tor.eff.org/ anonymity online!
  TOR isn't exactly the sort of tool you want to use for BitTorrent. It's painfully slow for a start. Any foreign proxy will probably do the trick, but it's worth noting that these too can be slow, particularly if you're on a high broadband speed (4Mbits or above). Pick a proxy from a country that has a good infrastructure (Sweden's probably a good choice with all those 100Mbit connections they've got).
  
  If you find that once IsoHunt blocks US IPs, you are still getting connections, it's probably thanks to Decentralised Tracking (DHT) kicking in.
  
  Originally posted by cousinkix: How ironic that the "old" BearShare P2P network is still operating on the fly even though FreePeers merged with I-Mesh and supposedly went straight. The old clients can be found at www.oldversions.com
  That one's quite simple. BearShare used the Gnutella protocol, which is now poulated mainly by Limewire clients. The best thing about decentralised P2P is that you can't shut it down (You'd have to kill every single computer on the network). Even Kazaa still has a following, thanks to old clients still being made available.

  26.9.2007 14:13 #25

• Arniceous

  Tor running A-okay with ISOhunt. Point your browser to and choose another source www.torrentpond.com. I personally enjoy both DVDFab and AnyDVD with my Netflix account. How easy it is today compared to the TMPGEnc era. youngsters have it easy today. Oh anyone care to launch a fatel file to MPAA?
  
  "Phrozen for life" phrozencrew @ IRC

  28.9.2007 19:32 #26

• borhan9

  Not good news at all.

  28.9.2007 22:13 #27

• seb32

  it's at times like this that i feel good about being a canadian!

  29.9.2007 15:42 #28

• simpsim1

  ...and myself for being an Englishman LOL!!

  30.9.2007 06:08 #29

• Arniceous

  I was raised in Austria & northen california born in Napa, CA. This place used to be very cool but today it sucks big time. As far as I'm concerned the U.S.A. always has been nothing but a control freak. Pretty comical when you look back at it's early history; Europeans running from control to be free, using slaves to grow tobacco, killing indians and mexicans to increase land rights as well as buying it from the french. Then once established going into debt and then trying to change the world to bend to it's will and squeeze it's populants for every dime in order to continue global control efforts. Today many factions kill americans for pleasure and the U.S. says "what did we do to deserve this"? How pathetic!
  
  

  30.9.2007 07:45 #30

• creaky

  profanities removed

  30.9.2007 10:04 #31

• PCB4

  We received a letter from a lawyer represeting the CRIA, they were threatening with legal action and We need to start blocking Canadian traffic because of this. If you reside in Canada, that is the reason you are being redirected to this message. Thanks for your understanding, and sorry for any inconvenience.
  
  This appeared when I clicked on Demonoid. It really is strange because file sharing is not illegal here in Canada.

  2.10.2007 07:58 #32