How will dbzer0 handle IP subpoenas?

EinatYahav@lemmy.today to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 140 points –

I'm referencing this article: https://torrentfreak.com/film-companies-seek-torrenting-history-related-to-redditor-240220/

Given that they're expanding to reddit, I was wondering how dbzer0 is setup to handle similar requests. The legal help page for dbzer0 is just an e-mail address.

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Don't know man. I'm not making enough in donations to pay for the server costs, never mind hiring lawyers. I'll deal with this when I have to 😅

Wait really? Fuck I will donate you something. Also if you ever need legal help I know the EFF can support you on that.

Wait, how do we donate?

There's two big links in the sidebar

Sweet, set up periodic donations, hopefully ive covered my costs of use

I'm on mobile so can't see the sidebar, but did you fix it so the donation is for something innocuous? Like I want to donate to you to buy your mom flowers or something, not to run a piracy oriented server.

It's just to add a layer of protection for everyone around, including you.

I'm on mobile so can't see the sidebar...

Then I recommend upgrading your mobile experience to one that does. I personally prefer Voyager, "an Apollo-like open source web client for Lemmy. It's a mobile-first app, but works great on desktop devices, too."

Voyager PWA: https://vger.app/ Source code: https://github.com/aeharding/voyager

I’m signing up for a recurring donation because I think you personally are the GOAT, but one bit of advice:

It isn’t obvious that the images are links to the donation page. I’m relatively tech literate and I read the sidebar three times looking for a “DONATE HERE” hyperlink. Maybe consider making it a bit more idiot proof so fools like me can more easily throw money at you. 😉

The "please help cover server costs" is not clear? Should I write also "press one of the icons below"? Before a couple of months it was just text Btw, but I changed it to make it pop out more

Honestly, I feel like such a dumbass for not realizing it was a link, but yeah, “click the pirate coffee mug below” would have saved me some confusion.

In any event, I’m more than happy to donate to you, and will definitely do what I can to keep us going. If you get in a jam, let the members know—we’ve got your back. Best instance in the Fediverse!

Much appreciated. Honestly I've been kinda stumped on making my efforts somehow rewarded. My liberapay projects lists is like 2 pages long, but I get less funding than most. I don't know how others get thousands.

It’s awareness. If I’d really thought about it, it would have been obvious to me that I should contribute, but most mobile apps hide the sidebar, and “out of sight, out of mind” as they say.

I would find it interesting to see a sort of “state of the union” post every month or so where you tell us the cool FOSS stuff you’re working on, how the servers are evolving, and how well the donations are covering your costs. No need to beg, just let the facts of the situation be known and jog our memories that we all have to band together to keep this place running.

Honestly, this whole conversation has lit a fire under my butt. I’m going to make a Santa Claus run through all my favorite trackers and FOSS projects, and it is all because you made me think for a bit. I imagine there must be others like me who would love to help, but just get caught up with their own lives.

Do y’all hear me, fellow pirates? Our captains need us! Heed the call! Put your money where your FOSS is!

Edit: screw it, I’m going to triple my donation. You deserve it.

I’m doing my part!

Hmm, I think you are right about those icons. I've just tweaked the layout slightly to make it more obvious what they represent with a text link underneath each one. Hopefully that'll help others figure it out.

All instances should have the donation links at the top of the sidebar tbh, and an infographic or something to show how far along they are to paying for monthly server costs.

I appreciate the candid response (though I'm not from your server).

Here's hoping you don't anything annoying come your way.

It's weird, but VPNs also work for things that aren't piracy, like freedom of speech...about piracy 😁

Until you realize your vpn provider can see everything you do

Could always go to excessive measures, your own cloud hosted VPN node to hop to an external provider or similar. Unless you're a major target nobody wants to deal with multiple providers and jurisdictions.

If you find a provider shady enough not to give a damn, then yes. Otherwise you have the same problem as before

Or you can use the old trick of hiding a small computer in a fake charger and leaving it plugged in at a nearby business that you don't like.

I'm pretty sure mullvad will let you do this and they were pretty highly recommended last I checked

But their business model is solely based on not disclosing your info. If they do, most of all for just some silly comments on an Internet forum, be sure they are going to fail.

Any VPN you choose should have a 'no-log' policy that's been third party verified

It's not just that they don't disclose it, it should be that they don't have it

you cant give what you dont have. i hope their log rotation is tight.

information is risk, so i delete any information as soon as its no longer needed including logs > 36 hours

I would hope a piracy instance is hosted somewhere that doesn't care about such things as American court orders.

Looks like it’s hosted by Lithuanian Radio and TV Center. At least that’s who owns the IP address.

dbzer0? Or do you mean something else? LRTC is a public gov org, if someone is hosting a torrent tracker on their net they’re gonna have a bad time

I can’t speak to that. I just looked up dbzer0’s IP address and did a Whois to see who owned it.

Just don't incriminate yourself on social media. Lemmy is not private or secure. Its silly for anyone to rely on dbzer0.

Also...

"The plaintiffs have always maintained that they don’t intend to pursue legal action against the targeted Redditors."

Your probably to much of a small fish anyway...

The simple fact that lemmy federates posts will mitigate the problems posed by this. For example if they want your IP, they need to go to lemmy.today, but for mine they will need to go to tchncs.de. If we were using reddit, they would be able to get everyone's address with just one request. The more small instances there are, the harder it becomes.

I don't understand all of how federation works, but couldn't they just roll their own instance and just collect all the data they get from federating?

AFAIK they would get the info "which user said what". The source would be what ever instance you are from tho, not your own ip. So the owner of a instance knows as much as everyone else.

Also, the elephant in the remains in the room: discussing piracy is not piracy.

Saying "I pirated XYZ", though, is admitting to a criminal act, and can be used in court if linked strongly to a person through their account information and IP address.

I'm not sure that's actually true. I'm not a lawyer but I suspect it would take more than an internet comment saying "I did it."

Arr there matey, I've been pirating them cat videos over them interwebs again. I love Cox, they even know that I pirate all the cat videos and they just tosh the any letters that they get pertaining to my activities on the intertubes into their paper shredder.

Is this an admission? While it would seem like it, I think not. How does anyone know what is true or not, especially when it's on the internet. Like me, am I the real LimeWire? How can you be sure?

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