BitTorrent Torque web app turn browser into a file-sharing hub

The company behind the popular torrent downloading software uTorrent has announced a new project called BitTorrent Torque, an alpha release set of tools that can be run from HTML5-compliant web browsers like Google Chrome, turning them into a fully-fledged file-sharing hub.

Lead developer Patrick Williams explains in the blog announcement that Torque works by providing a JavaScript hook to a custom BitTorrent backend. "Torque is a JavaScript interface to a custom torrent client that exposes all the power of BitTorrent to web developers.  Simply put, it allows anyone to utilize our powerful technology to create completely fresh and new experiences for users with just a couple lines of code."

There are currently two extensions available, the first (pictured below) is Paddle Over, which integrates drag and drop file transfers via social networking and sharing as well as other computers. The second extension is OneClick, which is currently available for Google Chrome and is used to convert a typical torrent download into a simple to manage standard in-browser download.

Future Torque extensions will further demonstrate the potential capabilities of its APIs and will eventually provide video streaming, file transcoding and antivirus scanning, among other functions. Right now bugs are expected as it's currently an alpha build, but as time passes its creators hope to increase functionality.

"Torque is both an underlying, fully fledged torrent client, as well as a simple JavaScript interface designed to make the technology as accessible as possible," Williams told TorrentFreak. "Our hope is that the development and use of torrent technologies can scale the same way that a torrent swarm does, and this is our initial effort towards that goal."

The software is still in its infancy, but with web apps gaining more functionality due to CSS3, HTML5 and JavaScript maturing it has resulted in developers being able to create web apps that run across multiple OS ecosystems, saving them resources, time and money.

Man fined $7,000 for sharing 'WordPress for Dummies' via BitTorrent

Robert Carpenter of Poughkeepsie, New York has been ordered to pay $7,000 in damages for sharing a copy of "WordPress All-in-One For Dummies" on BitTorrent. Carpenter was part of a mass filing by publisher John Wiley & Sons last October that included 27 John Does allegedly caught sharing "For Dummies" books via BiTorrent.

According to TorrentFreak, Wiley has since filed over a dozen mass suits with several hundred John Does accused of illegally sharing copies of works from the extensive For Dummies series.

"Defendants are contributing to a problem that threatens the profitability of Wiley. Although Wiley cannot determine at this time the precise amount of revenue that it has lost as a result of peer-to-peer file sharing of its copyrighted works though BitTorrent software, the amount of revenue that is lost is enormous," Wiley's attorney wrote during the initial filing last year.

It was noted that that one popular For Dummies book on Photoshop CS5 was pirated more than 74,000 times on the BitTorrent site Demonoid.me alone.

Although many people targeted by Wiley have settled out of court (for an undisclosed amount, but ~$3,000 is common), the publisher is applying additional pressure to those who won't pony up. Such is the case with Carpenter, who ignored Wiley's complaint, according to a court document obtained and uploaded by TorrentFreak.

Interestingly, the $7,000 penalty isn't just for copyright infringement, but $2,000 of it is specifically for counterfeiting Wiley's trademarks -- a first for a case of this nature, TorrentFreak believes.

Boxopus pushes torrent downloads directly to your Dropbox, skips desktop clients

A new service called Boxopus has come up with an interesting way of bridging the worlds of BitTorrent and cloud storage, offering a way for people to cue up torrent downloads and have them automatically added to their Dropbox folders, all without even needing to install a torrent client on your computer.


Boxopus uses the Dropbox API, which means you can link both services using your Dropbox credentials, without fear of giving access to other files stored in your account. Once that step is done you can add as many torrents as you like through the Boxopus website and the latter will then take care of the downloading. All files are automatically sent to a special folder within your Dropbox account and synced across devices.

Of course, if you don’t want the same file downloaded on multiple computers, you can use Dropbox’s selective sync feature to leave torrent downloads in the cloud, accessing or downloading them as needed.

One of the main benefits to users is that they can add torrents to their Dropbox from work, school or on the road.TorrentFreak also notes that these downloads are anonymous, as Boxopus takes care of the downloading, although you are still required to enter your email when registering to the service.
Another thing worth highlighting is that the service aims to make torrent downloads easier for novice users with a one-click Boxopus download button that can be integrated into websites. TorrentReactor, Fulldls.com, Vertor.com, and Torrentzap.com have already added this option, according to TorrentFreak.
But of course there are several downsides as well, starting with the fact that free Dropbox users only get 2GB of space out of the box — you can bump that to over 10GB without spending a dime but there’s some work involved. Downloading generally takes a bit longer too because Dropbox sync speeds are limited. And of course there’s the question of whether Dropbox will block the service when pressed over piracy concerns.
Boxopus is completely free and unlimited during beta testing stage but the company plans to rollout paid subscriptions at some point in the future, imposing limits on free subscriptions.
Source : http://techspot.com

PayPal freezes VPN provider's account, spooked by BitTorrent

TorGuard, a VPN service provider, was recently given the cold shoulder by PayPal for providing BitTorrent-related services. Upon discovery of TorGuard's relationship with BitTorrent, PayPal abruptly froze the company's account, preventing the virtual network provider from sending or receiving payments through PayPal's service.

TorGuard received this vaguely-written e-mail notifying the company that it had violated PayPal's terms of service agreement.

When we reviewed your account, we noticed that your activity violates some of the agreements you have with us. Because of this, we’ve limited your accounts and can no longer offer our services to you. You’ll still be able to log in to view your transaction history, but you won’t be able to send or receive money.

Source: torrentfreak.com, PayPal support

Concerned about the potential disruption and not knowing exactly what rules TorGuard was breaking, the company's owner called PayPal to resolve the issue. A PayPal business account representative informed him that PayPal does not allow the promotion of torrent trackers. The owner confronted the support representative and explained that TorGuard is a type of hosting service, not a tracker or a company that promotes trackers. The PayPal employee said the decision had already been made and there was nothing further which could be done.

PayPal's reluctance to work with TorGuard is likely due to the cloud of requests and lawsuits which surround BitTorrent-related services which leverage PayPal to monetize their operations. Copyright holders have worked with PayPal in the past in order to identify website operators who are suspected of violating intellectual property rights. Additionally, the company routinely shuts off funding to such operations entirely.

PayPal is well-known for suspending accounts which engage in questionable activity. However, sometimes, the online payment service drops accounts which aren't so questionable. Markus Persson, Minecraft's creator, knows this first hand as well as Regestry, a company who utilized PayPal to collect donations for purchasing children's toys to give away for charity. PayPal suspended Regestry's account because, effectively, charity is not a "worthy cause".

TorGuard's owner seems mostly undaunted by the setback, however. Although the exclusion of PayPal payments may not necessarily be a good thing, he said that the site still accepts credit cards, pre-paid cards, Google Checkout and various other services.

BitTorrent launches free personal file-swapping service

BitTorrent just released a new cloud storage and file-sharing service that's set to rival YouSendIt, MegaUpload and the like. Simply called "Share", the new service combines BitTorrent peer-to-peer technology with Amazon's EC2 and S3 to store any type of file in the cloud and share it with a private group of people -- as opposed to creating a .torrent file for the public in general -- without size restrictions or fees.

For now the service is still an early Alpha phase, but the company has already released a stand-alone Share client for Windows and integrated it into the non-stable build of uTorrent for the Mac. To share files users are required to fill out "to" and "from" email addresses, and drag files or folders to the app to start uploading. Your recipients will then receive an email notifying them that they have files available to download. You can also connect with Facebook and create a sharing group based on your friend lists at the social network.

According to GigaOM, files are initially uploaded to Amazon's servers to provide caching, but they are also shared via a peer-to-peer connection as long as someone with the full file is online. As soon as a file is sufficiently shared by peers it is taken off the cloud, relying only on BitTorrent to cut hosting costs.

Here are some key features as detailed by BitTorrent in a recent blog post:

No Limits: With no limits on number of sends, file size/quality, or number of recipients, users may send HD videos, high-res photo collections, and other oversized files – with no fees.

Ultra Fast Downloads: Share is built on top of an innovative file-sharing technology that is already used by over 100m people every month. Friends may now download the biggest files without the endless wait.

Private: Choose exactly who may access shared files. Set up groups to share with friends, family and co-workers, or just send a file to one person.

Social and Fun: Friends may comment on the files in real-time.

The new service will be integrated into all BitTorrent and µTorrent software clients after its alpha testing phase.

Some facts about BitTorrent

Torrenting is perhaps one of the favorite ways for internet users to download copyrighted material for free. It involves downloading a .torrent file and loading it into a torrent program, which then finds users around the internet (thanks to "trackers") who have the necessary files stored on their computers. These "peers" then serve the files to the downloaders without a middle-man server, hence the term peer-to-peer networking.

While they can be used legitimately, torrents are largely used for piracy. As of the time of writing, popular torrent search engine IsoHunt has indexed 8.25 million torrents with a combined size of 13,635 TB (or 13.6 petabytes). With 33.58 million connected peers, this gives a rough average of 4 peers per torrent. This also means the average size of a torrent indexed on IsoHunt is 1.64 GB.

Note: When talking about torrent file sizes, we're not referring to the actual .torrent file size, which is usually a few kilobytes, but rather to the size of the files the torrent enables you do download from peers.

Here's where it starts to get interesting. Public torrent aggregator Torrentz is currently indexing a larger 11.70 million torrents (without duplicates) across 33 domains, which provides for a good statistical base.

BitTorrent downloads linked to RIAA and DHS

The recent launch of www.youhavedownloaded.com has been attracting an ever-increasing audience as internet users scramble to see what publicly available data is stored against IP addresses they use. For those guilty of piracy the site offers a disturbing insight into the data held against their IPs, but it is now becoming known that many of those in favor of SOPA are not quite so squeaky clean either.

In an ironic turn of events, IP addresses assigned to the RIAA have been linked to content that has been illegally downloaded according toTorrentFreak. The site found that six of the anti-piracy organization's IP addresses had downloaded various files, including the first five seasons of the hit TV series Dexter, and music from artists Jay-Z and Kanye West, among other things.

"Those partial IP addresses are similar to block addresses assigned to RIAA. However, those addresses are used by a third party vendor to serve up our public Web site," a RIAA spokesperson told Cnet. They argued that the information was inaccurate and none of its staff had used those IPs to connect to the internet.

Even more bizarre is the fact they are using the "someone else did it" excuse despite their own lawyers refusing to accept that claim in the cases of tens of thousands of people previously prosecuted for piracy. Added to which, it is questionable whether an organization can reserve blocks of IP addresses then just hand them out to third parties. There could of course be genuine reasons for seeking pirated files, but it is also possible that employees have been downloading them as well.

The Department of Homeland Security, known for seizing domains relating to illegal downloading was also mentioned in the report, with over 900 unique IP addresses that when searched flagged up pirated content. The two organizations join Fox, Sony and Universal, as well as the office of the French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Despite a request for comment in light of the recent revelations the DHS has remained silent.

The one thing they all have in common is the desire to make piracy regulations tougher, with most supporting SOPA. The French President is particularly renowned for his tough stance on those that pirate copyrighted material online. It will be interesting to see if they launch investigations and treat those found to be downloading with the same level of aggression as the general public often is, or whether it will be brushed under the carpet in an endless maze of lawyer excuses as they push ever harder to implement SOPA into U.S. legislation.

BitTorrent partners with its first author

BitTorrent has announced that it has partnered with its first author. That's right: the company wants to make sure its platform can be used for legally distributing books too.

Megan Lisa Jones has decided to distribute her book Captive via BitTorrent. The book is a psychological thriller with a very timely storyline of political intrigue amidst terrorism and captivity. You can download the torrent for free from clearbits.net. You can also install the app in BitTorrent's App Studio. To buy a physical copy and read some reviews, check out Amazon.

BitTorrent has been working hard over the past six months to convince filmmakers and musicians to spotlight their content on its new community. The goal is to experiment with different technologies, programs, and platforms to help artists connect directly with users. Last month, the company partnered with Khan Academy to offer educational videos via the platform.

The idea of adding books came after App Studio users told the company that they were consuming them on their tablets and e-readers, so the company moved to get the content creators involved. Books aren't very large downloads, so we don't see them becoming particularly popular on BitTorrent, but they will definitely fill a niche demand.

"One of the things we really like about Megan is her adroit understanding of technology," a BitTorrent spokesperson said in a statement. "She gets the fundamental technological benefits of BitTorrent – how files can be downloaded ultra-fast. She also believes that publishers must embrace technology and the Internet audience, and work with it. We applaud her decision to help us continue with our experiments and blaze a new digital trail for authors."