TorrentFreak Email Update

Busted Android Store Founder to Crowdfund Battle Against U.S. Govt

Posted: 09 Feb 2014 02:25 AM PST

At age 15 most teenagers are having fun online and Aaron from Mississippi was no exception. But while most are chatting on Facebook or watching videos on YouTube, this young man had bigger things in mind.

Before his 16th birthday Aaron had launched Applanet, a service dedicated to the sharing of Android software. While the site’s growth and success was undoubtedly exciting for the teenager, by his 18th birthday things had taken a turn for the worse.

On the morning of August 21, 2012, heavily armed FBI agents raided Aaron’s parents’ home, described in official documents as a “one-story house, gray in color” and pictured with a sit-down lawnmower outside. The lack of any kind of criminal record didn’t dampen the official response from federal agents.

“They were fully armed, because you know how dangerous a recently turned 18-year-old geek with no criminal history can be,” Aaron’s friends now explain.

“The mighty feds got a search and seizure warrant to raid Aaron's home and confiscate all of his stuff. They took pretty much everything that had a power cord or a battery, even if it wasn't remotely related to apps. The house was trashed.”

While Aaron was trying to recover from his shock, the government was speaking with the media. The Department of Justice said that seizure orders had been executed against three website domain names – applanet.net, appbucket.net and snappzmarket.com – which were said to have engaged in the illegal distribution of copyrighted Android apps. They were the very first seizures of their kind.

"Criminal copyright laws apply to apps for cell phones and tablets, just as they do to other software, music and writings,” U.S. Attorney Yates announced.

“These laws protect and encourage the hard work and ingenuity of software developers entering this growing and important part of our economy. We will continue to seize and shut down websites that market pirated apps, and to pursue those responsible for criminal charges if appropriate."

Now, 18 months later, Aaron is still in limbo while the government continues to build its case against him. The 19-year-old is putting up a fight, but of course that’s costing money. The cash put up so far by his family isn’t going to get him through a trial so to try and bridge the gap his friends have launched the Friends of Aaron Indiegogo campaign. They’re aiming to raise $50K, with any surplus automatically getting donated to the EFF.

TorrentFreak caught up with Aaron’s lawyer, Rain Minns of Rain Minns Law in Austin, Texas, to find out more about the campaign and her client’s predicament.

“I can tell you a little bit about Aaron. He’s 19 years old, has never had any type of criminal record, and doesn’t even have a drivers’ license. His life and friends are on-line. So, when the feds came and took his connection to the internet, they took away Aaron’s entire connection to friends,” Minns told TF.

“Friends of Aaron knows that Aaron does not have the money to fight against the massive resources that the U.S. federal government has put into this international power play. I can only guess, but I would suspect that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in this attempt to throw Aaron into prison. The $50k is underestimated, but we do not need to match the feds dollar for dollar. The feds are not known for being cost effective,” Minns explains.

While Aaron is likely to be charged with offenses related to software piracy, Minns believes that her client is innocent and should respond accordingly.

“I believe that an innocent person should never plead guilty. The key for Aaron’s defense is to be able to have the funds to level the playing field against the resources of the feds,” Minns explains.

And leveling the playing field won’t be easy. Minns gave TF a list of expenses that will be burned through in defending Aaron, from the hiring of technology experts to counter the expensive ones the government will put forward to the anticipated cost of document analysts “in case the feds try to bury us in paperwork.”

“Justice is not something that should be about the size of a person’s wallet. For instance, I don’t see government raids of YouTube. To the contrary, YouTube was sued by another corporation and won the case on summary judgment (i.e. without even needing a trial). But, when it comes to a 19-year-old teenager, it’s a different story.”

The Friends of Aaron Indiegogo campaign, which carries more documentation on the raid and aftermath, can be found here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.

BitTorrent Users Are Most Active on Sundays

Posted: 08 Feb 2014 01:03 PM PST

At any given point in time, millions of people are sharing files via BitTorrent. The most used trackers process millions of requests per minute, each serving between 15 and 30 million people at once.

Demonii is one of these top BitTorrent trackers. The standalone tracker offers no torrents but merely coordinates communication between people who share files via sites such as The Pirate Bay.

After its launch last year, the tracker was embraced by The Pirate Bay who added it to all torrents by default. As a result the number of peers exploded, reaching 20 million at its peak last week.

Unlike most other large trackers Demonii has decided to open up its traffic statistics to the public. This allows us to see the ebb and flow of BitTorrent users from hour-to-hour and day-to-day, which offers a unique insight into the BitTorrent ecosystem.

The graph below shows the number of users that were connected to the Demonii tracker over the past week. One of the things that stands out is the variation over time.

BitTorrent users connected (CET)

Most people were connected to the tracker on Sunday afternoon U.S. time, which is Sunday evening in Europe. Last week nearly 20 million people were using the Demonii tracker during its peak. A few hours later, on Monday morning, this number had plummeted to 14 million.

Another statistic of interest is the number of connections these users make to the tracker. The graph below shows that Demonii is handling 2 million connections every minute, which is more than 3,333 connections per second.

The traffic patterns of the connections are similar to that of the number of peers, with Sunday being the busiest day.

Connections per minute

The statistics show that BitTorrent users are most active during the weekend, on Sunday in particular. The variations during the day are in line with the geographical popularity of BitTorrent, which peaks around noon in America and during the evening in Europe.

Earlier, the makers of uTorrent visualized the number of people starting up their BitTorrent clients on a typical day. The time lapse below is based on the number of check-ins and shows where the 60 million users were located.

Do you have a favorite day to use BitTorrent, or do you have your client up and running all week long? Feel free to let us know in the comments.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.