torrents

Members of image board and Internet forum 4chan over the weekend launched a series of DDoS attacks against Web sites for the two biggest media trade groups.

Accused in the past of drumming up raids against Twitter, YouTube, and other popular sites, users at 4chan urged fellow members to carry out DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) late last week, taking both offline on Saturday.

The actions by 4chan users were launched in retaliation against similar DDoS attacks aimed at The Pirate Bay and other file-sharing … Read more

BitTorrent has launched the release candidate for Mainline 7.1. And with it, the company has launched several applications and has enabled developers to create their own programs for the platform.

According to BitTorrent, Mainline 7.1 will include 11 apps at launch, including Virus Guard, a service that helps keep users safe from malicious files, as well as Torrent Tweet, an offering that allows users to follow and discuss individual torrents on the social network. Previously, the apps were available only in BitTorrent's uTorrent service.

BitTorrent's hope is to have a full-fledged application ecosystem grow around Mainline. … Read more

Long recognized as the fastest torrent client for Windows, the Mac version of uTorrent finally discarded its beta status today. After nearly three years of development, two of them in the public eye, the stable version of uTorrent for Mac contains the same protocol enhancements that make the Windows version so flexible.

Built natively in Cocoa, these include the new uTransport protocol, protocol encryption, distributed hash table, and peer exchange support. uTP is a relatively new protocol that slows down all connection traffic when a congestion has been detected until the problem has been cleared. It basically prevents one person'… Read more

uTorrent is a free BitTorrent client, the Mac version (officially still in beta) of the popular, open-source uTorrent client for Windows.

Much like the lightweight uTorrent for Windows (also weighing in at less than 5MB), this version of uTorrent excels at downloading files quickly with minimal resource overhead. Even more stripped down than the Windows version, uTorrent for Mac gives you a familiar, three-pane interface, with support for multiple downloads and probably more drill-down details than you even need--including graphs, tables, and other specifics on seed, peers, pieces, and more. You can also throttle upload and download rates, and stop … Read more

Long considered the fastest and most unobtrusive of the various torrent clients around, uTorrent announced last week a surprising step toward plug-ins with the introduction of an "app store" in the Windows-only alpha release of uTorrent 2.2.

Called the Griffin project, the HTML and JavaScript-based API system will display apps from within the uTorrent interface in an embedded browser window. The developer SDK has yet to be released, and there was no indication which browser engine was being used at the time of writing. Currently, four demo apps are available.

There's a VirusGuard provided by security … Read more

A federal court judge has likely dealt a death blow to LimeWire, one of the most popular and oldest file-sharing systems, according to legal experts.

On Wednesday, CNET broke the news that U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood granted summary judgment in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which filed a copyright lawsuit against LimeWire in 2006. In her decision, Wood ruled Lime Group, parent of LimeWire software maker Lime Wire, and founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, induced copyright infringement, and engaged in unfair competition.

"It is obviously a fairly fatal decision for them," … Read more

Politicians and at least one liberal interest group, alarmed at the possibility that the Federal Communications Commission may leave broadband providers unregulated, are redoubling their efforts to push for sweeping Internet rules.

On Wednesday, two senior Democratic politicians sent a letter (PDF) to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski saying that imposing Net neutrality regulations on broadband providers such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon is "essential." And Free Press, the liberal lobby group that's led the fight to hand the FCC more Internet regulatory authority, hastily convened a conference call to warn that President Obama's Net … Read more

Open-source music and video jukebox Miro gets a serious signal boost in its recently released third version. It's available for Windows, Mac, and Linux; the update debuts an overall zippier program, along with automatic subtitle support, a higher maximum volume, and better file info support.

Quickly messing around in the new Miro, and having used it since it's days as the Democracy Player, it's impressive how far the program has come. As audio and video content continues to come from increasingly diverse sources, Miro provides an excellent clearinghouse from which to manage and play back content from … Read more

The Federal Communications Commission does not have the legal authority to slap Net neutrality regulations on Internet providers, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel in Washington, D.C. unanimously tossed out the FCC's August 2008 cease and desist order against Comcast, which had taken measures to slow BitTorrent transfers before voluntarily ending them earlier that year.

Because the FCC "has failed to tie its assertion" of regulatory authority to an actual law enacted by Congress, the agency does not have the power to regulate an Internet provider's network management practices, wrote Judge David Tatel … Read more