Q: What happened?
A: On Tuesday, OiNK was arrested at his house in a "raid", they also "raided" his fathers house and work place. His computer and various other items were taken (including his xbox, but atleast they left the Wii). Later on Dutch Police seized the OiNK.cd servers hosted in the Netherlands. A few hours later OiNK was released on bail, but not charged. His father is fine too, he was not arrested.
Q: Do I have to worry about my password?
A: Passwords have never been stored as plain text anywhere. Only as salted MD5 hashes. Also, police or industry agencies do not care about your password. If it lets you sleep any better, change it on all other trackers and such. But it is not required at all.
Q: Do I as a normal user need to be scared?
A: No. The logs stored were not enough to incriminate any of our users. They have better things to do than hunt down 180,000 Britney Spears fans.
Q: Did you log IP adresses with all the transfers?
A: No of course we did not.
Q: What about those who donated?
A: Honestly, we do not know. Of course you cannot expect to get any donated money back. Accounts have been seized, so far nobody knows whats gonna happen. If you did not donate like thousands of dollars, you should not worry too much.
Q: What about that other admin?
A: The former staff will not comment on any questions regarding the situation of him.
Q: Where can I donate?
A: Updated: A site has been set up for collecting gifts towards the legal defence fund. See http://oink.cd for details.
Q: Now what?
A: OiNK has been bailed until 21st December pending further investigations, no charges have currently been brought against him. The Police will go through the seized material.
Q: The future of the OiNK community?
A: To be frank? We don't know. None of the moderators had access to either the code or databases, and OiNK's possessions were confiscated. We have a boat, just we don't have anything to paddle with.
Kind regards,
your former staff of OiNK's Pink Palace
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63 comments:
What about the donors?
what about the donors?
If...and I mean a big IF, OINK were to rise from the ashes, would members be notified?
I also want to know about the donors...
why is oink gay (pink)
Stop with the retarded comments already.
w00t!!!!@@£@!£!@£!@!@!!!!!!
About the donors, FAQ has been updated. About the site coming, nobody knows. About OiNK being gay: i can assure you he is very hetero, and if you just noticed the site being pink now, you are clearly not a longtime user and wont miss it much :)
The authorities are only interested in people suspected of selling copyrighted materials. Donors are in no more dire straights than any of the other users given the information available, and donating itself is not grounds for any charges whatsoever.
I was just thinking, How did the "Authorities" manage to get hold of control of the domain name? Did they force OiNK to hand over the login for it or simply replace the server at NForce?
Thanks for the updates anyway mate.
It is not hard for the authorities to get a dns redirected to somewhere else, they are not in the need of someones password.
Zap, in regards to this quote:
"Q: Do I as a normal user need to be scared?
A: No. The logs stored were not enough to incriminate any of our users. They have better things to do than hunt down 180,000 Britney Spears fans."
Are there qualifications for this or does this truly apply to all users? Are users who downloaded and seeded(though were not the source of) pre-releases at any risk? Thanks.
Is there any estimate as to how many people actually donated?
Is there any way to get back to the #oink? it seems to not work anymore since about 10 minutes after the netsplit.
Are we going to get to find out what kind of questions OiNK was asked?
http://dot-slash-csc.iblogger.org/oinkfaq.html
"Q: Do I as a normal user need to be scared?
A: No. The logs stored were not enough to incriminate any of our users. They have better things to do than hunt down 180,000 Britney Spears fans."
Imho this applies almost all users, wheter downloading or seeding. In a worst case, some very small % of the uploaders might get investigated closely. I would expect that to be less than 500. But nobody can say for sure.
"Is there any estimate as to how many people actually donated?"
Estimates, rumours, lies. But as of now, no facts.
#OiNK on Xevion.net has been under a botnet attack. Scroll down a bit on the blog to read updates about IRC.
"Are we going to get to find out what kind of questions OiNK was asked?"
Dont expect to get a detailed log of the questions. Questions asked were normal, as if how the site has been set up, how did everything work and such. And also proofed once again some of the authorities as total computer newbs :)
I would think uploaders of pre-release material are the secondary target of this investigation. I think the rest of the uploaders, especially the ones that upped OOP material they own a physical CD of, should be fine.
The 'server guy' on youtube mentioned that the police came to him 2 month ago regarding the oink server.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRaVhG-Mb_0&watch_response
Would make it quiet possible they collected a lot of user data, including IP's as well as what has been uploaded, shared etc.
Not sure this data is enough to actually get a user sentenced or his home raided, depending on the country of course
I hope those that donated arent in any trouble
First off, I'd like to thank all you guys (the mods and admins that is) for all the work you've done in the past and wish you all the best for future.
As for the future of the tracker, I think this is an excellent chance to "start anew" and fix a few fundamental flaws that probably contributed to the scrutiny on the site. The current invite policy has to go. It's funny how the media talk about OiNK being "exclusive" and "hard to get in to", when in reality - as too many people were given too many invites - invites to OiNK were traded around like currency on many other trackers and sites. With no real on-site screening process for potential new members, this meant that just about every fucktard and their dog could get in (no offence to any of the members, but reading through the forums often reaffirmed this).
What to do then? I think the best way to go, if the tracker was to come back, is to first replenish the ranks slowly with users who have proved to be good members in the past (ie. ex-power users, etc). Afterwards, there are two strategies (and combinations thereof) that could be used to ensure the quality of the userbase. The first is simply to tighten the regulations on invites - make them a privilidge, not a right. Perhaps implement a system that automatically grants users invites based on the average ratio of their invitees. Basically, you've got to prevent invites from becoming a disposable asset that is given away to randoms in IRC or on forums "just because I have them", or to gain access to another tracker.
The second option is to adopt a system similar to one that was used over at KG, which is to have potential users answer a questionare about music taste, computer knowledge, etc. These would then be either approved or rejected by existing members. Obviously, to keep the system from being abused you could put in some restrictions on how many people a user could approve. For example, instead of the current policy of giving power users one invite every fortnight (or something to that effect?), you could make it a couple of "approvals", or a mixture of invites and approvals so they could still invite their friends. The people that users "approve" could be treated as invites are now - the inviter retains a degree of responsibility over the invitee's actions, hopefully making people think twice about who they let in. This sort of system has countless advantages, apart from the obvious one of being able to weed out douchebags, 13 year old girls, and Creed fans (no offence guys, heh). You could ask potential users if they intend to gather data for malicious purposes (don't ask me if it'll hold in court), or if they're a member of any other private trackers. The system could also be used to help new users and save countless staff hours. For example, an invite seeker has lots of music to share but knows little about bittorrent and computers. Provided they answer the questionare truthfully, they could be directed to pages that explain how to forward ports/create torrents/rip cd's/etc as soon as they log in. The possibilities are endless.
Private trackers that don't somehow screen potential users are hardly "private" at all, just a little harder to get in to. I think that the ongoing problems with stats cheaters, invite sellers, and dumbasses who couldn't follow simple instructions (the continuous re-leaking of Kala was case in point) at the OiNK of old is proof enough that some - many - people shouldn't be allowed to jeopardise a community that so many hold so dear. Changes must be made for OiNK to live on.
i am freaking out now about the donor issue. really scared. if a donor is in the US can they be charged in England? what if the donation was only $5 and almost a year ago? will there be trouble for those people?
if i donated because i enjoyed the forums and wanted to help with server costs, you'd think there'd be nothing wrong with that. but i don't think the truth matters here - whatever the authorities say was the purpose of the "'donations'" is what they were for in the eyes of judge and jury.
"The 'server guy' on youtube mentioned that the police came to him 2 month ago regarding the oink server.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRaVhG-Mb_0&watch_response
Would make it quiet possible they collected a lot of user data, including IP's as well as what has been uploaded, shared etc.
Not sure this data is enough to actually get a user sentenced or his home raided, depending on the country of course"
can any of the oink team shed any light on this? a
ccording to oink himself from irc "the logs we store aren't enough to inciminate users"
who is right here?
Thanks for all the hard work you've done, up and including this blog. It's nice to know that good people didn't get sucked off into some other universe.
People need to stop freaking out. There were hundreds of thousands of users on oink.
Going after individual users would be like trying to kill every ant in an and hill with a magnifying glass. You have to do it one at a time. Honestly, you should pick up a lottery ticket if you're worried, since you probably have better odds of winning the lottery than getting sued.
To Anonymous above (the really long comment):
You know we're talking about humans here, right? Like... the human race? A tough lesson that we all have to face at some point is that we, as a race, as a society, and often as individuals, suck, really hard. You can enforce all the ridiculously complex requirements as much as you want -- idiots will still join, wreck things, and most good things will inevitably come to an end, especially if someone who opposes said things has a lot of money.
OiNK, overall, had an amazing community of witty assholes with good taste in music. There were users who put the rest to shame, yes. There are always going to be those users. Every "acceptance" scheme is going to have its flaws.
Compare OiNK to TPB. TPB is effing awful. OiNK was incredible, in quality, in download speeds, and in community.
If OiNK were to return, I don't think the "invites" system would need to be restructured all that much. It would take time to grow again, yes, and there would be plenty of people banned in the process. But OiNK, as it stood, was an amazing thing. The invite structure wasn't the problem. The problem was the inability of the stubborn rich and powerful to communicate with the self-righteous new-age lower to middle class. And the war continues...
i'm not freaking out about being 1 of 180,000 especially with Paine/OiNK saying they didn't keep any incriminating logs.
i'm freaking out because there is a much smaller number of people who donated, and their details can be (we assume) easily traced via PayPal. If I am one of them, the odds are much worse that I might get in trouble for contributing to piracy/copyright infringement or illegal trade. like buying goods you know to be stolen.
its enough to make you wish you'd never donated, which is sad, because the donations did not necessarily have anything to do with any illegal activity that may have been going on.
The argument that oink users wont be under scrutiny because of their number and the magnitude of their crime is one that has not proved true in the US, where the RIAA will sue people for 1 cd or epople who dont even own a computer.
I hope the logs dont have anything, because in the US, if they focus on you you lose, period, there is no defense in the land of the rednecks, who award 220k sentences at the expense of a mother whos child downloaded a miniscule amount of music.
I hope the Uk and Dutch authorities wont hand the info, as little as there may be, to the RIAA, because I have a feeling the RIAA will sue every one of the US users if they can, if the ips werent logged, there may be hope even if they get accounts, they wont be able to get track anyone down, but its hard to hold up too much hope.
Worst case scenario, if they have email adresses they could get ips, its hard to think how such a group wont try and sue SOMEONE.
pink = pig = oink
So much for being obvious.
THANK YOU for this blog. It is appreciated that it would be setup to provide the userbase with this information. Another reason to love this community.
=)
The hard work is appreciated. Greatly.
I think the reason most people are saying that users have little to fear is that in the past, users have not been targeted, and in general, aren't worth the hassle. The servers are down. The site is gone. The victory has been had. A bunch of college kids that considered themselves to have an elite taste in music are simply a dime a dozen. Why go after people who are just going to file bankruptcy? To send out a warning? To make a statement? The statement's already been made, the battle has already been won. These kids are shitting their pants right now and aren't downloading. In their eyes, they've won.
And also, since their big deal is that oink users weren't a bunch of friends sharing a few songs, I think (rather humorously) that there should be an official friend contract, stating that you belong to a family of friends sharing music. Of course, that wouldn't make much of a difference, but a good lawyer could probably do something with it.
I guess this is a lesson to private trackers. Wait until an album is out before you allow it to be seeded? And try to stay away from major labels? They're dicks anyway.
dude, it's way too early to be trying to get a new site back up.
worry about the guy that went down for all of you. he took a very serious bullet. in a way, he's sort of like jesus. he died for your piracy.
give the wound some time to heal. go use thepiratebay or something. yeah the quality'll be bad and you won't find nearly as much. but it's kool. another site will come around. you know that. send your prayers up for oink. be there for him. show him support.
Catgofire: you're just reinforcing my point.
Yes, a lot of people are dumb, rude assholes, which is why public trackers suck as you pointed out. Yes, OiNK had some great members and had the potential of becoming a great community. Yes, assholes will always find a way in, but why wouldn't you act to minimise this if you have the means to do so? If tougher invite policies are enforced OiNK could become a great community where people can discuss and share music (what it was supposed to be in the first place), instead of a place for teenagers to download the latest linkin park album for free.
This isn't the place for this discussion. E-mail me.
Thanks again to the OiNK staff.
"=)
The hard work is appreciated. Greatly."
DONATIONS ARE NEVER ILLEGAL. DONATIONS ARE NEVER ILLEGAL. DONATIONS ARE NEVER ILLEGAL. DONATIONS ARE NEVER ILLEGAL. DONATIONS ARE NEVER ILLEGAL.
I hope everyone of you thieves is hounded to your graves for stealing money from artists that starved for their fame. You think that musicians are born rich? Think again. You're on the same moral ground as a race riot looter. Feel that you fucktards.
That's what your mom said last night.
OH SNAP!
Regarding the donations, if you used one email address for the Paypal donation and another as your oink login, is there an identifyable link between them, other than the star next to the oink nick?
When I donated, I paypal'd the money to a certain gmail account. What happened to the Paypal email notice that is sent to that account?
Thanks...
@Anonymous 21:20
"And also, since their big deal is that oink users weren't a bunch of friends sharing a few songs, I think (rather humorously) that there should be an official friend contract, stating that you belong to a family of friends sharing music."
Haha yeah, definitely
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/25/ninternet125.xml
They made OiNK believe if he doesnt re-open OiNK they will not bring him on court.
damn sloopy! nice post.......so OiNK is only out for 2 months and worked at virgin! omg ... Also he needs media represantative they are more professional dealing with fuckin journalists... I dont know UK law but here in germany judges can do what they want basically. So if they THINK you did something wrong they will prosecute you. Such newspaper articles dont help making a judge think you are innocent.
Guys, the only one worried about the donations should be oink himself. I would think the majority of us who threw a couple of bucks his way did so one time, averaging $10. The authorities are interested in this fact only to incriminate him. They want to see if he made money. This is the larger issue at hand... why do you think he couldn't comment?
Telegraph article:
http://tinyurl.com/383dkq
Please everyone stop freaking out about donations you have done. The amount of work involved to trace a money transaction is in no relation to the end result. Users who donated $5 a year ago can sleep well. And even if you donated a lot more you should be safe. Because we all can say for sure, never ever has a user been granted with benefits such as upload credit or extended time to stay on the site as a member. As the media claim. Things like that were always disliked on the site, and i vouche for OiNK that he never did such.
Thank you very much. <3
You may have not logged IP addresses for snatches but I assure you the Data Center has logs for every transaction to and from your server. If they decide to take the time they can match them up to database entry edit times. As I never torrent from my real ip address or for that fact from just one ip address, this doesn't worry me much tho.
Even if the dc or anyone else had logged traffic, it were only logs of connections, not what actual data has been transferred.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/news/46638-oink-founder-i-havent-done-anything-wrong
It was great while it lasted. Thanks OiNK.
Thanks so much, you created the most successful online community I've seen. Best of luck!
When will our cute avatars be released?
You gotta see this
http://oink.cd/index2.html
http://oink.cd/index2.html ...
OH MY GOD. That is fucking hilarious. Were you just bored and found that or what?
http://oink.cd/index2.html
spread the word b4 it disappears
http://oink.cd/index2.html
Mirror:
http://two.xthost.info/oink2/
god i loved OiNK
it was a great community
i am scared because i did donate with paypal and my information is there
and i live in the US
i am screwed.
oh well, off to canada!
If you're worried about it, close your paypal account.
i did close it
but it's the government,
i'm sure they can track me down
IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT. It's the fucking RIAA. Which is a commercial business.
But you're right, they do have more power than the government, because they have more money.
We've already missed you OINK, we want you back soon, find a way (you know better)
this would never have happened to a NINJA!!
RIP Oink! : (
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