R.I.P Razorback

[nanotek]

As of this morning razorback has been busted by the Belgium Police

Hier for those who can read french
http://www.ratiatum.com/news2874_Les_serveurs_de_Razorback_saisis.html

Here in english

With more than one million users, the largest waiter eDonkey/eMule of the world, Razorback, east was gone this morning in the hands of the Belgian federal police force. Two of its administrators remain injoignables per hour when we write these lines.


We have only very few information. The whole of the waiters of Razorback were seized this morning towards 10H by the Belgian federal police force. Although Razorback association domiciled in Switzerland, it is in Belgium that the system main part was installed. Razorback did not lodge any illegal contents and even took part very actively in the diffusion of legal contents such as those of our chain of remote loading of software or the free musics of Jamendo.

The waiter used for eMule and eDonkey was nevertheless an index of million files exchanged on the networks peer-to-peer, including one great part were illicit. The principal administrator of Razorback had indicated in the past that it was ready with blacklister the files brought back to him by the holders of royalties, but it never had any answer. Finally the whole of the material was seized this morning, indicates a source close to Razorback to us, while two administrators of the waiter remain injoignables at this beginning of afternoon.

Razorback tried to reconcile legality and P2P while taking part in many legal projects, by providing the stastic invaluable ones for the cabinets of marketing, and by diffusing paying files protected by DRM, for the account of content providers.

But especially, the disappearance of Razorback will not change absolutely anything for the million users eMule, who profit already since from very many months of a network entirely decentralized baptized "Kad".

We will inform you as soon as we will have more information.

So guys switch Kad on as the users from razorback will move to the other servers , these themselves wont be able to handle that many ppl and they will also have some problems staying connected

[RealitY]

It appears that one of the largest eDonkey2000 communities is no more. Often occupied by over 1 million eDoney2000 users spread over several servers, Razorback is often regarded as the very lifeblood of this network. This morning, users of this server network found their community offline.

At this time, details are extremely scarce (http://sd1239.sivit.org/raz/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4). However it is being reported the Federal Belgian Police have raided and seized Razorback's servers. In addition, it is suspected the administrator of Razorback is currently in custody.

Razorback was an eDonkey2000 indexing server - very different in nature from an indexing site such as ShareReactor. Unlike indexing sites, Razorback's index was only available through an eDonkey2000 client such as eMule. While it does not host any actual files or multimedia material, it does index the location of such files on the eDonkey2000 network. The legality of such indexing remains questionable, however this has not deterred copyright enforcement actions.

Giving credence to this report, the Razorback home page (http://www.whois.sc/razorback2.com) simply times out upon request. In addition, pinging the IP address of Razorback's home page and eDonkey2000 servers yields the same result. Only "fake" Razorback servers are online, communities designed by copyright enforcement entities to mimic yet deter unauthorized file-sharing.

The Belgian Federal Police homepage at this time have no information regarding this raid, however considering the magnitude of the situation this should change. One thing is certain; Razorback has been removed from the eDoneky2000 network. Most noticeably, the eDonkey2000 population has shrunk from its usual 3.5 million users to approximately 3 million users - an unusual departure from its average.

:source: Source: http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1102

[dudevenezuela]

LONDON (Reuters) - Swiss and Belgian police have shut down a major component of the eDonkey file-sharing network, used mainly to trade copies of copyrighted movies and music, the Motion Picture Association said on Wednesday.


Razorback 2 was the biggest server on the eDonkey peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which transfers data from user to user. Music companies have blamed P2P piracy for causing a drastic downturn in sales, and Hollywood is trying to prevent a similar impact on the movie business.

"Swiss authorities arrested the site's operator at his residence in Switzerland this morning and searched his home," the MPA said in a statement. "At the same time, on the authority of a local magistrate, Belgian police seized the site's servers located at an Internet hosting center in Zaventem near Brussels."

As of last year, eDonkey was estimated to have up to 3 million users spread over 100 to 200 servers. Razorback2 was the most popular server, used by about 1 million users.

While the music and movie industry have had a string of successes in their fight against online piracy in the last year, raiding P2P servers and winning judgements in court, in many cases users merely migrate to a different network -- a pattern than has happened many times since the original Napster service was shut down.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060222/wr_nm/media_edonkey_dc

[Wallace_Askew]

RIP indeed :cry:

[astrix]

very bad news

[mech_f]

there is a fake razorback 2....be carefull.. i think edonkey server no:1 is ok after rz2 dead

[RaDa]

I've read about this in my newspaper.

The Belgian police was so dumb, they unplugged the server and lost the information of the users :)

[Filliz]

I've read about this in my newspaper.

The Belgian police was so dumb, they unplugged the server and lost the information of the users :)
:lol: Gotta love our country.


edit: what newspaper wrote about it?

[peat moss]

Joint raids by police in Belgium and Switzerland have shut down a popular file-sharing server.

The Razorback2 server was part of the Edonkey file-sharing network and was used by a third of the system's users.

The server held an index of 170 million pirated files, said the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

In the raids, the server's Swiss owner was arrested and the Razorback2 machines were seized from a Brussels-based hosting firm.

:source: Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4743052.stm

[Yoga]

Notes posted on discussion groups by Edonkey users following the raid show that the numbers of people on the Edonkey network was back to normal a few hours after the server was shut down.

[SeK612]

Europe seems to be catching up with the U.S in terms of legal action taken against filesharers :(

Razorback is a pretty big name too and it'll be interesting to see if any more servers are taken offline.

It is easy to fall back on the common belief that another server will pop up or someone else will step into the gap left and provide the same service. Ultimately there must be a tipping point though and the situation does seem to be getting worse for P2P networks in general.

They're not going to disappear overnight but with a systematic attack on both file sources and filesharing services (combined with say a flooding of networks with fake files and aggressive action against file sharers to scare off the average user) pressure could be put upon them.
:(

[ziggyjuarez]

Could never connect to it anyway.
R.I.P Razorback2 2006

[Busyman]

Europe seems to be catching up with the U.S in terms of legal action taken against filesharers :(

Razorback is a pretty big name too and it'll be interesting to see if any more servers are taken offline.

It is easy to fall back on the common belief that another server will pop up or someone else will step into the gap left and provide the same service. Ultimately there must be a tipping point though and the situation does seem to be getting worse for P2P networks in general.

They're not going to disappear overnight but with a systematic attack on both file sources and filesharing services (combined with say a flooding of networks with fake files and aggressive action against file sharers to scare off the average user) pressure could be put upon them.
:(
This is a catch-22. While I understand the reason the MPAA and RIAA want to shut-down P2P networks, what the hell is the illegality for having an index of files if it's not the file itself...or was that the same as Napster?

[kazaaman]

Sad news indeed. Whats a good server to switch to? Maybe edonkey server no:1 as mech_f supposed?

[erRor67]

most people will find themselves unaffected because emule (and edonkey i would assume) would connect to another server. So the population shouldnt change too much. And if they are using KAD, all the better. The only thing that sucks now is people are now split up on different servers. Before you had RB2 holding like a million people so all the files were indexed together. Now everyone is more spread out.

[leungsw]

But it is so sad to me. I connected to Razorback2 since August 2003. It often provided excellent file searching.

[abu_has_the_power]

there goes emule.

next they'll try to kill bitorrent

[peat moss]

there goes emule.

next they'll try to kill bitorrent


Already starting to ?

"The Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it sued a new round of popular Web sites associated with movie piracy, including several that serve as search engines but do not distribute files themselves."

http://news.zdnet.com/MPAA+sues+BitTorrent,+newsgroup+search+tools/2100-9588_22-6042739.html?part=netscape-zdnet&tag=mynetscape&subj=technews

[erRor67]

Yeah, they sued NZB sites (newsgroups), bit torrent sites and eDonkey servers. Read: http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1106

[nanotek]

yeh try the firstload servers or emule nr 1 for now and dont forget to turn kad on

[Wizard_Mon1]

Sad day.

[kazaaman]

Alright, thanks for the servers...

[partypop]

Razorback went down.. and 5 more will pop up.
RIAA cannot control the whole world.

[DrOctagon]

Can't the authorities find anything better to do?