There are many on-line services that allow you to get a first order idea of where an IP address is located.
Shown below is a peer list taken from a uTorrent client that was seeding the movie Deep Impact.
Taking the first in the list it appears that the P2P downloader is located on a network run by a company in Saudi Arabia.
If you click on the image above and scroll down you will see the contact information for this ISP.
THIS IS WHAT AN ANTI-P2P ORGANIZATION WOULD DO!
If the ISP keeps records of who has been assigned an IP address, they can and they do, they can be forced to hand over your personal details if served with a court order. In the case shown here it is not clear whether the copyright owners for the movie in question would have any authority in Saudi Arabia.
If you are using a service to obscure your IP address, like BTGuard or TorrentPrivacy, then their IP address will appear in the list. Consequently if they are served with a court order they also are legally bound to hand over your details. In the case if BTGuard they are based in Canada - TorrentPrivacy, on the other hand are in the Russian Federation and further removed from the legal systems of North America and the movie houses.
If you are using a service such as PeerBlock (Peer Guardian II) ALL THAT HAPPENS IS THAT THE IP ADDRESS OF THE ANTI-P2P ORGANIZATION WILL NOT APPEAR IN THE LIST SHOWN AT THE TOP.
This does not mean that they are not there, watching your every move they are just using an IP address that not known as hostile and placed in the block list.
**** Wayne McAlpine, the person who claims to have the solution to tracking down pirates is the same person who has been trying to work out who I am for well over a year! He accused me of being a "nobody", well if this is supposed to be an example of how he is "somebody" I for one are not impressed. There is little wonder that there was little interest in his solution:
"There's many things that people get away with every day;" McAlpine
said. "The music industry complains there's a
$38 billion loss each year. That's a sizeable amount of income. And I
think if they were really honest about addressing it they would probably
look at things more open-armed."
Wayne McAlpine is obviously not to be taken as an authority when it comes to things related to technology. In fact he is particularly sensitive to "bad" things said about him on the Internet.
