Do you share files with BitTorrent? If so, then say hello to Big Brother!
A study by researchers at Birmingham University reveals that most illegal file-sharers downloading the latest film or music releases are logged by a monitoring firm within three hours:
The three-year research was carried out by a team of computer scientists who developed software that acted like a BitTorrent file-sharing client and logged all the connections made to it. [...]
The logs revealed that monitoring did not distinguish between hardcore illegal downloaders and those new to it.
"You don't have to be a mass downloader. Someone who downloads a single movie will be logged as well," said Dr Tom Chothia, who led the research.
"If the content was in the top 100 it was monitored within hours," he said. "Someone will notice and it will be recorded."