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This is horrific, this is probably the worst "book burning event" so far this century. I vividly remember the days after OiNK had just shut down and the effort

This is horrific, this is probably the worst "book burning event" so far this century. I vividly remember the days after OiNK had just shut down and the effort on IRC to start up replacements (which became Waffles and What). I actually was one of the first 100 users on What, and it was amazing to be able to follow it from the start to the cultural giant it eventually became. Now there's a need for yet another replacement. Like how What improved on Oink in several ways (most noticeably with Gazelle), I hope the replacement can make things even better yet again. The future of collabrative archiving/piracy communities are probably not as private clearnet bittorrent trackers though. Someone needs to develop a next-generation solution that's both more user-friendly and more resistant. #what-refuge @ irc.p2p-network.net seems to be the new place to go.

pault 10y ago
Why not decouple the community and metadata from the content to protect from losses like this?
- palunon 10y ago
  That's basically what torrents trackers do... They don't store any content.
  - pault 10y ago
    Yeah I understand that, but obviously explicitly linking to the content is enough to get you an IRL ban hammer. Seems like there should be a happy middle ground where you can provide the metadata and keep the actual links on "burner" sites that can be easily replicated when taken down.
    - jzelinskie 10y ago
      Lots of private trackers already do this by essentially importing their metadata from websites like discogs. They import that data into their databases so that it's available, but then they end up expanding on it themselves for things that are being shared that aren't in those databases.
      - armitron 10y ago
        He meant further decoupling the torrents, not the metadata. Obviously you need the metadata to come from your users and community, not just 3rd party providers. Otherwise what would be the point? The wealth of the metadata present in what.cd that represents years of work far surpassed anything available in public 3rd party sites.
        pault 10y ago
        Exactly. Anyone starting a community like this should be planning for plausible deniability from the beginning. You can build a metadata community that is seamlessly interoperable with a tracker without actually containing any links to the tracker. Think something like trakt.tv, but make the IDs on the metadata site match the IDs on the torrent site and otherwise completely firewall the two. Different owners, different infrastructure, etc. I don't see how a community that simply collects data and ratings can be shut down.
        palunon 10y ago
        >make the IDs on the metadata site match the IDs on the torrent site And there you get an IRL banhammer. A lot of torrent "trackers" already only store the content ID on the DHT, it doesn't stop them from being shut down...
        pault 10y ago
        So theoretically, if I made a torrent site where the torrent IDs were all IMDB IDs, is IMDB a torrent tracker? My comment above was mostly thinking-out-loud, but I was assuming that there wouldn't be any concrete link between the community site and the tracker.
        palunon 10y ago
        So basically the metadata site becomes yet another third party provider...
- armitron 10y ago
  It won't matter, if they become a big enough threat to powerful interests they will be taken down. The only solutions I see are: hidden service in TOR, tracker hosted in .ru (nobody took down libgen yet and you can bet plenty have tried), or a decentralized solution that can serve metadata over the swarm in addition to torrents.
  - kirushik 10y ago
    Ru is far from ideal solution, unfortunately. There's a reason it's more rutracker.org instead of torrents.ru
    - armitron 10y ago
      .ru was an euphemism, I meant the country [Russia] not the specific .ru tld. rutracker.org is hosted in Russia. libgen and sci-hub are using a more complicated setup with lots of fronts (in various countries) run by people who know what they're doing. I believe the backend infrastructure is in Russia.
  - synchronise 10y ago
    This is actually part of I2P, there are hidden trackers that are only accessible on the network, and that use the inbuilt Torrent manager that comes with I2P. You can find more info on how to install and run it here: https://privacytutorials.wordpress.com/ https://privacytutorials.wordpress.com/
userbinator 10y ago
It appears that where.cd, when.cd, and who.cd are still available for anyone wishing to create a replacement. ;-)
mxfh 10y ago
This is not a book burning, this a library catalog burning.

pault 10y ago

Why not decouple the community and metadata from the content to protect from losses like this?

palunon 10y ago
That's basically what torrents trackers do... They don't store any content.
- pault 10y ago
  Yeah I understand that, but obviously explicitly linking to the content is enough to get you an IRL ban hammer. Seems like there should be a happy middle ground where you can provide the metadata and keep the actual links on "burner" sites that can be easily replicated when taken down.
  - jzelinskie 10y ago
    Lots of private trackers already do this by essentially importing their metadata from websites like discogs. They import that data into their databases so that it's available, but then they end up expanding on it themselves for things that are being shared that aren't in those databases.
    - armitron 10y ago
      He meant further decoupling the torrents, not the metadata. Obviously you need the metadata to come from your users and community, not just 3rd party providers. Otherwise what would be the point? The wealth of the metadata present in what.cd that represents years of work far surpassed anything available in public 3rd party sites.
      - pault 10y ago
        Exactly. Anyone starting a community like this should be planning for plausible deniability from the beginning. You can build a metadata community that is seamlessly interoperable with a tracker without actually containing any links to the tracker. Think something like trakt.tv, but make the IDs on the metadata site match the IDs on the torrent site and otherwise completely firewall the two. Different owners, different infrastructure, etc. I don't see how a community that simply collects data and ratings can be shut down.
        palunon 10y ago
        >make the IDs on the metadata site match the IDs on the torrent site And there you get an IRL banhammer. A lot of torrent "trackers" already only store the content ID on the DHT, it doesn't stop them from being shut down...
        pault 10y ago
        So theoretically, if I made a torrent site where the torrent IDs were all IMDB IDs, is IMDB a torrent tracker? My comment above was mostly thinking-out-loud, but I was assuming that there wouldn't be any concrete link between the community site and the tracker.
        palunon 10y ago
        So basically the metadata site becomes yet another third party provider...
armitron 10y ago
It won't matter, if they become a big enough threat to powerful interests they will be taken down. The only solutions I see are: hidden service in TOR, tracker hosted in .ru (nobody took down libgen yet and you can bet plenty have tried), or a decentralized solution that can serve metadata over the swarm in addition to torrents.
- kirushik 10y ago
  Ru is far from ideal solution, unfortunately. There's a reason it's more rutracker.org instead of torrents.ru
  - armitron 10y ago
    .ru was an euphemism, I meant the country [Russia] not the specific .ru tld. rutracker.org is hosted in Russia. libgen and sci-hub are using a more complicated setup with lots of fronts (in various countries) run by people who know what they're doing. I believe the backend infrastructure is in Russia.
- synchronise 10y ago
  This is actually part of I2P, there are hidden trackers that are only accessible on the network, and that use the inbuilt Torrent manager that comes with I2P. You can find more info on how to install and run it here: https://privacytutorials.wordpress.com/ https://privacytutorials.wordpress.com/

userbinator 10y ago

It appears that where.cd, when.cd, and who.cd are still available for anyone wishing to create a replacement. ;-)

mxfh 10y ago

This is not a book burning, this a library catalog burning.