3 ms·

" a .torrent file pointing to thousands of scientific papers has just been uploaded to the pirate bay" doesnt really fit into a headline

• rjprins 15y ago
  "Thousands of scientific papers were shared via The Pirate Bay"
  • sp332 15y ago
    This is still pretty misleading. TPB only hosts the .torrent file, they don't have any of the contents of the files being shared. They don't even run a tracker anymore! Any method of distributing a small file to a large number of people would have worked in the exact same way. The only thing TPB has that (e.g.) Google Docs doesn't is mindshare.
    • rjprins 15y ago
      Yes, I agree. I guess the problem lies in mentioning The Pirate Bay in the first place. The facilitator is unimportant. It's like saying that the documents were mailed via TNT.
    • lhnz 15y ago
      They don't run a tracker anymore?! Are they using other people's trackers or just the DHT feature?
      • aw3c2 15y ago
        Yes.
      • sp332 15y ago
        The .torrent file can list multiple trackers. If it includes TPB's old trackers, connections will fail but the DHT and other trackers usually manage just fine. In fact, TPB said that trackers are obsolete ("not up-to-date") and that everyone should just use DHT and peer exchange (PEX) instead of relying on centralized trackers from now on. Some people still use trackers, but it's not really necessary.