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The Pirate Bay Will Stop Serving Torrents
- GBiT 15y agoTalking about magnet links I remembered KAD with ed2k and eMule. Its almost same. Bittorrent with magnet links just have different chunk size possibility to make faster download with smaller piece size.
- Hemospectrum 15y agoAccording to Wikipedia, magnet links are in fact based on ed2k and Freenet URIs.
- icebraining 15y agoSo, what if you don't run the client on the same machine you're browsing TPB with, like people who have torrent enabled routers or VPS/seedboxes? I suppose you can copy-paste the link to your client, but clients which had automatic pick-up of .torrent files (like rtorrent) were nice because you could just drop them on a remote directory and have them be downloaded. I wonder if I could write a small application just to download the torrent file from the magnet link/DHT to copy it to the remote server afterwards.
- botker 15y agoSee the shell script in the top comment here: http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/ticket/2100 http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/ticket/2100 I tested it, and it works as advertised. For firefox integration, in about:config create a new boolean as: network.protocol-handler.expose.magnet := false For chromium integration, you need to use Xdg-open.
- ben0x539 15y agoI suspect it'll be easier to patch the torrent client to accept magnet links fed through a named pipe, or in a text file in the drop-off directory, if it already supports magnet links.
- sliverstorm 15y agoWhy not set up an email fetch service on the remote box, and email magnet links? Then just throw together a wrapper that looks for magnet links in new email. Viola!
- tomkin 15y agoFor a brief moment, the title sounded like TPB was going to blackout for "stop SOPA day". Wouldn't that be funny.
- bdonlan 15y agoIf the TPB were to actively oppose SOPA, it would just give the SOPA proponents more to work with - "Look, TPB is against it, so it must be a good thing!".
- nestlequ1k 15y agoBrilliant point. Pirate Bay's best approach is to laugh at SOPA and make clear it will do nothing to stop them.
- jQueryIsAwesome 15y agoActually, one day the placed a video instead of their logo created by multiple users with messages against SOPA, it was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w6GtwOvnWM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w6GtwOvnWM
- tomkin 15y agoIt is a good point, however, I think it would be celebrated by the target audience. People, or the "average person" who wouldn't generally visit TPB, or know what it is, will probably not really care about it's support, or even what SOPA is for that matter. For those who visit/use TPB, I think it would be akin to a rally call.
- sjmulder 15y agoWhat I’m wondering is whether it’s not yet possible to have a distributed, decentralised torrent database. You could already put up a copy of the database as a torrent and distribute the magnet link, but you’d need some method for efficiently keeping it up to date.
- jxcole 15y agoDHTs/Torrents are great for static data (like a movie) but bad for dynamic data, like a website with a list of movies, their ratings, user comments, etc. There are, however, other systems that are designed to combat this, like freenet. They tend to be overwhelmingly slow, because you need to pass lots of data around to make it consistent. Then again, magnet links, titles, and a little html are probably not a lot of information, so it probably could be done. I just haven't heard of any attempts yet. It's tempting to go and write one. Could you make a decentralized, P2P version of reddit with distributed trust? I think it's possible but hasn't been tried.
- bdonlan 15y agoFreenet isn't really good for this either - it's basically static data, too.
- Fice 15y agoFor dynamic content there is I2P.
- icebraining 15y agoI think the easiest way is to not make it really "dynamic" but an append-only structure of static content. For example a Reddit thread might be representable as a static list of actions (add reply, upvote, downvote, etc), which the client would process to get the current state. That way, you could immediately download an earlier version of a resource and then get the updates as they spread through the network.
- ComputerGuru 15y agoa la bitcoin. They have a big problem in their design where currently it works exactly as you described, and at "some unknown point in the future" when the database of all transactions EVER in the history of bitcoin gets too big for each person to have to have a copy of in order to add another transaction, they'll "figure out a way" to make it unnecessary.
- Zirro 15y agoI've been using mostly magnet links for the past year and haven't experienced any issues. If people understand that they work just like a normal link/torrent file, this won't make the process any more complicated. Hopefully this is another win in the long run, as links are harder to stop than files.
- forgotusername 15y agoOnly slightly as I understand it, since from a legal perspective the intent of someone providing providing links instead of files doesn't change, and that's what counts. From a technical perspective, and as someone who doesn't understand how magnet works under the hood, I'm slightly concerned that DHTs might be easier to attack in an underhanded manner than an HTTP server would have been.
- Zirro 15y ago"Only slightly as I understand it, since from a legal perspective the intent of someone providing providing links instead of files doesn't change, and that's what counts." Indeed, but a link can be posted anywhere a user can post text. Here, have Pioneer One: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3a4be1d48c31dfa62bf52958f3fdca3d5ce91cf1&dn=Pioneer%20One%20SEASON1.720p%20x264-VODO I can see this leading to a block on many sites on all links starting with the "magnet"-protocol, if it's not in place already. It also highlights the issue with SOPA further. Had that series not been allowed to be shared, Hacker News would be in big trouble for hosting the link.
- Joakal 15y agoThat would be a restriction of freedom of speech and Internet Freedom for blacklisting magnet urls. Linux Distro excuse comes to mind. A cynical person might say that the intent would also further kill free content creators, restricting the supply of content; consumers then see only paid content.
- Zirro 15y agoSadly, that hasn't prevented censorship of "neutral" keywords before. See: https://torrentfreak.com/googles-anti-piracy-filter-110712 https://torrentfreak.com/googles-anti-piracy-filter-110712
- Fester 15y agoIt seems that TBP just taken another step to push judge and jury's confusion during next trials even further. "Y'know, we're trying to shut down pirates' secret base that... doesn't serve a single file!"
- ars 15y agoOne drawback to magnet links is that you can not in advance see what files are there. So if you only want to download some of them, you first have to wait for the magnet to download the torrent, then go back to it and pick the files you want. A magnet link also makes it hard to check if the link you are looking at is a duplicate of what you have already. With a torrent you can check the file size and compare to others.
- ben0x539 15y agoThere isn't really a reason the piratebay web interface couldn't display that info for you anyway.
- atlbeer 15y agoCan someone fill me in on the first step a client (BT) would take to find its first peers? That part is a bit magic to me right now. What would be the first IP it would query and how would it know?
- bdonlan 15y agoThere are three main methods (in order of preference): 1. Use a cached list from a previous run. This is ideal in terms of load balancing, and also helps with bootstrap time if your IP hasn't changed, so all major torrent clients have such a cache. 2. Ask peers you're connected to via a traditional tracker and .torrent file. This is the next best thing, but can only be used if the first torrent you download is via a traditional tracker. 3. Use some bootstrap peers hardcoded into the torrent client. Has a single point of failure, but it works. Each torrent client can use a different set of bootstrap peers, note - they're nothing special, just a DHT peer that has the bandwidth and CPU power to deal with bootstrap requests (which isn't a very high hurdle - you only get hit once, on the initial install, or if the client's been shut down for so long it no longer has any valid peers). Or the user might even supply their own, if need be.
- kissickas 15y agoThanks for the information, this part was always a mystery to me as well. To clarify, if someone has never downloaded a torrent before and starts with a rarely downloaded file, would the use of only magnet links mean they will probably not be able to find another peer? It sounds like unless you already have torrents downloaded, your list of possible peers to check for the file is very short.
- ianlevesque 15y agoIf your client connects to just one peer you essentially gain access to the entire bittorrent DHT network. As a dramatic simplification, your request for the rare torrent would propagate until it found the peers seeding or downloading it.
- iamandrus 15y agoThey announced that they were planning on doing this right when magnet links came out. I haven't used .torrent files since I discovered magnet links and I actually find they more convenient than downloading a torrent file.
- gojomo 15y agoHey! I invented the magnet link, almost 10 years ago. Great to see it still evolving and spreading, based simply on its loosey-goosey merits.
- nestlequ1k 15y agoIt's weird, I've been seeing it for years but I never understood what it is. I still don't really. But when I click on the magnets things seem to download immediately. So looks like you built something pretty amazing. Congrats!
- zcid 15y agoIt's basically a URI that contains the torrent hash enabling a client to find peers through a decentralized network such as DHT instead of requiring a tracker. I believe you can append trackers and other info to the URI as well, but I'm not sure about that.
- pyre 15y agoNote: DHT = Distributed Hash Table
- sown 15y agoAFAIK, it's a torrent for a torrent; a DHT implementation. The URI for the magnet link has all the information it needs to find peers and start downloading the data, the first datum of which is the torrent file.
- chimeracoder 15y agoThe other two comments are (correctly) describing what a magnet link is in the sense of its implementation. On the off chance that you wanted a more abstract/basic description, a magnet link is defined by what you're linking to, as opposed to where it is. This is kind of cool, because a file can change locations (how many times have you seen a dead link/File Not Found?), and with a magnet link, if you have a file that matches the description, you can be reasonably certain that you've found the right file (unlike the URIs you're familiar with, which can change the content stored at each location). On the flip side, actually finding the file from the description is a bit more complicated, but as you can see, it's still pretty easy for the user when implemented correctly. It's better for TPB, because they're no longer telling you 'where' the file is, just what it 'looks' like. Legally, I'm sure that makes some difference.
- Corrado 15y agoThis site (http://www.ghacks.net/2010/06/05/what-is-a-magnet-link-and-how-does-it-differ-from-torrents/ http://www.ghacks.net/2010/06/05/what-is-a-magnet-link-and-h...) explains what Magnet links are and how trackers have traditionally worked in the past.
- ajtaylor 15y agoThe original article had a link to this (http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrents-future-dht-pex-and-magnet-links-explained-091120/ http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrents-future-dht-pex-and-magne...) which I found a bit more helpful explaining the concepts.
- afhof 15y agoDon't the torrent files contain all the hashes for each piece? Doesn't that mean if a single piece is bad, the entire torrent can't be verified? Torrent files contain a lot of useful data that isn't found in a magnet URI. Is this just being ignored?
- skymt 15y agoThe hash in a magnet URI is of the info dictionary in the .torrent file. It's used to query the BitTorrent DHT for peers running the same torrent. Once another peer is found, your client will download the full metadata file from it, and from there it works just like any other BitTorrent download. http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0005.html http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0005.html http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0009.html http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0009.html
- pornel 15y agoI hope that before .torrent files are gone, they (or some scraper) will publish them all as a torrent. Somebody did that last time PB was in trouble, e.g. one of the pieces: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:4232363a47fe29acdf2c77874365a5e3368854b4& That's a pretty interesting dataset to mine.
- chimeracoder 15y agoWhy? What would the point of the .torrent files be if the magnet links are still there?
- stfu 15y agoIt is still fascinating how resilient not only Piratebay but also others such as Demonoid have become. A few years ago it looked like they were close to getting shut down. It is impressive how they are now able to withstand all the "forces" and Governments had to shift their focus towards the ISPs.
- joejohnson 15y agoHow does this change the process for uploading a new torrent to TPB?
- Refringe 15y agoFor the time being, nothing. However, once TPB goes full magnet you'll just submit a link instead of a file. It should make the process easier.
- sp0rus 15y agoThis is definitely a step in the right direction. Not saying this is a good step to increase piracy, but there really is no need for trackers when we have magnets, and this will lead to a healthier bittorent community.
- nextparadigms 15y agoSince they are doing this big change, is there a way to make it more secure on the user side, too? Like encrypt the traffic and make it impossible for RIAA to track IP's? Also since they say that it's like every user would have the TPB site on their computer, does it mean blocking the site would be completely useless? And since they are just links, and links are pretty much speech, I figure it would be impossible to turn it into law as well, to specifically target magnet based sites like TPB.
- teraflop 15y agoThe entire design of Bittorrent is predicated on clients advertising to each other which torrents they're seeding and which pieces are available. You can encrypt your traffic to get it past your ISP's deep packet inspection, but the peer at the other end has to be able to decrypt it. And you have no way of knowing what nefarious organization controls that peer.
- instakill 15y agoCan anyone say what the gist of this article is? Blocked from torrent sites at work.
- keypusher 15y agoPiratebay will now serve magnet links by default instead of .torrent files. For the average user, not much will change. For some particular use cases, there may have to be adjustments.
- jmtame 15y agoFrom what I understand, DHT has a big trade-off vs BitTorrent: DHTs are crawlable[1] and copyright holders can more easily track who holds copies of what yet it's easier to duplicate search engines like TPB within hours for the same reason. So the effect seems to be that the RIAA, MPAA, etc. will likely not be able to take down trackers; they'll have to revert back to suing their "customers" (or lobbying to pass absurd legislation for that matter). [1] http://z.cs.utexas.edu/users/osa/unvanish/papers/vanish-broken.pdf http://z.cs.utexas.edu/users/osa/unvanish/papers/vanish-brok...
- chimeracoder 15y ago> Perhaps even better, without the torrent files everyone can soon host a full copy of The Pirate Bay on a USB thumb drive, which may come in handy in the future. I've been saying this for years: governments playing an arms race with hackers is like playing Whack-a-mole or cutting of heads of hydras. Every time you block one means of communication (starting in this case with Napster), a new, more decentralized, harder-to-combat protocol is going to emerge. Even if you're the MPAA and don't like copyright violations, you have to face that fact. That doesn't mean you (necessarily) have to throw in the towel and abandon the idea of copyright infringement altogether, but it does mean you need to start being creative instead of engaging in a direct legal-technological battle - an arms race. I wonder how long it will take before the big players realize this and try to figure out a way to use this new playing field (the Internet) to their advantage, instead of trying to squelch any technological development so that they can cling to old models of payment and distribution. It was nice while it happened, but let's face it - we're past the point of no return. Even if they everyone hosted their own copies of TPB on their thumb drives and then they found some way to shut that down, I'm certain there'd be some hacker smart enough (like gojomo above) to come up with something that just makes things even less centralized, more difficult to track, and more difficult to shut down.
- Helianthus 15y agoThe big players are defeated by the new playing field. There is no "their advantage," there's just a major change in how we produce content. It's away from exploitation of artists and the control of artistic message.
- beedogs 15y agoThe production, the marketing the, distribution... EVERYTHING has changed for the music industry in about 15 years. They have no future unless the Internet is tightly controlled (which it cannot be.)
- ColdAsIce 15y ago" Internet is tightly controlled (which it cannot be.)" Oh, it can be controlled alright. SOPA, PIPA today, tomorrow FIPA, DIPA and FuckInternetPA. One of them will pass, then more and more. And then you're sitting on cable tv. Clicked that link? Invoice has been mailed to you. Clicked that link? House search. Clicked that link? Prison cell prepared. Thank you and good bye. Oh, you will watch what you do online, you will not click on links without knowing before hand what is behind it. Good luck with that. You will not read just about anything, you will not write whatever you want, certainly not where ever. You will censor yourself before they come to censor you. They will produce and you will consume.
- ward 15y ago> This is topical, since this week courts in both Finland and the Netherlands ordered local Internet providers to block the torrent site. Is there a list of countries where this has been ordered by courts? I know it's already the case in my country (Belgium) as well[1]. [1]: http://torrentfreak.com/belgium-starts-blocking-the-pirate-bay-111020/ http://torrentfreak.com/belgium-starts-blocking-the-pirate-b...
- jdefarge 15y agoPirate Bay is the BEST torrent site ever created. It's a pity they are switching to Magnet. :( It would be so cool if they provided both (Magnet and Torrent)...