12 ms·

The Pirate Bay's 20th Anniversary

339 points by HieronymusBosch 3y ago

MichaelZuo 3y ago
Their tenacity brings to mind that Teddy Roosevelt quote.
- vuln 3y ago
  THE MAN IN THE ARENA It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt Excerpt from the specch "Citizenship In A Republic" delivered at The Sorbonne Paris, France April 23, 1910
  - ramesh31 3y ago
    >Theodore Roosevelt Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic" delivered at The Sorbonne Paris, France April 23, 1910 Yeah, he was also a rich guy born with a silver spoon, who never faced any actual adversity in life, and so spent his time fetishizing those who do, while LARPing as one of them in controlled environments. Read into his whole trip through South America; it's an absolute disgrace. The attitude you illustrated above led to the death of his guide (and almost his son) and him having to be hauled out of the jungle by natives on a stretcher for weeks. Even the charge up San Juan hill is pure mythology. The enemy position had already been cleared by the 10th cavalry, and they were waiting for Roosevelt at the top. The guy is a complete work of fiction as he is taught to school children these days. Point being, these romantic notions of life have very little bearing on reality. Criticism is valid. And doing dumb things is indeed many times just dumb.
    - hfuyf65 3y ago
      He almost died as well. It fits well in the quote op listed. Oddly, it even addresses your critical response: that it is easy to be a Tuesday morning quarterback.
    - 1970-01-01 3y ago
      He was literally shot during a speech but continued speaking for an entire hour while bleeding out. Sounds like actual adversity to me. You're free to try that and prove history wrong. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/theodore-roosevelt-shot-in-milwaukee https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/theodore-rooseve...
      - ramesh31 3y ago
        And my entire point being that that was dumb. It doesn't make him tough. It makes him an egomaniacal idiot to have not sought treatment.
        1970-01-01 3y ago
        >It doesn't make him tough. I guess your definition and mine are incompatible. The forensic evidence is quite clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Political_address_by_Theodore_Roosevelt_through_which_the_bullet_passed_when_the_attempt_was_made_to_assassinate_him_at_Milwaukee_in_1912.pdf&page=2 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Political_ad...
        r053bud 3y ago
        God forbid you fact check American mythology!
        seryoiupfurds 3y ago
        Lazy dismissal based on broad ideological grandstanding isn't "fact checking", although sadly many "fact checkers" don't seem to understand that.
resuresu 3y ago
20 years of being inferior to gnutella in every way imaginable.
- wslh 3y ago
  Could you give metrics and features?
  - LeoNatan25 3y ago
    The “gnu” in the name is likely all they care about.
    - flangola7 3y ago
      What features do they each offer?
      - LeoNatan25 3y ago
        BitTorrent is a protocol that has taken over pirated content distribution (in the context of ThePirateBay). “gnutella” is something most people have not even heard of. I’d say that’s feature enough.
        flangola7 3y ago
        That really doesn't answer my question
- dale_glass 3y ago
  Does Gnutella still exist? I don't think I've heard that name in a very long time.
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    Justin Frankel's projects never die.
- 3y ago
jiofj 3y ago
The future has always been DHT, but having no built-in search feature like Kademlia is a huge oversight imo. There are websites that crawl DHT and you can search using them https://btdig.com https://btdig.com but of course it would be better to have something decentralised.
- flangola7 3y ago
  How do you get the DHT without at least a centralized bootstrap?
  - lloeki 3y ago
    query a known (or attempt reaching a previously known) peer
    - cjblomqvist 3y ago
      Isn't that then the centralized authority?
      - lloeki 3y ago
        Well, no: - IPs of peers can be obtained from any source, not necessarily a centralized one. you could argue that this is centralized if you use only one, but there is no central authority and you can move to any other one or use a sizeable list of completely independent sources. - torrent clients can persist previously contacted peers to contact them when starting up again from scratch, attempting connection in hopes that they are still around (which at least some usually are given that clients are usually long-running processes)
- devoutsalsa 3y ago
  Me: What is DHT? Also Me: Distributed hash table. Me: Thanks. Also Me: You're welcome, but don't be too impressed. I googled it.
  - 3y ago
janvdberg 3y ago
Side-note: I will always be in awe of the BitTorrent protocol. A resilient and efficient piece of tech that at its height was responsible for LARGE amounts of internet traffic (facilitated by sites like the TPB) and was (mostly) developed by just one guy: Bram Cohen.
- wtf_is_up 3y ago
  Another Cohen project worth noting for its novelty is the Chia crypto network [1] which implements Proof of Space-Time. [1]: https://www.chia.net/about/ https://www.chia.net/about/
  - automatic6131 3y ago
    "Proof of Space-time" Oooh, what a fancy, high-falutin word for... writing bingo tickets to your SSD. Could more accurately be called "proof of bingo card", and then it doesn't infringe on actually interesting concepts, like relativistic physics. I remember when the new of Chia caused SSD prices to spike around the time I was buying, in the speculative fever for free money. At least it crashed, causing the Chia miners to become irrelevant in the market. Too late for me, sadly, I was stuck paying 400% of current market prices. Fuck Chia, fuck crypto nonsense.
    - seanw444 3y ago
      I've always found it odd that people have such guttural reactions to cryptocurrency. It's a technology. Calm down. It's become like politics now. "Fuck Republicans, fuck conservative nonsense." is what I'd expect to hear, not getting pissed over an algorithm. Kinda brings me comedic relief.
      - IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
        Given the billions of dollars stolen by crypto creators, supposed trusted and secure “by blockchain”. It has become a sector full of scammers, self promotion and fraud. It is Bernie Madoff in digital form.
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
I find the opinions of Peter Sunde in this article quite interesting. Even seven years ago he was saying that torrent sites had stagnated and there was necessity for innovation to protect against the vulnerabilities inherent in having only few large, popular torrent sites. So, this 20th anniversary is somewhat of a bitter pill to swallow for at least one of the founders. https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-piracy-scene-needs-innovation-160726/ https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-piracy-scene-nee...
- inversetelecine 3y ago
  There won't be a big wave again until something happens to cause one. Innovation is still happening, but it usually takes a big event to really spur things again. Back then it was a combo of Napster going away, filesharing apps typically sucking, and the invention of BitTorrent making access to content really easy. Digital music and movies were new too and ahead of their physical media counterparts. There are many great brains trying, and it will just take one of their ideas to takeoff and become another household name.
- dewey 3y ago
  > So, this 20th anniversary is somewhat of a bitter pill to swallow for at least one of the founders. I don't see how that would be the case, as nothing what he said is wrong. Torrenting in general is getting less popular for a while now, many private tracker sites are alive but not as active as 10 years ago, especially if it's something which was replaced by legal streaming like music trackers. In my group of "regular people" friends none of them pirates any more and they all just use Netflix and Spotify. It went back to being a nerd thing after being mainstream for a while with Limewire/TPB/Popcorntime etc.
- xtracto 3y ago
  I sadly agree: Popcorn time and webtorrent was the most recent "improvement" into torrent technology . But for the tech progress available now, we should have the MPAA, RIAA and all other copyright cartels shivering on their knees, with 100% anonymous, distributed data transfers In my youngster time (80s and 90s), there were a lot of ideas and projects: kazaa , ed2k, kad, mute, i2p, freenet, bittorrent among plenty of others. But it seems young kids today are busier o other things (tiktok influencers?) Or they had become highly profit driven.
_mxdo 3y ago
Peak civilization
- bigger_inside 3y ago
  unironically. The continued existence of the pirate bay and torrents is like the remaining aqueduct from a crumbling civilization, a reminder of what we once could do, before usurpers gobbled it up to squeeze the last cent out of everything
1970-01-01 3y ago
There was an article a long time ago about their oldest active torrent: "An episode of the Swedish comedy show “High Chaparral” has the honor of being the oldest torrent. The file was originally uploaded on March 25, 2004, and although it lists zero seeders in search results, there are still several people actively sharing the torrent." https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-oldest-torrents-survived-15-years-of-turmoil-190519/ https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-oldest-torrents-survive...
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  Sadly, 'kbdcb' is the only remaining seeder. The torrent may soon be lost to history. hxxps://thepiratebay.org/description.php?id=3211594
ghostDancer 3y ago
Almost in talk like a pirate day. It would have been really appropriate.
mlsu 3y ago
I recently listened to the Darknet Diaries episode about the PirateBay: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/92/ https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/92/ Great episode, he interviewed one of the founders. Goes through the whole history of the piratebay and all the times they tried to take it down. Guy seems... interesting. Basically exactly who you might expect would be running that website.
1970-01-01 3y ago
Some interesting history can be seen via their own doodles: https://web.archive.org/web/20110902004820/http://thepiratebay.org/doodles https://web.archive.org/web/20110902004820/http://thepirateb...

MichaelZuo 3y ago

Their tenacity brings to mind that Teddy Roosevelt quote.

vuln 3y ago
THE MAN IN THE ARENA It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt Excerpt from the specch "Citizenship In A Republic" delivered at The Sorbonne Paris, France April 23, 1910
- ramesh31 3y ago
  >Theodore Roosevelt Excerpt from the speech "Citizenship In A Republic" delivered at The Sorbonne Paris, France April 23, 1910 Yeah, he was also a rich guy born with a silver spoon, who never faced any actual adversity in life, and so spent his time fetishizing those who do, while LARPing as one of them in controlled environments. Read into his whole trip through South America; it's an absolute disgrace. The attitude you illustrated above led to the death of his guide (and almost his son) and him having to be hauled out of the jungle by natives on a stretcher for weeks. Even the charge up San Juan hill is pure mythology. The enemy position had already been cleared by the 10th cavalry, and they were waiting for Roosevelt at the top. The guy is a complete work of fiction as he is taught to school children these days. Point being, these romantic notions of life have very little bearing on reality. Criticism is valid. And doing dumb things is indeed many times just dumb.
  - hfuyf65 3y ago
    He almost died as well. It fits well in the quote op listed. Oddly, it even addresses your critical response: that it is easy to be a Tuesday morning quarterback.
  - 1970-01-01 3y ago
    He was literally shot during a speech but continued speaking for an entire hour while bleeding out. Sounds like actual adversity to me. You're free to try that and prove history wrong. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/theodore-roosevelt-shot-in-milwaukee https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/theodore-rooseve...
    - ramesh31 3y ago
      And my entire point being that that was dumb. It doesn't make him tough. It makes him an egomaniacal idiot to have not sought treatment.
      - 1970-01-01 3y ago
        >It doesn't make him tough. I guess your definition and mine are incompatible. The forensic evidence is quite clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Political_address_by_Theodore_Roosevelt_through_which_the_bullet_passed_when_the_attempt_was_made_to_assassinate_him_at_Milwaukee_in_1912.pdf&page=2 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Political_ad...
      - r053bud 3y ago
        God forbid you fact check American mythology!
        seryoiupfurds 3y ago
        Lazy dismissal based on broad ideological grandstanding isn't "fact checking", although sadly many "fact checkers" don't seem to understand that.

resuresu 3y ago

20 years of being inferior to gnutella in every way imaginable.

wslh 3y ago
Could you give metrics and features?
- LeoNatan25 3y ago
  The “gnu” in the name is likely all they care about.
  - flangola7 3y ago
    What features do they each offer?
    - LeoNatan25 3y ago
      BitTorrent is a protocol that has taken over pirated content distribution (in the context of ThePirateBay). “gnutella” is something most people have not even heard of. I’d say that’s feature enough.
      - flangola7 3y ago
        That really doesn't answer my question
dale_glass 3y ago
Does Gnutella still exist? I don't think I've heard that name in a very long time.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  Justin Frankel's projects never die.
3y ago

jiofj 3y ago

The future has always been DHT, but having no built-in search feature like Kademlia is a huge oversight imo. There are websites that crawl DHT and you can search using them https://btdig.com https://btdig.com but of course it would be better to have something decentralised.

flangola7 3y ago
How do you get the DHT without at least a centralized bootstrap?
- lloeki 3y ago
  query a known (or attempt reaching a previously known) peer
  - cjblomqvist 3y ago
    Isn't that then the centralized authority?
    - lloeki 3y ago
      Well, no: - IPs of peers can be obtained from any source, not necessarily a centralized one. you could argue that this is centralized if you use only one, but there is no central authority and you can move to any other one or use a sizeable list of completely independent sources. - torrent clients can persist previously contacted peers to contact them when starting up again from scratch, attempting connection in hopes that they are still around (which at least some usually are given that clients are usually long-running processes)
devoutsalsa 3y ago
Me: What is DHT? Also Me: Distributed hash table. Me: Thanks. Also Me: You're welcome, but don't be too impressed. I googled it.
- 3y ago

janvdberg 3y ago

Side-note: I will always be in awe of the BitTorrent protocol. A resilient and efficient piece of tech that at its height was responsible for LARGE amounts of internet traffic (facilitated by sites like the TPB) and was (mostly) developed by just one guy: Bram Cohen.

wtf_is_up 3y ago
Another Cohen project worth noting for its novelty is the Chia crypto network [1] which implements Proof of Space-Time. [1]: https://www.chia.net/about/ https://www.chia.net/about/
- automatic6131 3y ago
  "Proof of Space-time" Oooh, what a fancy, high-falutin word for... writing bingo tickets to your SSD. Could more accurately be called "proof of bingo card", and then it doesn't infringe on actually interesting concepts, like relativistic physics. I remember when the new of Chia caused SSD prices to spike around the time I was buying, in the speculative fever for free money. At least it crashed, causing the Chia miners to become irrelevant in the market. Too late for me, sadly, I was stuck paying 400% of current market prices. Fuck Chia, fuck crypto nonsense.
  - seanw444 3y ago
    I've always found it odd that people have such guttural reactions to cryptocurrency. It's a technology. Calm down. It's become like politics now. "Fuck Republicans, fuck conservative nonsense." is what I'd expect to hear, not getting pissed over an algorithm. Kinda brings me comedic relief.
    - IOT_Apprentice 3y ago
      Given the billions of dollars stolen by crypto creators, supposed trusted and secure “by blockchain”. It has become a sector full of scammers, self promotion and fraud. It is Bernie Madoff in digital form.

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

I find the opinions of Peter Sunde in this article quite interesting. Even seven years ago he was saying that torrent sites had stagnated and there was necessity for innovation to protect against the vulnerabilities inherent in having only few large, popular torrent sites. So, this 20th anniversary is somewhat of a bitter pill to swallow for at least one of the founders. https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-piracy-scene-needs-innovation-160726/ https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-piracy-scene-nee...

inversetelecine 3y ago
There won't be a big wave again until something happens to cause one. Innovation is still happening, but it usually takes a big event to really spur things again. Back then it was a combo of Napster going away, filesharing apps typically sucking, and the invention of BitTorrent making access to content really easy. Digital music and movies were new too and ahead of their physical media counterparts. There are many great brains trying, and it will just take one of their ideas to takeoff and become another household name.
dewey 3y ago
> So, this 20th anniversary is somewhat of a bitter pill to swallow for at least one of the founders. I don't see how that would be the case, as nothing what he said is wrong. Torrenting in general is getting less popular for a while now, many private tracker sites are alive but not as active as 10 years ago, especially if it's something which was replaced by legal streaming like music trackers. In my group of "regular people" friends none of them pirates any more and they all just use Netflix and Spotify. It went back to being a nerd thing after being mainstream for a while with Limewire/TPB/Popcorntime etc.
xtracto 3y ago
I sadly agree: Popcorn time and webtorrent was the most recent "improvement" into torrent technology . But for the tech progress available now, we should have the MPAA, RIAA and all other copyright cartels shivering on their knees, with 100% anonymous, distributed data transfers In my youngster time (80s and 90s), there were a lot of ideas and projects: kazaa , ed2k, kad, mute, i2p, freenet, bittorrent among plenty of others. But it seems young kids today are busier o other things (tiktok influencers?) Or they had become highly profit driven.

_mxdo 3y ago

Peak civilization

bigger_inside 3y ago
unironically. The continued existence of the pirate bay and torrents is like the remaining aqueduct from a crumbling civilization, a reminder of what we once could do, before usurpers gobbled it up to squeeze the last cent out of everything

1970-01-01 3y ago

There was an article a long time ago about their oldest active torrent: "An episode of the Swedish comedy show “High Chaparral” has the honor of being the oldest torrent. The file was originally uploaded on March 25, 2004, and although it lists zero seeders in search results, there are still several people actively sharing the torrent." https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-oldest-torrents-survived-15-years-of-turmoil-190519/ https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bays-oldest-torrents-survive...

1970-01-01 3y ago
Sadly, 'kbdcb' is the only remaining seeder. The torrent may soon be lost to history. hxxps://thepiratebay.org/description.php?id=3211594

ghostDancer 3y ago

Almost in talk like a pirate day. It would have been really appropriate.

mlsu 3y ago

I recently listened to the Darknet Diaries episode about the PirateBay: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/92/ https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/92/ Great episode, he interviewed one of the founders. Goes through the whole history of the piratebay and all the times they tried to take it down. Guy seems... interesting. Basically exactly who you might expect would be running that website.

1970-01-01 3y ago

Some interesting history can be seen via their own doodles: https://web.archive.org/web/20110902004820/http://thepiratebay.org/doodles https://web.archive.org/web/20110902004820/http://thepirateb...