6 ms·

The World’s Oldest Active Torrent Turns 20 Years Old

169 points by gslin 3y ago

cryo 3y ago
Reminds me everytime how awesome Torrents are. I don't always run this one but have multiple backups of the .torrent and the video just in case.
pixxel 3y ago
> Twenty years ago, a group of friends shot a Matrix fan film on a limited budget. Sharing their creation with the rest of the word initially appeared to be too expensive, but then they discovered a new technology called BitTorrent. Fast forward two decades and their “Fanimatrix" release is the oldest active torrent that's still widely shared today.
ConnectionsSE 3y ago
Many of the people involved in The Fanimatrix were part of the Auckland goth scene. The scene itself had many people from the NZ infosec community. One of the cast members is Morgan Marquis-Boire (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15734840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15734840).
slyall 3y ago
Previously: World’s Oldest Surviving Torrent Still Alive After 15 Years - 203 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102578 The World’s Oldest Active Torrent Turns 18 Soon - 98 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500239 World’s Oldest Torrent Is Still Being Shared After 4,419 Days - 107 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10962253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10962253
Klaster_1 3y ago
Just went and checked, the oldest torrents I am seeding are from February 2008, barely half a year after I got unlimited internet connection. Back then, my parents could only afford a 128kbit unmetered connection, so I naturally gravitated to hang out at the ISP-local FTP server and BitTorrent tracker, colloquially known as Fillet, maintained by ISP employees. Thanks to the user base of tens or even hundreds of thousands, for several years until the internet connection speeds caught up, I participated in a very vibrant community, which played a huge role on who I am today. Some of the people from that era I am still in contact with, all thanks to BitTorrent. I am glad it still exists.
contrarian1234 3y ago
How can you write a whole article about it and not provide a link..?
- robjan 3y ago
  If you're interested https://www.thefanimatrix.net/The-Fanimatrix-(DivX-5.1-HQ).avi.torrent https://www.thefanimatrix.net/The-Fanimatrix-(DivX-5.1-HQ).a...
CamelCaseName 3y ago
Awesome fan made film, worthy of being the oldest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQBk4br0hQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQBk4br0hQ
Devasta 3y ago
Excellent. By not teaching the younger generations about torrenting, we have failed them. Hopefully we can return to them being as active as they were in times past.
- rjh29 3y ago
  They're still very much alive! The main change has been the glut of free file hosting and cloud drives which negate the need for torrents.
- uobytx2 3y ago
  Yeah, but there are so many reasons not to torrent. Cable upload speeds still suck because of a combo of technical limitations and very slow investment in new equipment, and not enough people have fiber yet. Worse, many are getting deeper into the CG NAT on IPv4 with possibly no ipv6 available. Combined with households having more people and devices needing the internet from the same router than ever before, makes it less likely someone is just going to figure out how to forward a port. Sure, there are some workarounds, but the real failure here is in not moving to ipv6 and fiber fast enough to support any p2p tech. There’s basically zero generations that ever had p2p ready internet.
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    Good point re: investment not being made for p2p tech, maybe consumers never demanded it, or it could be that the ISPs are also the broadcasters who want to protect their copyrights (thinking about it, it's not clear this had to be the case, the phone lines were made for symmetric communication but dial-up was subsumed by cable providers - we got higher speeds but only because it was in the broadcasters' interest to sell us media packages, they were never going to help us send files to each other)
  - myself248 3y ago
    Worse, a lot of ISPs have implemented transfer caps that disincentivize seeding. I dropped my residential-class service and switched to business-class which has no caps, but that's probably not an option for everyone.
doublerabbit 3y ago
> YouTube, Facebook, and Gmail had yet to be invented. How I miss those days. Coming home from school and booting up my WinXP rig which had one dvd drive and one cd-rw drive. Getting a new AGP card for christmas and it actually having performance benefits. Requiring an Creative Sound-Blaster sound card Now I just own a small ITX cube on my desk without any optical drives and two SSD's. How times have changed.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
techload 3y ago
I created one torrent in 09-11-2004 and uploaded it to TPB. It is still alive with seeders.
26fingies 3y ago
My first thought when I saw this was that it would be some matrix rip. Turns out I wasnt far off lol.
38 3y ago
these days I just download media from the site directly. I wrote my first Widevine implementation last year, and its pretty impressive what you can get with just an L3 CDM. I currently can download from AMC+, Paramount+ and Roku, but am looking to add more. the best part, I know I am getting the original media, and no more issues with my ISP.
TrackerFF 3y ago
20 years ago we downloaded Matrix Reloaded off a public tracker, the rip was around 700 mb large, and with our bottom of the barrel 300/300 kbps broadband line - it took roughly 6 hours to complete the download, and for us to find out that the rip was (hard) dubbed in Russian. The good old kind of dubbing where you had one or two (very monotone) voices doing all the dialogue. Going to college and getting access to 100/100 Gbps was life-changing as far.

169 points by gslin 3y ago

cryo 3y ago

Reminds me everytime how awesome Torrents are. I don't always run this one but have multiple backups of the .torrent and the video just in case.

pixxel 3y ago

> Twenty years ago, a group of friends shot a Matrix fan film on a limited budget. Sharing their creation with the rest of the word initially appeared to be too expensive, but then they discovered a new technology called BitTorrent. Fast forward two decades and their “Fanimatrix" release is the oldest active torrent that's still widely shared today.

ConnectionsSE 3y ago

Many of the people involved in The Fanimatrix were part of the Auckland goth scene. The scene itself had many people from the NZ infosec community. One of the cast members is Morgan Marquis-Boire (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15734840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15734840).

slyall 3y ago

Previously: World’s Oldest Surviving Torrent Still Alive After 15 Years - 203 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102578 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18102578 The World’s Oldest Active Torrent Turns 18 Soon - 98 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500239 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500239 World’s Oldest Torrent Is Still Being Shared After 4,419 Days - 107 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10962253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10962253

Klaster_1 3y ago

Just went and checked, the oldest torrents I am seeding are from February 2008, barely half a year after I got unlimited internet connection. Back then, my parents could only afford a 128kbit unmetered connection, so I naturally gravitated to hang out at the ISP-local FTP server and BitTorrent tracker, colloquially known as Fillet, maintained by ISP employees. Thanks to the user base of tens or even hundreds of thousands, for several years until the internet connection speeds caught up, I participated in a very vibrant community, which played a huge role on who I am today. Some of the people from that era I am still in contact with, all thanks to BitTorrent. I am glad it still exists.

contrarian1234 3y ago

How can you write a whole article about it and not provide a link..?

robjan 3y ago
If you're interested https://www.thefanimatrix.net/The-Fanimatrix-(DivX-5.1-HQ).avi.torrent https://www.thefanimatrix.net/The-Fanimatrix-(DivX-5.1-HQ).a...

CamelCaseName 3y ago

Awesome fan made film, worthy of being the oldest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQBk4br0hQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQBk4br0hQ

Devasta 3y ago

Excellent. By not teaching the younger generations about torrenting, we have failed them. Hopefully we can return to them being as active as they were in times past.

rjh29 3y ago
They're still very much alive! The main change has been the glut of free file hosting and cloud drives which negate the need for torrents.
uobytx2 3y ago
Yeah, but there are so many reasons not to torrent. Cable upload speeds still suck because of a combo of technical limitations and very slow investment in new equipment, and not enough people have fiber yet. Worse, many are getting deeper into the CG NAT on IPv4 with possibly no ipv6 available. Combined with households having more people and devices needing the internet from the same router than ever before, makes it less likely someone is just going to figure out how to forward a port. Sure, there are some workarounds, but the real failure here is in not moving to ipv6 and fiber fast enough to support any p2p tech. There’s basically zero generations that ever had p2p ready internet.
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  Good point re: investment not being made for p2p tech, maybe consumers never demanded it, or it could be that the ISPs are also the broadcasters who want to protect their copyrights (thinking about it, it's not clear this had to be the case, the phone lines were made for symmetric communication but dial-up was subsumed by cable providers - we got higher speeds but only because it was in the broadcasters' interest to sell us media packages, they were never going to help us send files to each other)
- myself248 3y ago
  Worse, a lot of ISPs have implemented transfer caps that disincentivize seeding. I dropped my residential-class service and switched to business-class which has no caps, but that's probably not an option for everyone.

doublerabbit 3y ago

> YouTube, Facebook, and Gmail had yet to be invented. How I miss those days. Coming home from school and booting up my WinXP rig which had one dvd drive and one cd-rw drive. Getting a new AGP card for christmas and it actually having performance benefits. Requiring an Creative Sound-Blaster sound card Now I just own a small ITX cube on my desk without any optical drives and two SSD's. How times have changed.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

techload 3y ago

I created one torrent in 09-11-2004 and uploaded it to TPB. It is still alive with seeders.

26fingies 3y ago

My first thought when I saw this was that it would be some matrix rip. Turns out I wasnt far off lol.

38 3y ago

these days I just download media from the site directly. I wrote my first Widevine implementation last year, and its pretty impressive what you can get with just an L3 CDM. I currently can download from AMC+, Paramount+ and Roku, but am looking to add more. the best part, I know I am getting the original media, and no more issues with my ISP.

TrackerFF 3y ago

20 years ago we downloaded Matrix Reloaded off a public tracker, the rip was around 700 mb large, and with our bottom of the barrel 300/300 kbps broadband line - it took roughly 6 hours to complete the download, and for us to find out that the rip was (hard) dubbed in Russian. The good old kind of dubbing where you had one or two (very monotone) voices doing all the dialogue. Going to college and getting access to 100/100 Gbps was life-changing as far.