6 ms·

The fact that it's hosting torrents in flat files or in database rows seems like a minor technical difference to me. Apart from that, the same broken UI doesn't

by sysk 12y ago

The fact that it's hosting torrents in flat files or in database rows seems like a minor technical difference to me. Apart from that, the same broken UI doesn't seem to have changed much in the past 8 years. I didn't know that TPB was open source... surprised that the community didn't try to improve the UX a bit.

meesterdude 12y ago
Actually, there is a difference between hosting the files and just linking to them, and is by no means a "minor technical difference". Although to be fair I think it was done not only to increase portability but also to decrease legal targeting, the latter of which seems like it didn't pan out in the end though may have thwarted some legal efforts along the way.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >Actually, there is a difference between hosting the files and just linking to them, and is by no means a "minor technical difference". From the technical side of showing the torrent/magnet links on the TPB page, it's indeed a minor difference.
- icebraining 12y ago
  But a torrent was already just a link to the actual content.
- darsham 12y ago
  I think you misunderstand. They never hosted any content, they only linked to it. What we're saying is that the torrent database was upgraded from plain old filesystem storage of .torrent files to a more efficient/specialized database.
Kequc 12y ago
Sorry. I was mistaken it didn't go open source, the proxybay was literally proxies to the main site and now all of them are down. You can in fact download a copy of every torrent and magnet link, then build your own site that searches through them. Magnet links are just a short string of text so one who does isn't hosting anything as far as I'm concerned. That isn't the law apparently.
- xerophyte12932 12y ago
  > all of them are down If you mean all the 'thepiratebay' domains, I think you are mistaken. This one works for me: https://thepiratebay.cr/ https://thepiratebay.cr/ haven't tried any else yet
  - cdevfr 12y ago
    500 Internal Server Error If the page loads that doesn't mean it works correctly.
    - barsonme 12y ago
      Works for me: http://i.imgur.com/GD3rZuv.png http://i.imgur.com/GD3rZuv.png but it wasn't earlier. Got the same error.
      - mintplant 12y ago
        No, you won't be able to search for anything. That site just proxies your searches to thepiratebay.se, which is down.
        Alupis 12y ago
        It now searches just fine.
      - cdevfr 12y ago
        You are getting some text with a picture, that is not a working site.
    - mekal 12y ago
      i tried searching for "test" just to see and got a pop up that said my computer was infected. the one time i use the pirate bay...anyone else willing to check it out and see if it actually installs malware? i was using chrome.
  - caractacus 12y ago
lelandbatey 12y ago
The thing is that to download a torrent, the absolute minimum amount of information you need is the torrent hash. The torrent hash is on the order of ~40 characters long, requiring no other information. All you have to do is paste that short sting into a torrent client to download a set of files. Are we really going to say that these 40 character strings are illegal to share? If I paste the hash for the latest blockbuster in this comment, can legal action be taken against me?
- sysk 12y ago
  I understand that magnet links might make a difference legally. What I meant is that switching to magnet links instead of torrent files is not what I would consider a big technical achievement (TPB didn't actually invent the magnet URI scheme, they simply adopted it). My main point being that I agree with Peter Sunde, TPB hasn't changed much in 8 years. Here's TPB in 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20061007080151/http://thepiratebay.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20061007080151/http://thepirateb...
- roel_v 12y ago
  It's sad that I have to beat that tired old drum again, but in law, intent matters (yes I have a law degree but I think it's fair to say that one doesn't need one to know that). After 15 years I should have been desensitized by farcically naive 'reasoning' (or I should say, farcically naive sophistry, because let's face it, that's what it is) like 'they don't post torrents, the users do' and 'how can a small string be illegal' but it still annoys me. At the risk of going down the shitty analogy path, let's consider 'How can putting just a tiny bit of lead into somebody's head be illegal? It's only 115 grain! I mean, of course, putting 500 grain into somebody would be illegal, but if I put only 115 grain of lead into somebody, can legal action be taken against me?' Really?
  - mc808 12y ago
    That's a terrible analogy. Try: "Yes, making meth is illegal. Yes, selling meth-lab kits is illegal. Okay, maybe publishing instructions for building a meth lab is illegal. Wait, linking to someone else's instructions is illegal? And now you're telling me that sharing a short hash that validates someone else's link to someone else's instructions is also illegal?" (Is it even illegal in the meth lab scenario?)
jimmaswell 12y ago
Broken UI? Really? The posters here are so peciliar about UI sometimes. It's bewildering. Nothing was wrong with TPB's UI. It did exactly what it was meant to cleanly and in an easy to use way. Nothing was difficult or unintuitive about it. Did it not look starkly minimalist enough? Did it not use enough css3? Did it use a table and that just ruined the whole thing? Not enough fancy javascript transitions?
- Cooro 12y ago
  The search results where garbage if you didn't know that you had to click "SE" to sort by number of seeders.
  - sysk 12y ago
    Yes, among other things: - You often had to scan through the comments for a clickable IMDB link. - Movie meta data was manually entered by uploaders who didn't really bother with it most of the time. - Titles contained a bunch of metadata which shouldn't have been part of the title (e.g. encoding, source, quality, uploader name, etc.). - There was sometimes an extra comment page that was empty. - No moderation whatsoever in the comments. Impossible to find the interesting/useful comments without reading all of them one by one. - A bunch of annoying ads (one of the download buttons was an ad if I recall correctly). There's a recurring meme on HN that all UIs are automatically good if they are old/non-trendy.
    - jimmaswell 12y ago
      The only meme is that old UIs are the /bad/ ones. Those points are all very minor. A major problem would be having an inoperable half-assed mobile version that you were redirected to on mobile.

by sysk 12y ago

meesterdude 12y ago

Actually, there is a difference between hosting the files and just linking to them, and is by no means a "minor technical difference". Although to be fair I think it was done not only to increase portability but also to decrease legal targeting, the latter of which seems like it didn't pan out in the end though may have thwarted some legal efforts along the way.

coldtea 12y ago
>Actually, there is a difference between hosting the files and just linking to them, and is by no means a "minor technical difference". From the technical side of showing the torrent/magnet links on the TPB page, it's indeed a minor difference.
icebraining 12y ago
But a torrent was already just a link to the actual content.
darsham 12y ago
I think you misunderstand. They never hosted any content, they only linked to it. What we're saying is that the torrent database was upgraded from plain old filesystem storage of .torrent files to a more efficient/specialized database.

Kequc 12y ago

Sorry. I was mistaken it didn't go open source, the proxybay was literally proxies to the main site and now all of them are down. You can in fact download a copy of every torrent and magnet link, then build your own site that searches through them. Magnet links are just a short string of text so one who does isn't hosting anything as far as I'm concerned. That isn't the law apparently.

xerophyte12932 12y ago
> all of them are down If you mean all the 'thepiratebay' domains, I think you are mistaken. This one works for me: https://thepiratebay.cr/ https://thepiratebay.cr/ haven't tried any else yet
- cdevfr 12y ago
  500 Internal Server Error If the page loads that doesn't mean it works correctly.
  - barsonme 12y ago
    Works for me: http://i.imgur.com/GD3rZuv.png http://i.imgur.com/GD3rZuv.png but it wasn't earlier. Got the same error.
    - mintplant 12y ago
      No, you won't be able to search for anything. That site just proxies your searches to thepiratebay.se, which is down.
      - Alupis 12y ago
        It now searches just fine.
    - cdevfr 12y ago
      You are getting some text with a picture, that is not a working site.
  - mekal 12y ago
    i tried searching for "test" just to see and got a pop up that said my computer was infected. the one time i use the pirate bay...anyone else willing to check it out and see if it actually installs malware? i was using chrome.
- caractacus 12y ago

lelandbatey 12y ago

The thing is that to download a torrent, the absolute minimum amount of information you need is the torrent hash. The torrent hash is on the order of ~40 characters long, requiring no other information. All you have to do is paste that short sting into a torrent client to download a set of files. Are we really going to say that these 40 character strings are illegal to share? If I paste the hash for the latest blockbuster in this comment, can legal action be taken against me?

sysk 12y ago
I understand that magnet links might make a difference legally. What I meant is that switching to magnet links instead of torrent files is not what I would consider a big technical achievement (TPB didn't actually invent the magnet URI scheme, they simply adopted it). My main point being that I agree with Peter Sunde, TPB hasn't changed much in 8 years. Here's TPB in 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20061007080151/http://thepiratebay.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20061007080151/http://thepirateb...
roel_v 12y ago
It's sad that I have to beat that tired old drum again, but in law, intent matters (yes I have a law degree but I think it's fair to say that one doesn't need one to know that). After 15 years I should have been desensitized by farcically naive 'reasoning' (or I should say, farcically naive sophistry, because let's face it, that's what it is) like 'they don't post torrents, the users do' and 'how can a small string be illegal' but it still annoys me. At the risk of going down the shitty analogy path, let's consider 'How can putting just a tiny bit of lead into somebody's head be illegal? It's only 115 grain! I mean, of course, putting 500 grain into somebody would be illegal, but if I put only 115 grain of lead into somebody, can legal action be taken against me?' Really?
- mc808 12y ago
  That's a terrible analogy. Try: "Yes, making meth is illegal. Yes, selling meth-lab kits is illegal. Okay, maybe publishing instructions for building a meth lab is illegal. Wait, linking to someone else's instructions is illegal? And now you're telling me that sharing a short hash that validates someone else's link to someone else's instructions is also illegal?" (Is it even illegal in the meth lab scenario?)

jimmaswell 12y ago

Broken UI? Really? The posters here are so peciliar about UI sometimes. It's bewildering. Nothing was wrong with TPB's UI. It did exactly what it was meant to cleanly and in an easy to use way. Nothing was difficult or unintuitive about it. Did it not look starkly minimalist enough? Did it not use enough css3? Did it use a table and that just ruined the whole thing? Not enough fancy javascript transitions?

Cooro 12y ago
The search results where garbage if you didn't know that you had to click "SE" to sort by number of seeders.
- sysk 12y ago
  Yes, among other things: - You often had to scan through the comments for a clickable IMDB link. - Movie meta data was manually entered by uploaders who didn't really bother with it most of the time. - Titles contained a bunch of metadata which shouldn't have been part of the title (e.g. encoding, source, quality, uploader name, etc.). - There was sometimes an extra comment page that was empty. - No moderation whatsoever in the comments. Impossible to find the interesting/useful comments without reading all of them one by one. - A bunch of annoying ads (one of the download buttons was an ad if I recall correctly). There's a recurring meme on HN that all UIs are automatically good if they are old/non-trendy.
  - jimmaswell 12y ago
    The only meme is that old UIs are the /bad/ ones. Those points are all very minor. A major problem would be having an inoperable half-assed mobile version that you were redirected to on mobile.