The Pirate Bay Shifts Away From Torrents, Replaces Them With DHT

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Famous and very popular media search engine, The Pirate Bay, perpetually in the crosshairs of Big Media to shut it down, is to shift away from torrent files from next month and replace them with Distributed Hash Table (DHT) and Peer Exchange (PEX) technology reports ExtremeTech. They have actually been using these for quite a while now, as this is the technology underlying their Magnet links which have appeared next to the torrent links as an alternative way to download. They have done this, because torrent files are stored centrally on a web server, which makes them vulnerable to aggressive rights holders who want to take them down, while Magnet links are decentralized "trackerless", removing this vulnerability. Also, at the moment, it's impossible for anti-piracy outfits to tell how many files a user is sharing when using Magnet links, or what they are. From next month therefore, only Magnet links will be available. Note that Magnet links are compatible with various anonymizing services, for anonymous downloading, but there can be a significant performance impact on those services. In fact, TPB has been using Magnet links with torrents for some now too, but just did so quietly, without telling anyone.

Popular BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent already use Magnet links as easily as torrent files, so there won't be much difference to the user experience. The main difference, is that they can take a bit longer to get going, but the final download speed isn't any less, due to the cascading exponential pyramid nature of incoming peer connections guaranteed to max out any internet connection, when there are enough peers.

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Thanks to CrAsHnBuRnXp for the news tip.

[johnspack]

Go TPB go! Good idea. Anyone who uses torrents though, even for legal downloads, should use peerblock with the proper lists in place. You have no idea how many little organizations scan and trace you. Our privacy is at serious risk now because of this sopa bs. Even magnet links are still risky.

[_JP_]

Seems like a good idea, but Big Content will still find a way to maneuver laws to counter this. It's a matter of time. Still, by then, more alternatives will be available...as always...

Originally Posted by johnspack

Go TPB go! Good idea. Anyone who uses torrents though, even for legal downloads, should use peerblock with the proper lists in place. You have no idea how many little organizations scan and trace you. Our privacy is at serious risk now because of this sopa bs. Even magnet links are still risky.

Good to know, thanks!

[RejZoR]

I'm using Magnets for ages. More conventient than torrent files anyway.

[James1o1o]

This news is about 3 years old!

[crazyeyesreaper]

actually its not 3 years old

the technology behind it is

but at this point The Pirate Bay has banded together with all major Torrent providers and essentially 1 month from now torrents will cease to exist on there sites

aka this is more about The Pirate Bay leading a charge in which Torrent files bite the dust in favor of magnet links using DHT and PEX which are also more secure and harder for outside influences to track and trace users.

[Undead46]

Originally Posted by johnspack

Go TPB go! Good idea. Anyone who uses torrents though, even for legal downloads, should use peerblock with the proper lists in place. You have no idea how many little organizations scan and trace you. Our privacy is at serious risk now because of this sopa bs. Even magnet links are still risky.

Conspiracy theory much?
One out of a million people get busted and you're scared of the government.

Looks like they won if they've instilled fear into you.

Not a single argument has been presented to why SOPA is illegal or invades privacy. Thinking it's going to stop is funny.

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Originally Posted by crazyeyesreaper

actually its not 3 years old

the technology behind it is

but at this point The Pirate Bay has banded together with all major Torrent providers and essentially 1 month from now torrents will cease to exist on there sites

aka this is more about The Pirate Bay leading a charge in which Torrent files bite the dust in favor of magnet links using DHT and PEX which are also more secure and harder for outside influences to track and trace users.

Exactly, +1.

Nice custom title.

Originally Posted by Undead46

Conspiracy theory much?
One out of a million people get busted and you're scared of the government.

Looks like they won if they've instilled fear into you.

Privacy isn't at risk, go SOPA...

Privacy not at risk with SOPA. Are you serious?

[Kantastic]

Originally Posted by Undead46

Conspiracy theory much?
One out of a million people get busted and you're scared of the government.

Looks like they won if they've instilled fear into you.

Not a single argument has been presented to why SOPA is illegal or invades privacy. Thinking it's going to stop is funny.

Wait until they jail or assassinate you for downloading a file titled "Covert Communication With China" under the assumption that you're a spy. One in a million is a chance I'm not willing to take.

[OnePostWonder]

Since Tor was mentioned, I just want to remind everyone to not use BitTorrent over the Tor network.

Before anyone asks why:

Answer

[trickson]

Sorry but I never really got into all this bit torrent or peer to peer stuff . I have heard bad things about it and never really seen any reason for it . Maybe I am dumb and just don't get it .

[qubit]

Originally Posted by OnePostWonder

Since Tor was mentioned, I just want to remind everyone to not use BitTorrent over the Tor network.

Before anyone asks why:

Answer

Thanks, bookmarked.

It's scary how privacy can be a totall illusion on the internet. How can we be completely sure that there isn't some similar issue with Magnet links?

[AphexDreamer]

Originally Posted by OnePostWonder

Since Tor was mentioned, I just want to remind everyone to not use BitTorrent over the Tor network.

Before anyone asks why:

Answer

A. That is coming from Tor's website so I have to automatically assume it might be twisted in its favor.

B. And even if it isn't, Isn't this what this thread is for? The use of Magnets instead?

[Aleksander]

Magnets are way more faster. I don't know if this one is a news anyway?

[Solaris17]

TPB vs the world has and is the greatest cat and mouse game I have ever watched.

[OnePostWonder]

Originally Posted by AphexDreamer

A. That is coming from Tor's website so I have to automatically assume it might be twisted in its favor.

I actually don't know what you mean by this, as Tor's favor is to be that of the community.

Originally Posted by AphexDreamer

B. And even if it isn't, Isn't this what this thread is for? The use of Magnets instead?

What I intended to stress from the linked article was this:

"The first answer is 'don't run Bittorrent over Tor'. We've been saying for years not to run Bittorrent over Tor, because the Tor network can't handle the load;"

[Bundy]

Originally Posted by OnePostWonder

I actually don't know what you mean by this, as Tor's favor is to be that of the community.



What I intended to stress from the linked article was this:

"The first answer is 'don't run Bittorrent over Tor'. We've been saying for years not to run Bittorrent over Tor, because the Tor network can't handle the load;"

Agreed, using Tor to run torrents is bad Karma. It would be a shame to see Tor go down because it got filled with torrents.

[deleted]

Please remove the reference to Tor. It's already slow to the point of uselessness even without encouraging kiddies to use it to download their MLP episodes.

[cdawall]

Originally Posted by Undead46

Not a single argument has been presented to why SOPA is illegal or invades privacy. Thinking it's going to stop is funny.

You sure about that one? LINK

[LAN_deRf_HA]

Just how effective will this be at stopping tracking?

[Undead46]

Originally Posted by cdawall

You sure about that one? LINK

Do you know privacy is?
How does cutting your ability to access a site give up any privacy at all?

That's no different than the government forcing Social Services to take your children because you're not raising them correctly.
(Analogy: Gov't forces ISPs to cut your access to a site because you're abusing the site)

All it is, is a bunch of bandwagoneers thinking their privacy is getting invaded because a popular video/site says they are, but cannot present a valid argument of how their privacy is actually being invaded, such as a government tapping into your phone lines with unauthorized permission.

[cdawall]

Originally Posted by Undead46

Do you know privacy is?
How does cutting your ability to access a site give up any privacy at all?

That's no different than the government forcing Social Services to take your children because you're not raising them correctly.
(Analogy: Gov't forces ISPs to cut your access to a site because you're abusing the site)

All it is, is a bunch of bandwagoneers thinking their privacy is getting invaded because a popular video/site says they are, but cannot present a valid argument of how their privacy is actually being invaded, such as a government tapping into your phone lines with unauthorized permission.

Nope not a clue, but since you didn't bother to do your own research.

Originally Posted by cnet

What will SOPA require Internet providers to do?
A little-noticed portion of the proposed law, which CNET highlighted in an article, goes further than Protect IP and could require Internet providers to monitor customers' traffic and block Web sites suspected of copyright infringement.

Source

Now as a freedom loving American I find SOPA to invade my privacy in the same way a those illegal phone taps your conspiracy theorizing self pointed out.

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Originally Posted by deleted

Please remove the reference to Tor. It's already slow to the point of uselessness even without encouraging kiddies to use it to download their MLP episodes.

Hey, check out the news article again. I also improved a couple of other areas of the story to make it read a bit better.

[Trackr]

Originally Posted by Undead46

Do you know privacy is?
How does cutting your ability to access a site give up any privacy at all?

That's no different than the government forcing Social Services to take your children because you're not raising them correctly.
(Analogy: Gov't forces ISPs to cut your access to a site because you're abusing the site)

All it is, is a bunch of bandwagoneers thinking their privacy is getting invaded because a popular video/site says they are, but cannot present a valid argument of how their privacy is actually being invaded, such as a government tapping into your phone lines with unauthorized permission.

I also don't give two shits about privacy.

But SOPA is against Freedom.

Social Services takes your kids away because they are separate people who have their own rights which you are infringing upon.

Websites/services cannot be abused and/or what I do on a website is my business and they shouldn't have the right to tell me what to do unless I'm hurting another person.

In this case, the only thing I could be hurting is a large corporation. And if that becomes more important than said corporation hurting me, there's no real freedom left.