Yet Another Reason To Avoid Torrents
Torrent freak, an authority in the popular torrent craze, has published a post entitled, BitTorrent Rip Off Sites, and How to Avoid Them. With the ongoing issues of Comcast forging packets, the RIAA and MPAA ruining people’s lives, this is another reason to avoid public torrent trackers.
Some Torrents Provide False Hope
A large percentage of torrent users have downloaded falsely labeled movies only to end up with a password protected .rar archive. Conveniently, the password is no where in the readme, or the nfo. Instead, users are instructed to visit an affiliate (CPA) site and fill in their email address in order to receive the archive’s password. The password never comes, nor will the enjoyment one might have experienced had they been able to watch the movie.
Out With The Old & In With The New
The new plague haunting torrent sites is pretty nasty and will probably earn the malicious persons way more cash in the end. Here’s an excerpt from TorrentFreak,
“This particular brand notifies people who try to play a video file they’ve just downloaded that they need to download a codec if they want to play the file. The site they are redirected to is of course a scam, most of them are filled with annoying ads.“
Annoying ads aside, the codec that’s required to play the movie is the big earner. Most of these pay per install (PPI) sites pay up to a dollar, if not more, every time an affiliate gets the company’s software installed. Twenty torrent sites at an underestimated download count of twenty downloads per site is $400. To double that, upload 2 torrents to all twenty torrent sites. Not everyone has the same standard of living, obviously, but I could easily manage on $400 a day.
Let’s Take This One Step Further
Not only does the torrent’s unloader earn a dollar for every codec installed, but say they also included a custom written bot to add your network into their collection of botnets. Your network is now operating as a spam relay, a seeder to help spread their garbage torrents even more, an Adsense clickbot to make them even more money, and countless other malicious activities you’re probably unaware of. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; torrents are bad news. And until these malicious pricks learn to respect their fellow humans, gain some integrity, establish some morals, and redefine their ethics, BitTorrent is a protocol I’ll continue to stay away from.
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The title should include the word public. Just as you mentioned, you should avoid public trackers. Private trackers don’t have these issues.
You’re absolutely right; however, with the fall of Oink, what decent alternative is there? Based on what I’ve read, a site comparable to Oink has yet to emerge. Is that still the case?
There are private sites that carry the same quality as Oink. Where do you think all of the Oink users went? There may not be a website that has the vast selection as Oink, but quality in music and seeding hasn’t been a problem for me.
Just learn to download proper ones. Hang around the pirate bay’s forums and you’ll learn a lot. What to avoid, what to look for, users to go to and to avoid. I’ve had no problems at all and I’ve used public trackers like crazy. You guys just suck.
Ha! Thanks for the kind words there soar. The point is, there shouldn’t be a need to “hang around pirate bay’s forums” and see “what to avoid” and “what to look for.” If it’s a group or peer effort, why’s the spreading of these malicious files even being allowed or encouraged in the first place? The protocol is wreckless, and in my opinion is the backbone of the storm bot (either BitTorrent or Textella, one of the two). Either way, your claims are weak, and the truth is, the crap mentioned in this post is going on all the time. You just think you haven’t had any problems, but have you examined your network’s outgoing traffic lately? I’d love to see a snapshot of those logs, haha.
So…because there are people out there who uses torrents as an indirect way of making a dishonest living, you are staying away from the whole protocol? DEAR GOD, I hope you’re not using HTTP, man!
SantaBJ,
That’s not the entire reason, just a contributing factor. Here’s a list of my current reasons for avoiding BitTorrent:
1) Usenet
2) Download speeds are terrible when files are poorly seeded. Why wait a week to a month for Season 3 of House when I can grab it from the Usenet in less than 10 minutes?
3) Constant remote exploit attempts (monitor TCP/UDP Ports: 135,137,138,139,445 when actively downloading/seeding)
4) My ISP specifically watches for this traffic, increasing my chances of going to jail over some movie I probably didn’t want to watch in the first place
5) Can you run MD5 checksums to verify the integrity of what you’ve downloaded?
6) Many clients are vulnerable to remote denial of service attacks due to the way they handle user-supplied data
7) Did I mention usenet?
Yea, I’ve yet to receive any notices from my ISP about what I download since discontinuing my BitTorrent use. That alone is enough reason for me to stay away from this protocol.
1) Pay service. 2) Choose your torrents carefully, and start the downloads when you’re not actually going to watch them. Also, prioritize the episodes so that you can watch them while the rest are being downloaded. And try keeping up with the new shows instead of downloading them later - keyword here is EZTV. 3) PeerGuardian, SafePeer, µTorrent internal blocklist. 4) Statisticians call your odds of being caught “insignificant”. As in, it’s just not going to happen. 5) Happens automatically. Do you even know how BT works? 6) Many computers are vulnerable to remote DoS attacks due to the way they’re CONNETED TO THE INTERNET. 7) You did. And I responded “pay service”.
Ok, you made some valid points. PeerGaurdian is an excellent little program. I’ve even installed it on my Mom’s PC so I don’t have to go over there every other week to fix her spyware problems. Good call on that one.
Anyway, I don’t mind paying $24/mo for 256bit encrypted access to hundreds (if not thousands) of terabytes worth of data. That sure beats the cost of paying for a limited selection at Netflix, or any other rental place, so it more than pays for itself. Torrents are unreliable and the speeds are flaky. Anything I grab from the usenet comes down at 800 kilobytes a second. That’s not some files, but anything I choose to download. No need to “keep up with new shows instead of downloading them later.” How silly is that? If I want to download the old HBO series band of brothers right now, I can, and have the entire DVD set in less than an hour.
Nice try, but usenet > torrents. And statistically, I personally (yes, in real life) know two people that have received the, “It’s been brought to our attention that you were recently downloading Mission.Impossible.III.2006.DVDRip.XviD.AC3.avi which violates MPAA blah blah…” If two people within a ten mile radius of me received these letters, what makes you think I wouldn’t have received one eventually, too?
Statistics again; the number of people who receives those letters vs the number of people downloading using torrents. Those are disappearing odds. And then there is the added level of the number of people persecuted vs the number of people who receives those letters - and those odds are also mathematically insignificant.
Torrents are NOT unreliable. Torrent SOURCES are, if you don’t know how to choose. Do you want (new) TV episodes? Go to eztv.it, it’s your one and only stop unless you want the more rare stuff (in which case you should be on private sites). Music? Waffles.fm or what.cd. Movies? Search for KLAXXON, AXXO or any other most popular groups. Maybe even try using the “most popular DVDrips on bittorrent” features over at torrentfreak. Games? Use Mininova or TPB, use their toplists and CHECK COMMENTS.
Seriously, it’s not hard. And you can easily hide yourself - PG2 is a nice start, but you could use torrents with tunnelling. It’s relatively easy. And, most significantly, it’s free.
Yes, I know, Usenet is fast etc… but it’s a pay service, and it’s inconvenient. Torrents are easily indexed, you have trusted sources, and there’s the whole “sharing” aspect that is quite important imo.
Well said! I used to spend quite a bit of time downloading software and music. I hardly ever do it anymore.
Definitely best to just stay away if you have no idea how the whole system works!